Preparing Traditional Creole Dishes on Your Kolcha Tuesday
A dish that is easily identifiable as Belizean is rice and beans. It is, by far, still the most popular local cuisine, and it is what’s cooking in most households throughout the year. It is also what’s on most menus every day of the week, including at Thelma’s Kitchen on Caesar Ridge Road. In fact, Thelma Arana decided ten years ago, when she opened her restaurant, that because Creole dishes are staple in Belize, those would be the only types of food she would offer on her menu. But what makes the Creole dishes so iconic? News Five’s Marion Ali went to Thelma’s Kitchen and found out. Here’s that report in this week’s edition of Kolcha Tuesday’s Creole food.
Thelma Arana
Thelma Arana, Owner, Thelma’s Kitchen
“Coconut. Everything for me is coconut. I use grated coconut. I grate the coconut every day to prepare my food, to make it have a little taste, right, so, you have to use coconut a lot.”
Marion Ali, Reporting
Thelma Arana cooks one of Belize City’s favourite: split peas and pigtail – a classic Creole dish when it’s served with white rice and your choice of fried plantain and coleslaw. She vows that a lot of that good flavour in her rice and beans is because of that old-time, Creole tradition of using coconut milk, fresh from the nut itself, than from other convenient options.
Thelma Arana
“I love mih coconut and mih raw coconut, right, no imitation. I grate six coconut for ten pounds of rice, you wash your rice, you strain the coconut milk, you put in your rice, and it’s good to go.”
Without giving away her secret, Thelma shares that coconut milk also makes it in her pot of beans. But if you didn’t know, Thelma said that the type of water you use to prepare your red kidney beans matters.
Thelma Arana
“The pipe water, you make it trashy. Then you use the purified water, smooth. And the pigtail, I boil mih pigtail like twice, sometimes three times, before putting the pigtail in the beans. And then you season up your beans, you put in your coconut milk in your beans, and you’re good to go.”
And of course, what would a Creole kitchen be if it does not cook split beans and pigtail?
Thelma Arana
“You do the same thing with the split peas but you say seasoning split peas, you put a little coconut milk in deh you put the seasoning, and yoh arite.”
A Creole Sunday staple is rice and beans, stewed chicken, fried plantain and potato salad. But the Creole culture also boasts a variety of other meats and we found those options today at Thelma’s.
Thelma Arana
“We season stewed chicken from a day ahead I do that. And the beef, I do the same thing with the pork and the turkey neck, wing and neck. The fish, I do that every day, fresh. You season it fresh before you fry it.”
Marion Ali
“Your menu is mostly Creole type food?”
Thelma Arana
“Yes, ma’am. We live in a Creole country. Everybody eat, everybody eat rice and beans or stew beans. That’s what people look forward to eat.”
And which type of these Creole dishes is the most popular, at least among Thelma’s customers?
Thelma Arana
“The peas are the one who sell most. Everybody loves the peas, with the pigtail.”
But Thelma’s Kitchen, like the Creole culture itself, has to struggle to regain its momentum. A combination of inflation and damages caused by Hurricane Lisa in November of 2022 could force this Creole kitchen to close its doors, if Thelma does not get help.
Thelma Arana
“I lost while, and that the household stuff and things like that. So it take a while, almost long while before I get back. I know I’m not really back yet, but I’ll try. I’m going to buy little things and get my stuff together. I need a little help, I get a little bit from the mayor. Thanks to the mayor, he give me a little supplies, nobody else. I really need for help and maybe help me fix the roof, the ceiling in the restaurant because it don’t look too nice. I can’t cook a lot of things right now because it’s very expensive, costly. And then for me to raise the price of my stuff, then the people will not buy it. Everything too expensive. I nuh di see no headway.”
For the people who do count on Thelma’s Kitchen for their Creole dishes for lunch, they show up religiously as early as eleven a.m. and she has everything cooked fresh to sell and turnover for another day. Marion Ali for News Five.
