Imagine my delight when my friend mailed me the newly released cookbook titled, “Aaaah…Belizean Rum Recipes.” In it, some of the Cayo district’s best cooks and mixologists contributed recipes like the Sorrel Slammer, Sweet Ting Pastries’ Mocha Rum Cake, Kick Start French Toast and Pescado Caliente a spicy, fruity sauteed fish recipe including Belize’s 1 Barrel rum, and the national hot sauce, Marie Sharp’s. After mentioning to my cookbook connection that 1 Barrel rum may not be available in Brooklyn, I received a leaden package with three boozes branded “Tasting is Belizing.” With its Jack-Sparrow-meets-70s-AM-Gold motif, the package had me pining for a pina colada

I have rum and I know how to use it. My first bottle is the award-winning 1 Barrel rum, commonly enjoyed in a Cuba Libre – coke, rum and lime. Next is a blended brandy, curiously labeled “It’s the Grape That Tells.” I don’t understand what this means, but after a couple of sips of this 80 proof joy juice, I could probably come up with something. This particular brandy is usually mixed into milky drinks, like the ever-popular Brandy Alexander or the New Orleans favorite brandy milk punch, a mixture of brandy, half and half, superfine sugar and nutmeg served over ice. (Sick yet?) Lastly, I have coconut rum whose label suggests I “feel the coconut taste.” At a lower 46 proof, coconut rum is suitable for a mellow evening or a slow afternoon at the office. Somehow, the ladies’ favorite called the “panty ripper,” did not make it into “Ahhhh…Belizean Rum Recipes.” It features coconut rum mixed with pineapple juice, and should always be accompanied by a designated driver.

Rather than let all this good rum languish in my cabinet, I plan to prepare some recipes promising, according to “Aaaah…” to “scent your meals with its fluttering aroma of sugarcane and spice.”

From Aahhhh…Belizean Rum Recipes:

Pescado Caliente

by Jenny Staines, Caliente!, San Pedro, Ambergris Caye

1 lb fish fillet

2 oz Marie Sharp hot sauce (or your favorite hot sauce)

1 1/4 oz lime juice

seasoning salt

black pepper

garlic, chopped

bread crumbs

oil to fry

2 tbsp butter

1 c diced mangoes, 1 inch cubes

1 c orange juice

1 c sugar

2 oz 1 Barrel rum or any dark rum

• Marinate fish in hot sauce and lime juice
• Season fish with seasoning salt, black pepper and garlic to taste
• Coat in bread crumbs and fry
• In a sauepan add butter, melt, add mango and pineapple; cook for 5 minutes
• Add orange juice and sugar and cook for 10 more minutes
• Add rum, stir, and cook for 2 more minutes
• Remove from heat and serve over fish

Sorrel Slammer

by Roquel Riveira, The Lodge at Chaa Creek, Cayo District

4 oz sweetened sorrel juice

1 oz Caribbean white rum

1/2 oz Pimm’s

juice of a lime wedge

seasonal fresh fruit ice cubes (mango, watermelon, melon, papaya)

• Shake or blend
• Garnish with a slice of cucumber

I have great admiration for self-published and small-run bookbooks.  In my travels, my suitcase fills up with charming and delectable cookbooks that I heft home, intending (and usually failing) to recreate the flavors of my trip.  Browsing through my favorite native cookbooks -  xeroxed, spiral bound, stapled, riddled with typos, inside jokes and painful plays on words – they are some of the most honest tellings of a cuisine, its ingredients and preparations.   Their authors, whether educators, chefs, local business owners, politicians or just good cooks, plainly contribute and compile their most loved dishes to share.  Surpassing luggage weight restrictions and overwhelming my tiny kitchen, these local cookbooks help spark my recall of culinary meanderings.

