New book launched “How to Cook a Tapir”

“How to Cook a Tapir”; it’s not a recipe but a book that tells the story of a young wife who in 1962 traveled to southern Belize—then British Honduras—on her honeymoon, lived among the Mayans and had the learning experience of a lifetime. The author, Joan Fry, speaks of the difficulties she faced adapting to the Mayan way of life, and working as a teacher while her husband studied anthropology. But Fry’s biggest challenge was not the change of scenery; it was learning to cook. With cooking now a passion of Fry’s forty-seven years later, she has incorporated several recipes from the Mayan culture into her book, which was launched today at the Museum of Belize. We met Fry and asked her about the book and the story behind the title.

Joan Fry, Author, How to Cook a Tapir
“So the book is really about—we call it a coming of age story. I turned into a woman in this village; I learned how to cook, I learned how to get along with my neighbors, I had to make decisions on my own and I grew up. It was a fantastic adventure.”

Delahnie Bain
“What prompted you to put this, your story onto paper?”

Joan Fry
“Because I couldn’t come to grips with it for a while. I would talk about it and I tried to write about; I am a writer by profession. My first attempt to write a book about it was turned down by an agent and then I tried to fictionalize it and write it as a novel and another agent turned that one down. So I finally have an agent and she’s also a cook, a foodie as we say in the states, so she and I started swapping recipes and I said let me tell you this story of the time I was in Punta Gorda and I was so accustomed to cooking rice over an open fire that when I got the chance to cook rice on a stove I blew it and there was boiled rice all over the stove, all over the floor. She asked me questions about it and she said why don’t you write it in the form of a cook book. She said I think you can sell it that way so that’s what I did. The Museum was kind enough to sponsor me to give a talk here, a reading here under the auspices of NICH.”

Fry’s writings include articles on history, horses, cooking and even William Shatner.