Belize
Rice-and-beans in coconut milk, Garífuna coconut fish, and Marie Sharp's on every table.
In Belize, get the terms right: rice & beans is one pot, red beans cooked into the rice with coconut milk, while beans & rice keeps them separate. Either way it arrives with stew chicken, browned deep-red with annatto recado — the everyday national plate. This is the only English-speaking country in Central America, and its food layers five living traditions: Creole, Garífuna, Maya, Mestizo and Mennonite, the last supplying much of the dairy and produce.
Down the southern Garífuna coast around Dangriga and Hopkins, the signature is hudut: mashed plantain with fish in a fresh coconut-milk broth. Out on the cayes, it's conch ceviche and grilled snapper. Breakfast means puffed fry jacks with honey. And whatever you order, a bottle of Marie Sharp's habanero sauce, made in the Stann Creek hills, will be within arm's reach.
- Rice & beans (with stew chicken)
- Fry jacks (fried dough)
- Hudut (Garífuna plantain and coconut fish)
- Sere (coconut fish soup)
- Garnaches (topped fried tortillas)
- Conch ceviche
- Ereba (cassava bread)
