Joe Post

Joe Post is the founder and editor of Belize News Post. He grew up in Corozal Town, Belize, on the Caribbean sea with a view across Corozal Bay to Cerro Maya. He has lived in Costa Rica, Kenya, England, Spain, and the United States. He grew up cooking alongside his mother and grandmother, and has personally tested the vast majority of the recipes on this site. He started BNP in the early 2000s as one of the few independent Belizean news sources online. Over the years, the food became the stickiest thing. News comes and goes. Food stays.

Jamaican rice and peas in a Dutch pot, red kidney beans through separate grains of rice
Jamaican Rice and Peas Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Rice and Peas Recipe

Jamaican rice and peas is not rice with beans stirred in. The peas are boiled first, on their own, for the better part of an hour, and the pink water they leave behind is what the rice cooks in. Coconut milk, scallion, thyme, garlic, pimento and a whole Scotch bonnet go into that same liquid, and the rice goes in last. Done right it comes out reddish and separate. Done wrong it comes out pale, sticky, and studded with hard peas. It is Sunday food. In Jamaica the dish is…
Joe Post
August 9, 2026
Jamaican pepperpot soup, a thick green callaloo soup with spinners, served in a white bowl
Jamaican Pepperpot Soup Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Pepperpot Soup Recipe

Jamaican pepperpot soup is a thick green callaloo soup, not a dark meat stew. Salted beef and smoked pigtail go in first and cook down with beef bones until the marrow gives up, then yellow yam, coco and Irish potato go in behind them. Coconut milk goes in next, and a heap of callaloo dissolves into it until the pot turns thick and green. Spinners and okra finish it. One Jamaican cook describes the result as a creamy rich warm soup, closer to a cream of broccoli than to anything…
Joe Post
August 8, 2026
Jamaican bammy, fried cassava flatbread discs
Jamaican Bammy Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Bammy Recipe

Bammy is a Jamaican cassava flatbread: grated cassava wrung dry, pressed into a disc and slow-cooked, then soaked in coconut milk and fried golden. It is one of the island's oldest foods, and the version most people meet is a bought disc that gets soaked and fried rather than made from the root. Ingredients Amounts here make four bammies. Two different jobs live in this recipe. Making bammy from cassava is one. Reviving a bammy, homemade or bought, is the other, and it is the one most kitchens actually do.…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Jamaican festival, fried cornmeal dough rolled long and golden
Jamaican Festival Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Festival Recipe

Jamaican festival is a sweet fried dough of flour and cornmeal, rolled long and thin and fried until the outside crisps and the inside stays soft. It is the standard partner to jerk chicken and escovitch fish, and the cornmeal is what separates it from an ordinary fried dumpling. Ingredients Amounts here make about 10 festivals. The proportions are forgiving. What is not optional is the cornmeal. The dough 1 1/2 cups (190 g) flour: all-purpose with baking powder, or self-raising on its own. 1/2 cup (80 g) cornmeal. 1/4…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Jamaican stew peas with red kidney beans and spinners
Jamaican Stew Peas Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Stew Peas Recipe

Jamaican stew peas is red kidney beans simmered with salted meat and coconut milk until the pot goes thick and deep red, with hand-rolled dumplings called spinners dropped in near the end. The name confuses people: red peas is what Jamaicans call red kidney beans, so stew peas is a bean stew. Ingredients Amounts here feed six. Dry peas, not canned, and salted meat that needs handling before it goes anywhere near the pot. The coconut milk is what separates this from every other bean stew in the region. The…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Jamaican escovitch fish with fried plantains and vegetables over rice
Jamaican Escovitch Fish Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Escovitch Fish Recipe

Jamaican escovitch fish is whole snapper fried crisp, then buried under hot pickled vegetables: onion, carrot, sweet pepper, and Scotch bonnet cooked briefly in vinegar with pimento. The vinegar does two jobs. It seasons the fish and it preserves it, which is why the dish tastes better the longer it sits. Ingredients Two halves: a fried whole fish and a vinegar pickle made separately, brought together at the last second while the pickle is still hot. For the fish 2 whole snapper, about 1 lb (450 g) each: red, yellowtail,…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Bowl of Haitian labouyi bannann, a creamy green plantain porridge dusted with cinnamon and topped with a cinnamon stick and star anise, served with bread and evaporated milk
Haitian Labouyi Bannann Recipe BreakfastHaiti