A recent trip kickstarted yet another personal cookbook microcollection – local cookbooks from Belize.  Belizean cuisine reflects widespread influences (British, African, Mayan, Caribbean, and Mexican to start) that can be found in everyday dishes, with an influx of immigrants from thoughout the world continuing to enhance and transform Belizean cuisine.  U Toucan Cook Belize starts to illustrate this culinary diversity.  On a given day in Belize, you’ll come across East Indian curries, Cuban-style ropa vieja, the age-old Mayan papaksul, English steak and kidney pie, rice and beans and the beloved cow foot soup, most of which are enjoyed with Belize’s legendary Marie Sharp’s hot sauce.  These dishes are included in U Toucan Cook Belize, which features over 100 recipes and helpful sidebars that give more detailed information on the varied food resources, such as honey, fish, herbs and fruits and vegetables found in this tropical Caribbean country.

Some dishes are instantly recognizeable: stuffed zucchini, sweet and sour pork, barbecued spareribs, tamales, pot roast, gazpacho, and steak diane (!) appear in the cookbook.  Others are unfamiliar and somewhat more exotic: deer loaf, iguana stew, ispascha (a Mayan porridge), cow foot jello, and seaweed cake.  A wonderful sounding dinner menu if I ever heard one.  There are many more crowd pleasing options, however.  A conkie is a mixture of squash, sweet potato, coconut, milk and spices wrapped in banana leaves and steamed like tamales.  Bundiga is a Garifuna dish in which green bananas, herbs and fish simmer together in coconut milk.  Also appetizing is a powerfully hot shrimp and okra gumbo served over rice.

Likewise, while Belizean cooking uses many ingredients common in the U.S., many go by multiple names which can be confusing for the non-Belizean chef.  For example, a papaya is known in Belize as a pawpaw.  A chayote goes by christophene, cho-cho, or bash.  Sorrel is sometimes called rozelle or sour-sour.  Avocado’s pseudonyms include alligator pear and zaboca.  Other fruits and vegetables used in the recipes have little or no presence in the United States such as a baboon cap, a filling fruit with light orange flesh and a “hairy” seed, or, matabooro, (aka “mankiller”) a short thick banana.

U Toucan Cook Belize is global in its influences but locally compiled by what I can only assume are some knowledgeable and dedicated Belizean cooks.  (I have yet to find any information on the publisher, Fig Tree Products). I hope to experiment sometime with dishes such as the cheesey cho-cho and hudutu baruru falumou.  I know I *can* cook Belize from here in my Brooklyn kitchen (provided I can find ingredients like iguana meat from a reputable source) but perhaps it’s best left to the experts.

Helmets in hand, we tromped single-file on a trail to Actun Tunichil Muknal, a spectacular series of caves in Western Belize containing calcified human remains and ceremonial vessels left by Mayan shamans most active between 700 and 900 A.D. Getting to the entrance of the caves required a beautiful morning jungle hike, and we were lead by Carlos Panti, a local guide who knows the area, its plants and animals like the back of his hand. In his drill-sergeant-meets-bushman manner, our rainforest superman informed us that there had been recent sightings of a petite but deadly poisonous viper on this very path and to watch where we were stepping. Barefoot, Carlos lead our small, intrepid group across land and through water, pointing out notable plant and animal life, and the occasional warning (watch the ants!), neatening the trail with his machete along the way. We followed like eager apostles behind him, excited but uncertain about where he was taking us. The entire day turned out to be one of the most exhilarating and wondrous times I can remember. But in addition to the hiking, swimming and spelunking through the sacred caves, Carlos shared with us some unforgettable tasting experiences.

Once we had settled into our hike and I had partially put the deadly viper thing out of my mind, Carlos stopped. Given his intimate familiarity with the jungle, I thought he would point out an unusual bird or fruit tree, or the source of a Mayan medicinal remedy. Instead, we were in front of a termite nest about the size of a toddler that encircled a tree about five feet off the ground. Carlos gently made a small hole in the brown dirt mass. When he pulled his index finger out, he had about a dozen baby ant-sized termites crawling on his hand, and with his other hand, picked one off and popped it in his mouth.

“What does it taste like?” someone asked.

“It tastes like carrots,” Carlos responded.

I was skeptical. But when I handpicked a termite off his finger and put it in my mouth, I tasted dirt, followed by a tiny crunch. And then, as real as the screen in front of your face, the little isoptera tasted just like cooked carrots.

