"Real Belizean Food": Building Local Identity in the Transnational Caribbean

Food and cooking can be an avenue toward understanding complex issues of cultural change and transnational cultural flow. Using examples from Belize, I discuss the transformation from late colonial times to the present in terms of hierarchies of cuisine and changes in taste. In recent Belizean history, food has been used in personal and political contexts to create a sense of the nation at the same time that increased political and economic dependency has undercut national autonomy. I suggest several possible ways to conceptualize the complex and contradictory relationship between local and global culture, consumption, cuisine, foodways, Belize, colonialism