The Ongoing Journey Towards Belize's Culinary Independence & Identity

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The Ongoing Journey to Belize's Culinary Independence & Identity

By LYRA SPANG, PhD Owner, anthropologist and tour guide Taste Belize Tours tastebelize@gmail.com

"Our first Prime Minister George Price famously encouraged us to develop our national culinary independence by eating local, telling Belizeans to eat less imported wheat flour and more local foods [...] This speech was rejected outright by most Belizeans who had been told for generations that imported products were superior to Belizean ones." - Lyra Spang

Many visitors to Belize are not sure what Belizean cuisine is all about. The truth is we Belizeans are still figuring that out ourselves. Guide books often point to rice and beans, stew chicken and potato salad with fried plantain as our unofficial national dish. Once the Belizean Creole Sunday dinner, this plate of food, while delicious, fails to capture the great cultural and culinary diversity of Belize which is just emerging from 400 years of colonial marginalization. On September 21st we celebrate 37 years of independence from Great Britain.

British influence began in 1638 and British colonialism in our area was based not on farming, as was the case in some Caribbean countries, but on forestry. The British colonial government did not want Belizeans to farm because they needed labor to cut down mahogany and other tropical hardwoods for export to England, Europe and the United States of America. They also discouraged farming until 1862 because before that date the area now known as Belize was part of New Spain and under Spanish ownership. British presence was allowed under a series of treaties that did not allow for the establishment of agriculture, permanent government or housing. Spain required the British to keep their presence limited to logging camps, fed chiefly by goods from ships. The local economy was flooded with cheap imported products from British farms. Barrels of British flour and British salt meat became daily staples, joined after 1880 by tins of canned meat and dairy.

After slavery was abolished, (over a five-year transition period beginning in 1834), laws were passed that made it difficult for the average Belizean to acquire land. This further discouraged farming and ensured continued dependency on imported goods. Farming that did occur was mainly of a subsistence nature, with small scale local trade of any crop surplus. The British colonial government generally ignored medium and large scale agricultural production and distribution until the mahogany market began to falter. Goods from the United States of America joined British imports in the 1800s, with red kidney beans from New Orleans being used as ballast on ships to Belize Town (now Belize City). These beans were sold at such a low price that they outcompeted locally grown black beans, while the now empty boats were filled with mahogany headed for the American market. The culinary history of our country was skewed by colonial policy towards these imported staples.

Today this past is behind us, but we are still emerging from centuries of dependency fostered by the colonial enterprise. Our first Prime Minister George Price famously encouraged us to develop our national culinary independence by eating local, telling Belizeans to eat less imported wheat flour and more local foods like corn, pupsi and crana (both freshwater fish). This speech was rejected outright by most Belizeans who had been told for generations that imported products were superior to Belizean ones. Local foods were associated with poverty, while a family who could afford to eat all imported foods gained prestige. This colonial hangover has hampered our transition to Belizean ingredients but things have changed a lot since our independence from Britain in 1981. In tourism areas like Placencia Peninsula we still see a tendency to bring in foreign ingredients and dishes, but here and across Belize there are also chefs and restaurant owners who are committed to learning about and sharing the full breadth and depth of our cultural cuisines with their customers. Today we are in an exciting time as Belizean chefs and amateur cooks of all cultural backgrounds learn more about each other’s cultural foods, share dishes and ingredients and join the ranks of professional chefs, crafting new dishes with Belizean ingredients and flavor profiles. We have the interest and the ingredients to create a national Belizean cuisine that reflects our country’s splendid diversity.

This September, it’s not just about carnival and waving the flag. I for one will be looking forward to Belizean cooks and chefs getting creative in the kitchen. Let’s put our national pride on our plates with a Belizean cuisine that truly represents our unofficial motto “Alla we da one” (All of us are one). ▪

Lyra Spang is owner/guide of Taste Belize Tours, a unique cultural & culinary tour company. She writes about food whenever she can. We congratulate her on her upcoming book, "Bite Yu Finger," being published by the University of the West Indies Press. Way to go, Lyra!!!