SOME OF MY FAVORITE BELIZEAN DISHES

SOME OF MY FAVORITE BELIZEAN DISHES 

I love Belizean food!!! I always feel like we are so lucky to have such an eclectic range of foods to serve up in my country.  My mother was a great cook and she loved to prepare different dishes for her family.

GARNACHES (LATIN ROOTS)

Garnaches is simply a fried corn tortilla with refried beans (usually kidney beans), onion sauce, grated cheese, and the garnish on top may vary based on the taste buds for hot, medium or mild cuisine.  This is something that we had very often and many  restaurants carried them since they were such a favorite with everyone.  

PANADES - (LATIN ROOT)

(Courtesy of Little Belize Restaurant in Inglewood, CA)

Panades is a variation of the infamous empanadas that all Latin countries throughout Central America and South America make with their own traditional twist.  In Belize, panades are made from fresh corn flour mashed and stuffed with either fish or refried beans then folded over and fried.  Again this is another favorite food that almost everyone from Belize love.  Mama established a little food business and she made panades, garnaches and Belizean tamales for sale after we had all grown up and left home. 

CRAB STEW  (CREOLE ROOTS)

HUDUT (GARIFUNA ROOTS)

Hudut is a simple meal to prepare, consisting of generally fish cooked in two variation of sauces.  The white sauce pictured above is basically a coconut milk base seasoned deliciously to taste with an habanero pepper cooked in the sauce for that special flavor.  Of course the pepper is not broken in the sauce and it is only cooked for a short time to ensure that the food won't be too hot to eat.  The other sauce is a red sauce, which is not pictured here.  This sauce is eaten with fufu made from green and partially ripe plantain beaten into a sticky starch using the mortar. (Pictured below)

My Father Preparing Plantain Fufu for Hudut Meal in 2010

TAMALES (LATIN ROOT)

DUKUNU - (MAYAN ROOT)

DUCUNU SERVED UP WITH STEWED CHICKEN

BELIZE CONCH STEW (CREOLE ROOT)

(Courtesy http://mybeautifulbelize.com/)

CONCH FRITTERS

Mangrove Roots Chronicles

Mangrove Roots Chronicles is book completed in two volumes, based on the life of an African American girl born in Belize, British Honduras in the middle of the baby boom era.  This  book delivers a brief history of this colorful country from pre to post colonialism, in a poignant discourse touching  the different people of that region.  This history is intermingled in a touching story which the chronicles the way of life in Belize from 1955 through 1978, through the eyes of a young girl.

Mangrove Roots Chronicles is a book written to bring joy and laughter, nostalgia and tears, to the readers as it takes them into the life a baby-boomer girl born in Belize.  The name Mangrove Roots Chronicles was derived from the knowledge that mangrove trees are a main source of food and protection for many marine birds and animals.  One of its primary use is as a nursery for young organisms to be nurtured and protected from predators until they are large enough to fend for themselves, when they leave the habitat and the cycle continues.  As a young girl, the author spent a lot of solitary time meditating in a small mangrove forest across the bay on a peninsula in the ghettos of Belize.  Hence, the name Mangrove Roots Chronicles.

Mangrove Roots Chronicles is a book written to bring joy and laughter, nostalgia and tears, to the readers as it takes them into the life a baby-boomer girl born in Belize.  The name Mangrove Roots Chronicles was derived from the knowledge that mangrove trees are a main source of food and protection for many marine birds and animals.  One of its primary use is as a nursery for young organisms to be nurtured and protected from predators until they are large enough to fend for themselves, when they leave the habitat and the cycle continues.  As a young girl, the author spent a lot of solitary time meditating in a small mangrove forest across the bay on a peninsula in the ghettos of Belize.  Hence, the name Mangrove Roots Chronicles.