Food, and the Tale of the Great San Pedro Lettuce Bust

Food has been one of the greatest challenges here in Belize. I do most of the meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking for the family, and it has taken quite a bit of adjustment. The whole supply-chain thing just hasn't been sorted out very well yet, and the country has some pretty draconian restrictions on the importation of food. I can understand the latter, but I wouldn't mind so much if the former was in better shape.

In any case, we all lost weight the first two months here. It took us awhile to figure out that the entire town should be treated as a single grocery store, and the individual markets within the town as the various 'departments' you would find at any grocery store in the U.S. For example, one store is great for dairy products, another for canned goods, still another for spices, and we get veggies on Tuesday morning from the Mennonites and fruit on Thursdays from the Spanish-speaking fellows from Sarteneja. The largest grocery store on the island is about the size of a typical corner store in Seattle (for those of you familiar with Fremont/Phinney/Green Lake, think Market Time). Many stores are just little shacks with a couple of shelves of whatever they managed to get off the barge that week.Over the course of an average week, I visit 5-7 different stores/markets/fruit stands to procure the ingredients necessary to feed the family.

Leticia, the Sarteneja boat. One day the owner (Juan) offered me a ride in it, then he offered to sell it to me for $20,000 USD. He gave me a tour of the boat, and it is a very well-made, hand-built wooden vessel. But I don't think I could fit it in the overhead compartment.

The Mennonite boat. They don't like to have their pictures taken, but one of their Belizean helpers didn't mind.

Super Buy South. This is the largest grocery store on the island. Note the bike rack and storefront parking area.

I suppose that's been an adjustment, but it's been even tougher to get comfortable with the reality that the inventory is totally, utterly, and inexplicably unpredictable and unreliable, everywhere. That particular type of bean that you've been buying every week for three months? GONE FOREVER! Sometimes the Mennonite cheese is orange, sometimes it is yellowish, sometimes it is just white. No particular reason (maybe they just ran out of the unnaturally orange food coloring?). Sometimes there is no dairy of any kind, for days and days. Occasionally a shipment of Takis (one of our favorite new found Mexican snackfoods) will appear and no more will be seen for weeks. You get the idea.

Even when the markets are well stocked, there is not a wide variety of ingredients, and labeling simply doesn't exist. Occasionally, we might see a label that indicates what is inside a bag (usually written in Sharpie), but rarely is there a 'sell by' date and I have never seen nutrition information on domestic groceries. It is possible to buy imported canned/dried/processed foods, but they are super-duper expensive and usually expired.

See, look--it's Tofu!

And this is 1 lb...of...rice? Yeah, definitely rice.

So, we eat a lot of rice, beans, eggs, and fruit. The fruit is absolutely amazing here, and is by far the cheapest ingredient we buy. We've started making our own tortillas, salsa (two different kinds!), guacamole, enchilada sauce, pizza and banana bread.

We've also tried lots of new foods:  dragon fruit, soursop, sapodilla, breadfruit, chocho, plantains, and many others. We've even tried four kinds of fish--lionfish, grunt, tuna, and pluma. I prefer the lionfish by far, but I do not think I will ever become a regular consumer of sea food.

A custard apple

Inside of a custard apple. They are related to soursop, and taste somewhat similar, but creamier and...different.

The boys holding a dragon fruit.

Inside of a dragon fruit. Tastes like a slightly less tangy kiwi.

Soursop.

Inside of a soursop. They taste like a combination of banana and strawberry but are the consistency of snot. Best in smoothies and ice cream.

Sapodilla.

Inside of a sapodilla. This is a very tasty fruit, hard to describe, but a bit like sandy maple candy.

Fried grunt! Tastes just like fish.

One of the enduring peculiarities of the fresh produce here is how much of it stays green, even when it is perfectly ripe and delicious. My understanding is this is because it never gets cold enough here for the color change to kick in.

These bananas are totally ripe, in fact some of them are beginning to turn brown...without ever being yellow.

From L-R:  grapefruit, orange, tangerine, and lime. All ripe, all delicious.

Our cooking equipment is alright. We have an electric cooktop, and a Mexican-built gas stove. However, it is a bit mysterious, in that the oven has settings 1 thru 5. We have no idea what temperature any given number corresponds to, but over the past six and a half months we've figured it out (bake bread on 3, roast veggies at around 4, pizza about 4.25, etc).

Some fryjacks Amy made. They are a Belizean staple, and Amy did a great job.

I think we've figured out the food situation fairly well, and we definitely have some new favorite dishes, but we are all looking forward to the bounteous farmers markets and grocery stores back in Seattle.

And now, for the tale of The Great Lettuce Bust!

Every Tuesday I ride my bike to the lagoon side of town where the Mennonites dock their boat. They bring thousands of pounds of produce from Corozal to San Pedro. Most of it is purchased by local restaurants and veg retailers, and by the time I get there everything is a bit picked over. However, this past Tuesday, the Mennonites were there, but no produce. There was a large group of people standing around, in postures that suggested they'd been waiting for quite some time. That's when I noticed the Belize Customs guys.

I waited for about a half hour, then I saw David, one of the Mennonites that I've chatted with several times. I asked him if they were in trouble. In his typically understated way he said "Hmm, yes, perhaps a little bit." I asked what happened, and he explained that they bought some lettuce from a wholesaler in Corozal. It turns out that guy didn't have a permit to sell the Mexican-grown lettuce the Mennonites bought. However, there were at least six other guys who bought lettuce from this particular wholesaler, and the Customs guys let all of them go. David felt very strongly that it was a setup.

So the Mennonites and the Customs guys talked, haggled, and argued for another 45 minutes or so, then the Customs people confiscated about 300 heads of lettuce. I asked one of the locals if they would throw away the food. They laughed and said "Oh, no! They will probably sell it." I asked if it could be given to the orphanage in Belize City, or even to some of the poorer communities here in San Pedro. They laughed again and said "never." It was pretty disheartening to hear.

The upside of this situation is I was there at the beginning of the produce day! I was so happy! But then about 100 Belizeans came out of the woodwork and it was a total feeding frenzy. Overall Belizeans are laid-back, friendly, and warm people, but they DO.NOT.WAIT.IN.LINES. Ever. At one point I had had my hand in a sack of onions, and two women jammed their hands in on top of mine and started grabbing onions. There were many similar encounters. At the time it was pretty damn frustrating, but another part of my brain was thinking "wow, this is so completely different than any grocery shopping experience I've ever had, I am definitely going to remember this!" I managed to get all the food we needed and we all ate happily ever after.

The End