The food of Belize

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These notes were made during a short trip to Belize in 2005. These are just our food experiences and you may have a totally different experience depending on your budget, where you travel and where you eat.

The food of Belize is very different from the rest of Central America. Belize food culture has had been influenced by many sources, including the English colonial, the West Indian Caribbean and the Central American - resulting in a unique and very interesting blend.

Notes from March 2005

• This is barbecue country - chicken is mainly on the BBQ, but fish can often be found too. Seafood is plentiful as Belize is on the coast and has plenty of islands where fishing is a major industry.

• Marie Sharp Habanero Pepper Sauce

  Rice and beans - this basic dish of Central America is back in fashion, though the beans and rice are often served separately, not in a mix as in Costa Rica for example.

• Conch - a type of seafood, which tastes and looks like squid but is flatter and more tender. It is found in the ocean in a huge conch shell.

• Caribbean food - a great influence from across the Caribbean sea, resulting in many stew type dishes with Creole flavours.

• Cevechi - with all the seafood around this dish was on every menu. It is a cold dish made of small pieces of fish, or conch, mixed with lime juice, tomato, capsicum, and onion, served with corn chips.

• Marie Sharp Habanero Pepper Sauce - a local famous chili sauce made form the very potent Habanero Chili plant. The sauce is found in every restaurant and shop in Belize. It comes in mild, hot and fiery hot! Of course we had to buy some to bring home as most tourists do.

• Rum - There is loads of local varieties of rum, which are cheap, and often drunk mixed with fruit juice as a punch.

• Drinking Rum

  Cashew wine - A wine brewed from cashews, a very strong, syrupy wine that tastes vinegary. We mixed it with soda which made it sweeter and tolerable.

• Ginger beer - homemade, ginger, orange and lemon juice, and spices, very tangy, tasty and refreshing.

More Information

• read the food diary from other Central American countries: Honduras, Costa Rica, Mexico , Nicaragua, Guatemala
• about foods from around the world
• photos from Belize
• Travel Guide to Belize
• the Food of Central America

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