It's a known fact among my friends and family that there’s nothing I hate more in this world than cooking. My parents shared this sentiment in our household growing up, so dining out was the norm in our small Philadelphia suburb. And the preferred act of frequenting restaurants persisted into my adulthood, through Washington DC and New York City. For me, cooking equated to hard work and lost time, while dining out allowed me to experience my city’s culture and savor a variety of flavors. I became known for my knowledge of the best places to eat, whether for a quick bite or for a night on the town.
Moving to Australia unexpectedly flipped my dining habits. Perth as it turns out doesn’t host the same culinary scene as New York City does, and the culture rather revolves around cooking at home to foster close relationships while enjoying simple, high-quality food. Initially, I resisted this norm, but my then-boyfriend and now-husband’s family, who excel in home cooking, gradually won me over. Over five years, I came to appreciate home-cooked meals as a special treat, even though I still preferred to leave cooking to the experts and focus on just about anything else ...
Flash forward to May 2024, and Adam, Marla, and I had spent nearly two weeks in Belize on the Edges of Earth Expedition. By this point, we had tasted food in over 23 countries, from fresh clams in Vanuatu to wood-fired cuttlefish in Japan, and my all-time favorite, Peking duck in Hong Kong. In Belize, we dived into local delights, enjoying meals at mom-and-pop restaurants and hole-in-the-wall spots, as well as home-cooked feasts. It was a culinary heaven.
Breakfast consisted of fry jacks, pastries much like empanadas, fried and shaped into triangles. Lunch included sweet or roasted corn tamales and salbutes, deep-fried puffed tortillas topped with a zesty and fragrant coleslaw. And dinner typically involved perhaps the most iconic dish associated with Belize: savory stewed chicken served with a classic of rice and beans. But the standout dish for me wasn’t actually a dish at all. It was the hot sauce drizzled over all the aforementioned dishes. Specifically I mean “Marie Sharp's Belizean Heat Habanero Pepper Hot Sauce.” And when I find something I love, I obsess over it, and Marie's hot sauce was no exception.
Marie Sharp's hot sauce has a humble origin. She started making it in her kitchen using habanero peppers grown on her family farm. Initially tasked by a local doctor to grow these peppers, she ended up with a surplus and began blending them with farm-fresh vegetables like celery, papaya, and carrots. Her carrot-based sauce quickly became a hit, leading her to produce the hot sauce as a side business.
Today, Marie Sharp's hot sauce is a Belizean household name and a popular souvenir. Available in 16 flavors, all made from fresh, local ingredients without additives, her sauces range from the Original Fiery Hot Pepper to innovative flavors like Pure Mango Pepper and Ghost Garlic Super Hot. The brand has grown from a home kitchen operation to a fully mechanized factory, employing nearly 100 people, and continues to expand under Sharp's guidance.
As we made our way down from Belize City to Hopkins, we passed through Stann Creek Valley, where Marie Sharp’s hot sauce is produced. I was so obsessed with this hot sauce that I even tried to detour our team to visit the factory. However, Tara Scarborough, the Chief Resilience Officer at the Coastal Zone Management Authority and Institute, had a better idea. She invited us to Hopkins, her hometown, for a cultural immersion into the lives of the Mayan and Garifuna people.
Tara had been working with us to navigate Belize’s ocean conservation and restoration efforts, and she believed this cultural experience would deepen our understanding of the local communities she spends her days supporting. For as go-getting and hard working as Tara is, she also knows how to keep the atmosphere relaxed and down-to-earth, by constantly throwing jokes in my direction. And I became used to her style of humor after living with her for upwards of two weeks, not to mention following nearly a year of online correspondence prior to that.
The team and I were thrilled about the opportunity for this kind of cultural immersion. The Garifuna people, also known as Black Carib or Garinagu, are of mixed African and Amerindian descent from the island of Saint Vincent in the 18th century. They were exiled from British colonies in the eastern Caribbean and settled along the Atlantic coasts of Central America, primarily in Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Belize.
