Junglepixiebelize - Recollections of a Gringa Pioneer
Nancy R Koerner - Copyright@2021 - All Rights Reserved
CHAPTER NINE
"Wa Chikin Foot"
I am not a “foodie.” I don’t write about food, post photos of food and, for-the-most-part, regard food as a untimely, but necessary, disruption of my creative flow. But since food was a prominent factor in our transition into Belizean culture, it deserves a shout-out.
When we arrived in Belize, the food was unfamiliar. We had been living in California in the early 70’s. Besides avoiding meat, chicken, and fish, we didn’t consume sugar, white bread, white flour products, and white rice. We ate dairy: milk, cheese, butter, eggs, and yogurt, but our primary focus was fresh fruits and juices, brown rice, whole grain breads, raw or steamed veggies and nut-butters,
In other words, here in Belize, in 1976, we were going to die.
When we arrived in Belize, the food was unfamiliar. We had been living in California in the early 70’s. Besides avoiding meat, chicken, and fish, we didn’t consume sugar, white bread, white flour products, and white rice. We ate dairy: milk, cheese, butter, eggs, and yogurt, but our primary focus was fresh fruits and juices, brown rice, whole grain breads, raw or steamed veggies and nut-butters,
In other words, here in Belize, in 1976, we were going to die.
Our U.S. food had run out in Mexico. But, at least, in Mexico, we were able convince the old abuela out the back of the soda-and-cigarette tienda to make us some eggs, beans, and tortillas. With no such roadside opportunities in Belize, our compromise began immediately. I’d been beyond-famished when I’d descended on the conch fritter kiosk on Queen Street, and Mask Man’s meat pies on our way out of Belize City had killed vegetarianism in one fell-swoop. Meat was back in.
However, small shops, like the one in Roaring Creek? Bummer. Every request was met with “We no got dat.” Brown bread, peanut butter? “We no got dat.” Fruit, cheese, orange juice? “We no got dat.” (Seriously? No orange juice? We had passed through Orange Walk Town. OK, what DO you “got?”) The woman said, “fahnta-an-powda-buhn.” With no understanding of Kriol, my dumb-gringa reaction was “HUH?” Then I’d seen the cooler, the orange Fanta, some small round white-flour powdered buns, and had recoiled in horror. To a couple of former-California-dweller-hippie-dietary-purists, she might have just as well said, “poison toadstools, with a side of arsenic.” But, faced with desperate hunger, my internal debate was short-lived. When faced with eating nothing, as opposed to eating something – the something will win out every time. Truth: I still don’t like powda bun. Also truth: that damned orange Fanta, ice cold and sweet, had absolutely hit the spot.
My second Saturday in Cayo on “market day” was a street food extravaganza: empanadas, garnaches, salbutes – I tried everything, and loved them all. But my favorites were the fragrant tamalitos, ground green corn, wrapped in the tender inner leaves of the cob, steamed into soft velvety cakes. Tamales were made of mature ground corn (but it was strained to use only the starch for fine texture), meat and red sauce enveloped inside, and steamed in banana leaf. Bollos were much like tamales, except that the ground corn meal was left in the original grainy texture, with a chunk of chicken in red sauce. Yum. My first bite was delicious, but with a second, I bit down on something weird. (Holy poultry, bwai!) There was a freaking chicken foot in my bollo! Not the thigh, not the drumstick, mind you, but the FOOT! (Jesus, Maria, y Josefa!) The disgusting horrible little foul/ fowl clawed foot – bones, yellow skin, the little fatty yellow foot pads, and the damned yellow toenails – in my FOOD! Arghh! (The horror, the horror…)
Of all the early cultural shocks, THAT was the one experience with local food that traumatized me. Much of the impact was because I’d thought the chicken foot had been a mistake, a booby-prize of sorts, a joke, or perhaps I was the dumb-gringa-target, set-up for the amusement of some malcreado, specifically watching for my reaction. Nope. Apparently, the chicken foot was completely normal. (Wa chikin foot da jus paht ah de chickin – an eh gud, gyal!) But, for me, bollos were forever off-the-table. In future years, I would keep broadening my culinary horizons with iguana, gibnut, alligator, and even armadillo – which we jokingly referred to as “possum-on-the-half-shelI.” But, with bollos, I would have everlasting trust issues. It was OVER.
However, small shops, like the one in Roaring Creek? Bummer. Every request was met with “We no got dat.” Brown bread, peanut butter? “We no got dat.” Fruit, cheese, orange juice? “We no got dat.” (Seriously? No orange juice? We had passed through Orange Walk Town. OK, what DO you “got?”) The woman said, “fahnta-an-powda-buhn.” With no understanding of Kriol, my dumb-gringa reaction was “HUH?” Then I’d seen the cooler, the orange Fanta, some small round white-flour powdered buns, and had recoiled in horror. To a couple of former-California-dweller-hippie-dietary-purists, she might have just as well said, “poison toadstools, with a side of arsenic.” But, faced with desperate hunger, my internal debate was short-lived. When faced with eating nothing, as opposed to eating something – the something will win out every time. Truth: I still don’t like powda bun. Also truth: that damned orange Fanta, ice cold and sweet, had absolutely hit the spot.
My second Saturday in Cayo on “market day” was a street food extravaganza: empanadas, garnaches, salbutes – I tried everything, and loved them all. But my favorites were the fragrant tamalitos, ground green corn, wrapped in the tender inner leaves of the cob, steamed into soft velvety cakes. Tamales were made of mature ground corn (but it was strained to use only the starch for fine texture), meat and red sauce enveloped inside, and steamed in banana leaf. Bollos were much like tamales, except that the ground corn meal was left in the original grainy texture, with a chunk of chicken in red sauce. Yum. My first bite was delicious, but with a second, I bit down on something weird. (Holy poultry, bwai!) There was a freaking chicken foot in my bollo! Not the thigh, not the drumstick, mind you, but the FOOT! (Jesus, Maria, y Josefa!) The disgusting horrible little foul/ fowl clawed foot – bones, yellow skin, the little fatty yellow foot pads, and the damned yellow toenails – in my FOOD! Arghh! (The horror, the horror…)
Of all the early cultural shocks, THAT was the one experience with local food that traumatized me. Much of the impact was because I’d thought the chicken foot had been a mistake, a booby-prize of sorts, a joke, or perhaps I was the dumb-gringa-target, set-up for the amusement of some malcreado, specifically watching for my reaction. Nope. Apparently, the chicken foot was completely normal. (Wa chikin foot da jus paht ah de chickin – an eh gud, gyal!) But, for me, bollos were forever off-the-table. In future years, I would keep broadening my culinary horizons with iguana, gibnut, alligator, and even armadillo – which we jokingly referred to as “possum-on-the-half-shelI.” But, with bollos, I would have everlasting trust issues. It was OVER.