Three Coasts

I’m back from my honeymoon. Having spent two weeks in Belize and Costa Rica, I will be centering my next few posts on my experiences there. My first observation is on the food. I’ve been to Belize before and absolutely adore the cuisine even though some travel books disparage it. It’s a very interesting mix of Mayan, Mexican, and Caribbean flavors and cooking techniques. Add in fresh fish and seafood, and one can have something prepared literally ten different ways: blackened with Mayan spices, baked in a banana leaf, deep-fried, etc. My favorite dish was at a Mexican restaurant called Caliente! in Amberbris Caye. They served red snapper in coconut milk with bananas. The subtle flavors of the snapper matched perfectly with the coconut and the sweetness of bananas.

My wife was on a conch kick. For those who don’t know, conch is mollusk that lives in the shell that the boys used to call meetings in Lord of the Flies. Dishes such as conch fritters and conch chowder are staples of south Florida cuisine. I’ve never had conch as a main course because I always found it tough and chewy. But it was conch season in Belize, and the meat was tender and delicious, similar to calamari. Our favorite dish was conch breaded and sautéed in white wine at a beautiful restaurant called Capricorn, north of San Pedro.

Then there’s the stewed chicken. It’s a Belizean staple, like a burger and fries here in the states. Quarter chicken, dark meat, stewed in spices and served with rice and beans was a common lunch for me, smothered in Marie Sharp’s—a habanero hot sauce made with carrots that is the Heinz 57 of Belize. It’s on every table and went on every meal.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the same accolades for Costa Rica’s cuisine. It was very simple and lacked a lot of the interesting techniques and flavors of Belize. For example, although bananas are prevalent in Costa Rica, I never saw dishes using banana leaves to steam things in. It’s an excellent way to ensure meats and vegetables are moist and succulent, and it is used around the world. Yet I never saw it on a Costa Rican menu (not that it wasn’t there; I just don’t remember seeing it). This lack of creativity was probably the major hindrance to their cuisine because they have very fresh meat, fruits, and vegetables. Beef, tuna, sea bass, snapper, and mahi mahi were always fresh, but their preparations were either very basic, or they wholly incorporated another culture’s technique, such as serving tuna sashimi or teriyaki. The other oddity was the prevalence of Italian dishes on menus. Entire pages were devoted to pasta dishes on otherwise traditionally Costa Rican menus. And pizza joints were everywhere, even on top of mountains.

This is not to say I didn’t have great meals in Costa Rica. My favorites were casados, home-style plates of a protein, rice and beans, fried plaintains, yucca, and slices of avocados and tomatoes. Great, simple stuff. And dirt cheap! My wife and I had two plates and two diet Cokes for ten bucks, tax and tip. Now that’s budget traveling that beats a burger and fries at Denny’s (yes, senor Denny is alive and well in Costa Rica).