Food Coma's

The food in Belize consists of a Creole style kitchen with amazing pastries, cakes, French toast/waffles, cornbread, chicken cooked all different kinds of ways, rice and beans, mashed potatoes, green beans and squash cooked as a souffle.  It kind of reminded me of New Orleans kind of cooking, which is full of great flavors and spice.  The food was not expected to be great and when you least expect something sometimes that is when it comes through full power.

The traditional local, Belizian food was the best selection –not the tourist restaurants.  The best food was the food in the Monkey Bay kitchen made by a local staff, but the best cook was Shovonda. Shavonda was a young, heavier Black woman around 25 who had been cooking since she was a child.  She told me that they had a generational line of cooking that had been passed down for years and years.

  She had something special in her food and she cooked with love. She happened to be a mother from the MH community so we sat and had many talks about the community-problems, needs, etc. She lived in MH with her 6 year old son and 4 year old daughter.  She would walk back and forth to work each day and she worked 6 days a week. She knew how much I loved her food because I told her everyday she was the best cook. She knew it, I knew it, and everyone knew it, but it was unspoken.  Everything she made I ate it all and I would often just sit and think, “This is so good.” Or my favorite one was,”How does  she make this taste like this?” Her chocolate cake and her peach cobbler-best ever and French toast to dream about.                   

One day I was taking the bus out early to St Ignacio and I was going to miss breakfast. I walked into the kitchen to ask what she was making and she said, ‘French toast and corn bread.” I literally sat there contemplating not going and staying back just for her French toast! I ended up leaving and I heard people raving about it. I asked her to please make it again, but they had a schedule they had to follow.   

I will never live down missing the French toast of Shavonda- never. She is the best cook ever! 

       Homemade Food that touches the soul.