Haitian Labouyi Bannann Recipe

Labouyi bannann is a Haitian breakfast porridge made from green, unripe plantains blended smooth with milk and warm spices. Green plantains carry more starch and less sugar than ripe ones, which is why they cook like a staple rather than a fruit. Haitian cooks translate the name simply as plantain porridge. Cinnamon, nutmeg, and a little vanilla give the bowl its warmth, and cooks finish it with a bit of citrus zest before serving. Ingredients Two home-cook methods make labouyi bannann, and they agree on the base but differ on…
Joe Post
August 4, 2026
Jamaican brown stew chicken in gravy with rice and peas
Jamaican Brown Stew Chicken Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Brown Stew Chicken Recipe

Jamaican brown stew chicken is bone-in chicken washed with citrus, seasoned overnight, browned hard, then simmered down into a thick dark gravy. It is Sunday food in Jamaica and one of the island's staple dishes. The color is the whole point, and Jamaican cooks disagree about how to get it. Ingredients Amounts here are a worked starting point for 3 lb (1.4 kg) of chicken, feeding four to six. Dark meat on the bone is the starting point. The cooks this recipe follows are blunt about why: the seasoning should…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Platter of golden Haitian marinad fritters, one broken open to show shrimp and parsley in the batter, with a scotch bonnet pepper, scallions and a frying pan in the background
Haitian Marinad Recipe HaitiSnacks

Haitian Marinad Recipe

Haitian marinad is a savory fritter: a seasoned batter of flour and water, lifted with baking powder, mixed with a homemade epis base, scotch bonnet heat, and shrimp or salted cod, then fried until golden. Vendors sell marinad as a popular Haitian street food, and many cooks also make it at home for cleaner ingredients and better hygiene. Ingredients Marinad comes together from a handful of everyday pantry staples and an aromatic epis base. The protein is yours to choose. Native and alternate names come first, with common alternatives in…
Joe Post
August 4, 2026
Homemade Jamaican beef patties with golden turmeric crust
Jamaican Beef Patty Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Beef Patty Recipe

A Jamaican beef patty is a folded pastry with a yellow, laminated crust and a finely minced, well-seasoned beef filling. The crust is the harder half of the job. It gets its layers the way puff pastry does, from cold fat folded through the dough, and its color from turmeric or curry powder worked into the flour. Ingredients Amounts here make 12 patties. Two components, made separately and both cooled before they meet. Warm filling in cold dough ruins the crust, so the filling is made first and left to…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Pile of raw malanga root, the grated base ingredient for Haitian akra fritters
Haitian Akra Recipe HaitiSnacks

Haitian Akra Recipe

Haitian akra is a fritter of grated malanga root mixed with garlic, onion, parsley, and scotch bonnet pepper, then deep-fried until golden brown. It belongs to the family of malanga fritters Haitians call accra. Home cooks shape the batter into the dish's traditional long shape before frying. Some versions add cassava and flour; others keep the batter to malanga alone. Ingredients Akra starts with one root vegetable, grated fine, and a handful of seasonings that go straight into the same bowl. Two real variants exist among home cooks, and both…
Joe Post
August 4, 2026
Jamaican oxtail stewed with butter beans
Jamaican Oxtail Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Oxtail Recipe

Jamaican oxtail is a long-braised stew of beef tail cooked until the meat slides off the bone, finished with butter beans in a thick brown gravy. It takes two to four hours depending on the method, and there is no version of it that goes faster. The cut is the reason: oxtail is tough and full of gelatin, and only time turns that into gravy. Ingredients Two things separate Jamaican oxtail from a generic beef stew: the meat gets washed with citrus and vinegar before it is seasoned, and the…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Jamaican ackee and saltfish served with fried dumplings
Jamaican Ackee and Saltfish Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Ackee and Saltfish Recipe

