We’ve had a lovely Festive Season this time and I made a tremendous effort to keep the celebrations going on the farm with lots of yummy food. Here are pictures of some Munchkin goodies:
Sorghum and coconut flour flat bread with Swiss cheese and bird peppers:
Flat Bread Hors D’oeuvres.
More flat bread hors d’oeuvres with sapodilla sauce and blue cheese (more Bird Peppers to add heat and give the Christmas colour!):
Sorghum Bread and Sapodilla Sauce.
For Christmas, we had ham this time, unconventionally with sorghum and vegetables and home-made sour peach jam.
Sorghum, Ham and Sour Peach Jam.
Ooooh, lots of this…Ribena and Rum!! When I was a kid, Ribena was the stuff that we had with our packed lunches at school…a kid’s drink. Now, we are grown ups, we have it as an adult’s drink! By the way, Ribena is a British cordial made from black currants.
Ribena And Rum.
For the New Year, I decided to do Chinese for a change. This is tripe with calamondin.
Tripe and Calamondin.
Also, we had Venison with Lotus Root. And a yummy sauce made from home-made chocolate miso, calamondin zest and bird pepper.
Venison with Lotus Root.
Okay, we’ve had our fun!! Now, back to work diggin’ in the dirt!!
We have been buying unmarked plastic bags of these things for years from the local Chinese (Chiney) shop. We coined them “Fried Yum Yums” because we had no idea what they were called. Even if you are not familiar with the dried product, you may have seen street vendors selling this fried snack in plastic bags in Punta Gorda.
They look like dried pasta, either brown or white and come in all shapes and sizes including wagon wheels and twists. They are made from wheat flour, cornstarch and baking soda.
Brown Wagon Wheel Duros.
I can not find any documentation on the difference in ingredients between the two different colours. However, I think that the white variety has a “potato taste” compared to the “maize taste” of the brown kind.
White Wagon Wheel Duros.
They are deep-fried in oil and puff up when cooked.
Fried Yum Yum.Fried Yum Yum.
Traditionally, this is actually a Mexican snack food called Duros. Apparently they are sold in plastic bags with salsa/ lime salt or hot sauce. We like to eat ours as an accompaniment to a bean stew and use the wagon wheels to scoop up the beans. Also, they make great mini baskets for hors d’oeuvre…just a little bit of imagination is needed to make a bite-size yum yum!!
This article is mainly aimed for the reader in Belize who thinks that it is so difficult to find something yummy and convenient to make. Here in Belize (at least in the Southern Region), the Garifuna people make cassava bread which is a flattened, unleavened bread which they traditionally eat with fish. It is not even something that is found on eating out and in fact, to get your paws on traditionally made cassava bread, you really have to befriend a Garifuna, stay in their village, and then you may be fortunate enough to have some of this cuisine. Traditionally, cassava bread in Belize, is made manually and this involves a long, intensive process of grating cassava by hand (lots and lots of it…sacks and sacks), a system of poles and tree limbs (even with women standing on poles) and the eventual flattening and cooking of the bread on comals. This is a project which my partner and I have long held off since it is a lot of work and you need people power.
Shop-bought Cassava Bread in Punta Gorda.
So, you will realise my glee and absolute wonder to discover shop-bought Cassava Bread here in Punta Gorda, Toledo, Belize! It is found in all the Chinese Supermarkets sold at approximately $6.75 Bz for just under a pound. If you understand the effort and sheer man-power required in this bread, it is a snap at this price. A quick look at Amazon.com shows that our international readers can buy cassava bread on-line (mostly imported from French Caribbean countries) if they are interested in trying out my suggestions.
Cassava Bread is sold in square packets and when you open up the pack, you will notice that they are scored into smaller squares. Ideally, you should be able to snap off these portions but I have found that, with its bendy-like consistency, it is actually easier to cut the squares out with scissors.
Here are some pictures of serving suggestions for shop-bought cassava bread. You can basically use it as a base for hors d’oeuvres…with a difference since it is cassava bread. Think of some important people paying you an impromptu visit in Belize and you whip this up in 5 minutes for them! Its not your ubiquitous cracker…it is cassava bread, indigenous to Belize and it is also gluten-free. I have used it also as a pizza base and as a quick snack. The possibilities are endless.
Cassava Bread Hors D’oeuvre with Tuna, Tomato, Olives and Basil.
Cassava Bread Snack with Mozzarella and Onions.
The cassava bread can be eaten straight out of the packet or if you want to crisp it up a bit, it can placed in the oven for about 5 minutes. This bread is a great discovery for me because it is only made with raw materials and no additives. Since its original use was as a preservation method for cassava, you can stash lots of this at home as emergency food or for the impromptu visitor.
