*Quote from a Busby-Berkeley-style set piece in Ice Age
Bill was close friends with Ev Woodward, a prince of a fellow who owned a rustic lodge just outside Mount Rainier National Park where Bill was Chief Naturalist. Ev, a master canoeist, occasionally led canoe trips to remote and difficult places, such as from Great Slave Lake in Canada down the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean. Ev’s mantra: “You can’t control the weather. You can’t control the conditions. But you can control the food.” Regardless of rain or sleet or dark of night, people on his treks always ate like kings, the whole way.
I have adopted that mantra. And we ate like queens in Belize. I am not what the CDC euphemistically calls “an adventurous eater.” Neither is my sister. But we do savour good food, and there was nothing served about which you’d say, “never again,” not anywhere.
I got into a discussion with a vegetarian (this is normal) and argued that chickens and pigs are good sustainable sources of protein. They turn garbage and kitchen waste into nourishing food. The citizens of Belize would agree. Especially chickens. Beef is fairly expensive to raise and forms a small part of restaurant menus. Everybody keeps chickens. I saw several farm ponds with ducks and one with a crocodile.
On several of our excursions, lunch was part of the tour. Always it was rice, an ample serving of chicken in a delicious sauce, and a side, with your beverage of choice. Our guides insisted this was the traditional noonday meal. The ambiance was simple, even rustic—often open-air—but that simply enhanced field trips.
There are lots of tourists in Belize and lots of restaurants to serve them. One of the niftiest will send a club car out to your resort to get you and take you back. The cart takes you between two houses, back a curving alleyway, and dumps you next to a little rock house that is the restaurant’s restroom. You walk a picturesque trail out onto the beach, lights strung from the palm trees. You sit on the beach with your feet in the sand as they serve magnificent seafood and delightful drinks. And most of the restaurants on Ambergris Cay are like that.
Most of the time we ate at the resort’s restaurant because it was easiest to access and the food is excellent. In fact, my sister, who is far more the gourmet than am I, asked for the chef, that we might complement him highly. It was a personable and knowledgeable young woman.
She will go far.