Some real old time fire hearth cooking in Willows Bank

Natalie Palacio

This Saturday, Willows Bank will come alive once again for its third annual Fire-Hearth Festival. And the name speaks for itself…the celebration features a fire hearth cook-off where a representative from the eight surrounding communities will compete for the bragging rights as best Fire-hearth chef. But there will be lots more to eat and drink as well as fun games and activities; a fulfilled family event. Today News Five spoke with vice-chair of the village, Natalie Palacio.

Natalie Palacio, Vice-Chairperson, Willow’s Bank

“This cooking competition is a competition on the technique of cooking on the fire heart. For this year we have a theme of corn. So the cooking competition itself is a ducunu dinner that they will have to cook which is basically ducunu with any meat of their choice along with a side dish so it can be coleslaw, potato salad or fresh veg. and they have to cook a dessert with corn as the theme.”

Jose Sanchez

“I know this has to do with the history of Willows Bank. Tell me about that.”

Natalie Palacio

“We just thought that the technique of cooking on the fire heart was a dying tradition that we wanted to revive and that’s why we thought about bringing up the whole thing about the fire heart cooking competition and the festival. Other activities include the greasy pole, coconut husking competitions as well as a bicycle race, slow bicycle race, watermelon eating contest, beer drinking contest and I can’t forget the two for five dollars kubuli special.”

A bus to Willows Bank leaves the Pound Yard area of Belize City on Saturday at ten a.m. and returns at six p.m.