Ackee and saltfish is Jamaica's national dish: salted cod boiled free of its salt, then folded through cooked ackee with onion, scallion, thyme, and Scotch bonnet. The ackee cooks down soft and yellow and reads like scrambled eggs on the plate, though it is a fruit. It is a breakfast dish as often as a dinner one. Ingredients Two ingredients carry this dish and both need handling before they meet. The saltfish has to be boiled out, and the ackee has to be cooked without being stirred to pieces. Everything…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Purple eggplants, cabbage, tomatoes, and greens at a Caribbean produce market, ingredients used in Haitian legim
Haitian Legim Recipe DinnerHaiti

Haitian Legim Recipe

Haitian legim is a vegetable stew that layers meat with chayote, eggplant, green papaya, and cabbage over a homemade epis base, mashed until creamy and finished with butter. It is the dish Haitians mean by légume, a thick mashed vegetable stew served over rice. Haitian cooks call it a beloved Sunday classic, one of the dishes that intimidates first-time cooks the most. Ingredients Legim comes together from a base of meat and a set of hard vegetables the cook steams and mashes. Add an epis and a short list of…
Joe Post
August 4, 2026
Jamaican jerk chicken chopped and served with rice
Jamaican Jerk Chicken Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Jerk Chicken Recipe

Jamaican jerk chicken is chicken marinated in a wet paste of Scotch bonnet, pimento, scallion, and thyme, then smoked slowly over pimento wood until the skin turns dark. Jerk is a cooking method before it is a flavor. The seasoning does half the work and the pimento smoke does the other half. Ingredients Jerk is built in two layers, a wet marinade blended to a paste and a dry seasoning, and cooks differ on which goes on first. The Jamaican cooks this recipe follows treat the wood as an ingredient…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Jamaican coco bread, soft folded coconut milk buns
Jamaican Coco Bread Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Coco Bread Recipe

Coco bread is a soft, slightly sweet Jamaican bread made with coconut milk, rolled flat, brushed with butter and folded into a half-moon before baking. The fold is the point: it bakes into two layers you can pull apart, which is what turns it into a pocket for a beef patty. Ingredients Amounts here make 8 breads. Coconut milk is the one ingredient that is not negotiable, because it is what the bread is named for. The dough 1 cup (240 ml) coconut milk, warmed. 3 cups (375 g) all-purpose…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Homemade Haitian epis in a mason jar with green bell pepper, onion and garlic, the base for diri ak djon djon
Haitian Diri ak Djon Djon Recipe DinnerHaiti

Haitian Diri ak Djon Djon Recipe

Diri ak djon djon is a Haitian black rice: jasmine rice cooked in the dark liquid of djon djon mushrooms over a homemade epis base with peas and butter. The mushrooms turn the rice deep black and give it its signature flavor. Haitians call it, simply, everybody's favorite rice. Ingredients Diri ak djon djon comes together in stages: a homemade epis base, a mushroom liquid that turns the rice black, and legumes that go in before the rice itself. Native names come first, with common alternatives in parentheses. For the…
Joe Post
August 4, 2026
Jamaican jerk pork, chopped and dark from the fire
Jamaican Jerk Pork Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Jerk Pork Recipe

Jerk pork is where jerk started. Pork shoulder or leg is washed with citrus, packed with a wet pimento seasoning worked into cuts in the meat, left overnight, then cooked slowly until the bone pulls free. Most Jamaican cooks outside the island now do it in an oven, and they are not apologising for it. Ingredients Amounts here are a worked starting point for 4 lb (1.8 kg) of pork, feeding six to eight. Pimento is the ingredient the cooks call the main one, so do not treat it as…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Jamaican fried dumplings with ackee and saltfish, callaloo and yam
Jamaican Fried Dumplings Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Fried Dumplings Recipe