For those unfamiliar with entomophagy (the practice of eating insects) bugs are an excellent source of nutrients with many high in protein and low in fat and cholesterol. Grasshoppers, grubs, mealworms, crickets, catydids, ants – humans all over the world consume over 1,000 species of insects. I was ecstatic about trying termites, not because of the culturally “extreme” notion of eating bugs, but for the chance to challenge my own ideas about what I considered to be “food,” and finding that it wasn’t too bad.

Our next treat came without interrupting our quick pace. Carlos must have plucked a leaf from someplace along the trail. He passed the leaf back and told each of us to rip off a piece. When we all had a bit of the leaf, he told us to eat it. I should have detected the mischief in his eyes. But still on a high from the termites, I took a big bite, thinking it would taste like mint or flowers or something else sweet and wonderful. I unquestioningly eat anything someone tells me to and assume the best. So when the taste of the leaf turned out to be alarmingly and persistently bitter, I was taken aback. One by one, each member of our expedition expressed their distaste.

“You and I, Carlos,” one person jokingly remarked, “We are not on good terms right now.”

Beaming, Carlos suggested that we probably wanted to be nice since he was the only one of us who knew the way out of this jungle. True enough. And because of his sweetness and enthusiasm, we couldn’t hold this acrid leaf-sharing incident against him. For the next few minutes, I gulped water, holding it in my mouth, in hopes that I could wash the terrible taste away like a rinse of Scope. No luck. But after twenty minutes or so, the tingling stopped and I could stop making facial gestures like a cat with a hairball.

This sharply bitter and potent plant is called…ahem…Jackass Bitters. Its leaves, roots and flowers are known to treat and prevent ailments including malaria, wounds, head lice and intestinal parasites and help to regulate blood sugar levels. The rainforest is packed with native medicinal plants, each with the capacity to cure many known diseases. Apart from the unpleasant flavor, my morsel of jackass bitters was by far the most pungent, powerful thing I’ve ever tasted. I felt in awe of the potential of this innocuous-looking leaf.

Late that afternoon, we walked back to our van the same route we came, tired and giddy from our incredible day in the caves, and considerably more at ease on jungle turf. We wisecracked with Carlos about being alone with a man carrying a machete. He proceeded to name me “jaguar food.” I walked slower, hoping to make the day last a little longer. At that moment, the jungle didn’t seem as bewildering as before. Carlos made the exotic and unfamiliar more peaceable, yet we still would have been lost without him.

“It smells like pumpkin pie,” my friend commented as we paused, staring at a small green leaf in the subtropical rainforest.

We were holding a three-inch piece of foliage to our noses from the shrub-like allspice tree which grows abundantly in the limestone-hilled jungles of Western Belize. While Jamaica is the world’s largest exporter of allspice (a key ingredient in jerk seasoning), in the beautiful, New Jersey-sized country of Belize, I repeatedly came across this fragrant tree, whose dried fruits are used in sweet and savory dishes worldwide. It is the only spice grown exclusively in the Western Hemisphere. This isn’t the fruit-bearing time of year for allspice trees, but we were aromatically transported from the distinct,complex, earth-scented leaves.

Belying its name, allspice is a single spice used both whole and ground made from the dried berries of the allspice tree. Its English name references the fact that it tastes like a combination of several other spices including cloves and nutmeg. The allspice tree is recognized by its peeling bark and white flowers with green allspice berries which darken and harden, resembling peppercorns. The whole or ground spice is used in baking, marinating, curing and preserving. It enlivens everything from barbecue sauce to fruitcake, stews to liqueurs (and yes, pumpkin pie) and is used everywhere from Palestine to Puerto Rico.

Like many plants growing in rainforests, allspice has medicinal properties. It can supposedly kill your foot fungus, settle your stomach, raise your energy and relieve aches, either in the form of a tea, paste or bath. The Mayans have known about these properties for thousands of years and the ancient Mayans may have used allspice as part of an embalming mixture. Eventually allspice became a common flavoring for chocolate drinks and is still used by Mayan cooks today. Now when I catch that sweet, rich scent of allspice, it will not only take me back to cool Thanksgiving mornings, but also to the wilds of Belize.