What’s on the Menu This Kulcha Tuesday? Cultural Food
Belize’s potpourri of ethnicities brought with them, along with their customs and traditions, their favourite dishes to these shores and those recipes have helped to make Belize the unique and popular tourism spot that it is on this side of the world. We went exploring in the kitchens of a couple dinettes to see what was cooking today. Not surprisingly, cultural foods topped the menus. News Five’s Marion Ali brings you the images of these mouth-watering dishes in this report.
Marion Ali, Reporting
It’s past lunch time at Nerie’s Restaurant on Queen Street, but if what’s left in these pots in their kitchen gives any clue, their customers who passed through today must have had quite an appetite. For Nerie’s, soups are the order of the day – literally, and cow foot tops that menu.
Neria Pickwoad
Neria Pickwoad, Owner, Nerie’s Restaurant
“As we open this restaurant, that da the first menu we start – cow foot soup, the stew cow foot. The people ask for it. Dehn want wa soup, dehn come right ya da Nerie’s, you know, “I want wa cow foot soup, I want wa conch soup, I want wa escabeche or wa chirmole.”
Marion Ali
“How about crab soup?”
Neria Pickwoad
“We do crab soup too when it’s the season.”
Over on Coney Drive, Hailey’s – a much smaller food joint – also whips up a food storm each day. Claudette Thurton told us that she also finds that including the cultural dishes makes her customers happy. And leading up to Garifuna Settlement Day, she will add the good old, honest-to-goodness Hudut to her menu.
Claudette Thurton
Claudette Thurton, Owner, Hailey’s Restaurant
“Since the nineteenth is coming up I will be having Hudut for sale and our regular dish is our regular rice and beans, stew beans, split peas. Conch soup is in season so you could also get your conch soup with natural coconut milk white rice and we have vegetables, Boil-up, Serre, ground food. Whatever you’re looking for, stop at Hailey’s.”
Neria Pickwoad and Claudette Thurton say that the typical Creole rice and beans dish is also a must at their restaurants. In fact, that’s a staple at perhaps at all other Belizean restaurants. There’s not a day that they would be forgiven if there isn’t any.
Claudette Thurton
“People use to dehn rice and beans. That da one ah the dishes deh weh sell a lot, especially da traditional Belizean rice and beans with stew chicken. I usually have oxtail as well, so they could get the oxtail, they could get the deer meat as well.”
Neria Pickwoad
“We have rice and beans every day. We have stew beans and white rice everyday with different kinda meat. We have chicken, beef, pork, curry chicken, curry lamb.”
Marion Ali
“And then yoh have the not-so-cultural dishes – maybe wa fried chicken. Do you sell those?”
Neria Pickwoad
“We have fried chicken to. We sell fried chicken. We sell the conch fritters when ih eena season we do push the conch fritters to.”
But if your taste buds call for the alternative traditions, you might get lucky to meet Miss Debs burger bus in the Westrac parking lot on Chetumal Street. She specializes in a variety of burgers made with your favourite dressings. But if you are craving for that fried chicken, the Just Roll food bus on Coney Drive can make you a delectable serving of chicken wings in barbecue sauce with wedges or chicken breast wrapped in a spinach tortilla. These places are but a sample of the many more that offer tasty Belizean dishes. Whichever you decide to fill your appetite, bon appétit. Marion Ali for News Five.