Jamaican fried dumplings are a plain flour dough, rubbed with butter, rested, rolled into rounds and fried until golden and hollow-light inside. They are the breakfast bread of Jamaica, and they are not festival: no cornmeal, no sweetness to speak of, and round rather than long. Ingredients Amounts here make about 10 dumplings. The list is short enough that technique carries the whole recipe. The dough 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour. 2 tsp baking powder. 1/2 tsp salt, sea salt if you have it. 1 tsp sugar, optional and…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Haitian griot, fried pork cubes served with fried plantains and pikliz slaw
Haitian Griot Recipe DinnerHaiti

Haitian Griot Recipe

Haitian griot is fried pork: cubed pork shoulder marinated in citrus and seasoning, boiled until tender, then fried until deep brown. Haitians pair it with pikliz, a spicy pickled slaw, and bannann peze, fried pressed plantains. It's a popular street food and a fixture of everyday Haitian cooking. Ingredients Griot comes together in three stages: a citrus wash, a seasoning marinade built on a homemade epis, and a two-part cook, boiled first, then fried. The wash strips the raw taste from the pork, and the marinade carries the flavor. Native…
Joe Post
August 4, 2026
Jamaican roti served with curry goat
Jamaican Roti Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Roti Recipe

Jamaican roti is flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and fat, cooked on a dry hot pan in about three minutes. The ingredient list is unremarkable and that is the point: the cooks say outright that it is technique, not ingredients, that makes a roti a roti. The technique is the layering. Ingredients Amounts here make 6 roti. Nothing on this list is unusual, which is why the method section matters more than it normally would. The dough 3 cups (375 g) all-purpose flour. 2 tsp baking powder. 1 tsp salt.…
Joe Post
August 7, 2026
Jamaican gizzada, open coconut tarts with pinched pastry rims
Jamaican Gizzada Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Gizzada Recipe

Gizzada is an open coconut tart with a pinched pastry wall, filled with freshly grated coconut cooked down in dark brown sugar and spice. Jamaicans also call it pinch mi side, after the pinching that builds the rim. The filling should stay juicy and the crust should snap. Ingredients Amounts here make 12 gizzadas. The coconut has to be fresh, and that is the one part of this recipe with no workaround. The coconut filling 2 cups (170 g) freshly grated dry coconut, from one medium coconut. 1 cup (200…
Joe Post
August 8, 2026
Haitian soup joumou, a golden squash soup with beef, root vegetables, and pasta
Haitian Soup Joumou Recipe DinnerHaiti

Haitian Soup Joumou Recipe

Soup joumou is a Haitian squash soup of pureed pumpkin or butternut, beef, root vegetables and pasta in a rich golden broth seasoned with epis. Haitians eat it every January 1st to mark Independence Day, and it stands as a national symbol of their freedom. Ingredients Soup joumou comes together in layers: a seasoned meat and broth base, a pureed squash body, and a set of hard vegetables and pasta that go in last. The list below gives traditional names first, with common alternatives in parentheses. For the meat and…
Joe Post
August 4, 2026
Jamaican toto, dense spiced coconut cake
Jamaican Toto Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Toto Recipe

Toto is a Jamaican coconut cake, and it is supposed to be heavy. Not a light sponge: a dense, moist, spiced cake where the coconut flakes stand right out. Jamaican cooks bake it on a Sunday evening, often from the coconut left over after making coconut milk for the rice and peas. Ingredients Amounts here make one cake of about 12 slices, in a rectangular pan, a round tin, or a cast iron skillet. The coconut 2 cups (170 g) grated coconut or coconut flakes, including the coconut trash left…
Joe Post
August 8, 2026
Fine cornmeal, the base of Jamaican cornmeal porridge
Jamaican Cornmeal Porridge Recipe Jamaica

Jamaican Cornmeal Porridge Recipe

Jamaican cornmeal porridge is fine cornmeal cooked slowly into spiced, sweetened milk until the grains go soft. It is a Saturday morning staple and the breakfast children are sent to school on, because it holds you for hours. Two things decide whether it comes out right: how you add the cornmeal, and how long you let it cook. Ingredients Amounts here serve four. Use the fine grind for porridge; the medium grind is for cornmeal as a meal, and an experienced cook keeps both. The base 1 cup (160 g)…
Joe Post
August 8, 2026