Meanwhile, the indigenous Mayan people of Central America and Mexico have lived in the region for thousands of years. In fact, the term "Maya" actually comes from the ancient city of Mayapan. The Maya people refer to their ethnicities according to their spoken language, for example, Yucatec in the north or Quiche in the south. Both cultures are deeply rooted in song, dance, clothing, and food.
With the Mayan people, we would learn about their beloved cacao, as chocolate has been a prized commodity here for thousands of years. With the Garifuna people, we would tap deeper into their heritage and learn what exactly makes Hopkins their home. It all sounded incredibly special. The only thing Tara neglected to mention was that we would be serving the roles of both chef and patron as part of this immersion. So this meant that I would be cooking... in front of other people... to celebrate their traditions and heritage!? The fact that I had never cooked to even celebrate my OWN heritage made me red and sweaty. Was Tara trying to kill me?! Or was she somehow aware of my secret shame and was using it as an opportunity to push me out of my comfort zone?!
Whatever it was, never in my life had I felt more uncomfortable upon receiving this news.
But saying no to this opportunity wasn’t an option. How rude, right? At the same time, showing up with zero kitchen abilities and a wild distaste for the whole process made me feel downright awful. Spending quality time with people willing to share their ways was special enough, but now I had to swallow my pride, go into this with open arms and an open heart, and attempt, arguably for the first time ever, to cook a REAL, traditional meal. I’ve chopped some vegetables before, and once made a basic meal for friends and my husband that I jokingly called “whale blubber” due to its expected horrible taste. Beyond that, I was out of my depth. All I wanted was to keep eating stew chicken with Marie’s hot sauce, cooked by the pros, not by me.
Our first stop on the way to Hopkins was Maya Center Village, home to many of Mayan descent. There, we met Julio Saqui and his family, the owners of “Che'il,” a small business producing organic Mayan chocolate from fresh cacao plants and coffee trees. Watching the process from start to finish and sampling the most authentic chocolate we’d ever tasted was a treat. This chocolate was unlike the store-bought kind—no added sugar and much more bitter than sweet. You could feel the healing properties with each bite.
I communicated my cooking handicap very openly, while Tara smirked at me all the while as if to say, “you better do this, and do this well” with only a glance! Everyone thought I was joking. It wasn’t until I was tasked with making the corn tortillas that Julio’s wife began eyeing me with a curious concern. Despite her initial shock that a grown woman like myself had no idea what she was doing, she kindly decided to put me out of my misery by taking me under her wing.
She showed me how to flatten the tortilla while turning it simultaneously—over and over and over again. Finally, I got a feel for the technique enough to make a mediocre tortilla which she then took and turned into perfection. She told me that, in her world, knowing how to cook was close to a status symbol and meant something much deeper than just “making food.” I imagined that was why the Saqui family was so well liked around here. Their chocolate and the rest of their food was equally amazing.
But it was our next stop that got me good. Saying goodbye to our newfound friends, we made our way down to Hopkins to meet some key members of the Garifuna community. We headed to a place called Palmento Grove Garifuna Cultural & Fishing Institute, which was run by long-time family friends of Tara’s. She knew Wasani since she was a child, and the two of them were pumped to see one another upon our arrival. Wasani was tall, calm and peaceful, dressed in traditional Garifuna clothing ready to show us his world. I knew what was coming, and I wondered if Wasani could see through my facade, sensing that I was getting more and more nervous about this looming dinner after my prior tortilla flop.
Located on the north side of Hopkins Village, Palmento is on a private island designed to reflect the authenticity of a traditional Garifuna village. For over a decade, Palmento Grove has served as a sustainable tourism business and cultural preservation center, providing those who come here with an outstanding introduction to Garifuna history and culture. Nestled among mangrove bushes at the edge of Fresh Water Creek Lagoon (where it intersects the Caribbean) Palmento Grove is just as much of an immersion as it is a healing retreat. Quite honestly, upon my arrival I didn’t really know what this meant, but I felt inclined to go with the flow for Tara’s ride.
Palmento Grove lets you better understand how to live sustainably—from picking fresh fruit and berries off trees, collecting vegetables from the garden, and going fishing for dinner. But what stood out to me was getting the chance to meet with one of the elders of the Garifuna community, and Wass’ grandfather. After putting on some traditional clothing ourselves and getting a chance to play the famed Garifuna drums with a musician named Rayton within the community, we sat down to try cassava—the yucca plant used for pretty much everything by the Garifuna people.
Wass' grandfather shared profound insights into the Garifuna way of life, emphasizing how food acts as a central point connecting the community to the land and to each other. He spoke about how cassava, a staple for the Garifuna, embodies this connection. The name "Garifuna" itself is rooted in their deep relationship with cassava, reflecting its fundamental role in their culture. Through this, we learned about the balance of opposites, a key principle in their food structure that ties the physical to the spiritual.
The concept of the "power of opposites" in Garifuna culture is deeply rooted in their worldview and spiritual practices. It embodies the idea that balance and harmony are achieved through the interplay of contrasting elements. This principle can be seen in various aspects of Garifuna life, including their food, spirituality, and community relationships.
In Garifuna spirituality, the balance of opposites is essential for maintaining harmony between the physical and spiritual worlds. This belief is reflected in their rituals and practices, where specific actions are taken to balance the opposing forces of good and evil, life and death, and material and spiritual needs. The idea is that without recognizing and balancing these opposites, one cannot achieve true harmony or communicate effectively with the divine.
He explained that space and time are crucial elements in their spiritual practices. To seek guidance or communicate with their female god figure, Wabungiu, they must have a serious purpose and be surrounded by friends and important members of the community—often over a meal. This practice is all about the importance of community support in their spiritual and daily lives. For Garifuna people, food, culture, and spirituality are deeply intertwined, allowing them to continually live sustainably and connected to earth and each other.
After eating a few too many cashews straight from the tree, it was time for dinner. We were to cook the traditional dish called the hudut—which is a freshly caught fish stew. Tara quietly smirked at my expense in the corner, all while providing zero assistance, but I couldn’t let this hold me back. It was “go” time. But, for some reason, this dinner preparation felt different. As we cracked open coconuts with our bare hands using only a stake in the ground to support our journey, shredded it to create real coconut milk, mashed plantains and fried the fish, I actually felt somewhat relaxed.
It was so hot outside that the traditional Garifuna garb we were wearing was helping keep us cool. That and washing my hands and face of my sweat basically every 5-10 minutes. Wass walked us through each step, and tasked us with different roles. Adam was on fish duty, cooking the fish that would sit in the stew as well as the fried pieces. I was on mashing duty, which seemed suitable at the time, until I realized how hard it is to mash for an extended period of time! I was soon moved to soup stirring duty, demoted yet again, much to my chagrin and Tara’s pleasure.
When the meal was finally ready, we used our hands to dip the hard, mashed plantains in the fish stew, as well as the fried fish bits. It was perfect. So light, so fresh, so wholesome. Sitting there in silence, everyone eating away, I was looking back on this cooking journey. I didn’t hate it. In fact, dare I say that I enjoyed it. To be clear, it wasn’t because I love stirring soup or mashing plantains. It was because I was finally grasping the importance of cooking food and community. The power of the opposite theory was running through my brain.
I think for so many years as the “type A” action oriented person I am, I considered meals as a means to an end—the “end,” being we simply have to eat, of course. Yet here in the heart of Belize, I realized that line of thinking is entirely incorrect. Here, the “means” is the end. It’s the ritual of the preparation, all for the sake of fostering community and participating in tradition that makes the simple act of just eating dinner so special. It seemed like a perfect moment in time to take note. Bringing this newfound wisdom with me while traveling might be kind of difficult, but it surely will be useful when I go back home. Maybe bringing a piece of the Garifuna, Mayan and our newfound friend, Tara back with us was exactly the point of this expedition all along.
To be continued …
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