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.

Salvadoran pupusas on a griddle
El Salvador Food: A Guide to What to Eat Editorial

El Salvador Food: A Guide to What to Eat

Short answer: Salvadoran food runs on the griddle and the masa. The pupusa is the national dish and the place to start, but the table is wider: fried yuca, stewed-chicken sandwiches, flat fried enchiladas, sweet cheese breads, and the morro-seed horchata that is nothing like the Mexican one. Two things turn up with almost everything, curtido and salsa, so make them once and keep them on hand. The indigenous roots here are Pipil (Nawat-speaking), not Maya, and it shows in the corn-and-comal heart of the cooking. El Salvador is the…
Joe Post
June 15, 2026
Temple I rising over the Gran Plaza at Tikal, Guatemala
The Maya World: Food and Travel Across the Region Editorial

The Maya World: Food and Travel Across the Region

Short answer: The Maya world is one cultural region spread across five countries: Belize, Mexico's Yucatán, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. The borders are modern; the food, the corn, the recados, and the coast are older and shared. Belize is our home base, but the kitchen does not stop at the line on the map. This is the guide to eating and traveling across the whole region, country by country. We started as a Belizean food site, and Belize is still the heart of it. But the more you cook…
Joe Post
June 15, 2026
Yucatecan cochinita pibil, achiote pork
Yucatán Food: A Guide to the Maya Kitchen of Mexico Editorial

Yucatán Food: A Guide to the Maya Kitchen of Mexico

Short answer: Yucatecan food is the Maya kitchen of southern Mexico, and it is the same tradition as northern Belize. This is where so much of the food we cook comes from: panuchos, salbutes, cochinita pibil, the recados, the achiote, the sour orange. If you have eaten in Corozal, you have eaten Yucatán. The corner of Mexico that matters most to us is the Maya world of the Yucatán Peninsula, and the dishes run straight across the border. We cover a lot of this food already, because it is our…
Joe Post
June 15, 2026
A spread of Guatemalan typical food
Guatemalan Food: A Guide to What to Eat Editorial

Guatemalan Food: A Guide to What to Eat

Short answer: Guatemalan food is built on the Maya recado, the dry-roasted, ground sauce that carries the meat. The three to know are the recado trio: pepián (Guatemala's national dish), kak'ik (the Q'eqchi' Maya turkey soup), and jocón (the green one). Around them sits a world of corn, tamales of every kind, and plantain sweets. For a Belizean, this food is family: the recado craft is the one we share across the border, the same one behind our own red and black recados. Guatemala is our western neighbor and our…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Traditional Guatemalan breakfast plate with frijoles volteados, fried eggs, plantains, tortillas, and crema - San Juan la Laguna, Guatemala
Frijoles Volteados Breakfast

Frijoles Volteados

Frijoles volteados are Guatemalan black beans that are cooked, blended smooth, then fried in lard or oil and folded continuously until thick enough to shape into a dense oblong log. The name means ‘flipped beans.’ They anchor the desayuno chapín — Guatemala’s traditional breakfast — served sliced alongside eggs, fried plantains, crema, queso seco, and tortillas. Why frijoles volteados are on every Guatemalan breakfast table The desayuno chapín is Guatemala’s morning institution, and frijoles volteados are its protein foundation. Chapín is the colloquial demonym for Guatemalans. The breakfast is named…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Hudut, a Garifuna coconut fish stew with pounded plantain
Hudut vs Sere vs Tapou vs Tapado: Garifuna Dishes Explained Editorial

Hudut vs Sere vs Tapou vs Tapado: Garifuna Dishes Explained

Hudut, tapou, sere, tapado, bundiga. People mix these up constantly, and it is easy to see why: they share the same three Garifuna staples, plantain or green banana, coconut, and fish, and several of them look alike in the bowl. But they are not the same dish, and the difference usually comes down to one thing: how the starch is handled and whether everything cooks together or stays apart. Here is the whole family, sorted out, with a link to each full recipe. The Garifuna coconut dishes at a glance…
Joe Post
June 10, 2026
Pollo chuco, Honduran fried chicken over plantain tajadas with slaw and sauces
Pollo Chuco Dinner

Pollo Chuco

Short answer: Pollo chuco is Honduras's signature messy street plate: crispy fried chicken piled over a bed of fried green-banana tajadas, buried under tangy cabbage slaw, fresh chismol, pickled red onions, and a stripe of ketchup-and-pink-sauce. The name means dirty chicken in San Pedro Sula slang, and the mess is the whole point. It is a full composed plate, not a snack — no tortilla anywhere on it. Honduras's tortilla snacks are easy to mix up. Here is how catracha, baleada, enchilada, and tustaca differ. The plate is built in…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Fried plantain tajadas, a fixture of the Honduran plato típico
Plato Típico Hondureño Dinner

Plato Típico Hondureño

The plato típico hondureño is not one recipe: it is the whole table on a single plate. At the center sits carne asada: skirt steak marinated overnight in naranja agria (bitter sour orange), cumin, garlic, and oil, then grilled hard over open flame. Around it: refried red beans, white rice, fried green plantain tajadas, a spoonful of chimol (fresh tomato-onion relish), crumbled queso fresco, a drizzle of Honduran mantequilla cream, and slices of avocado. Warm corn tortillas come on the side to pull it all together, bite by bite. Independence…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Aerial view of the Great Blue Hole on the Belize Barrier Reef
Belize Travel Guide Editorial

Belize Travel Guide

Short answer: Belize is small, English-speaking, and easier to travel than most of Central America, but it does not work the way a resort does. Most visitors come for the cayes and the reef, the jungle and the Maya sites, or both. Getting around means a mix of small planes, water taxis, and buses. This guide is the map: how to get here from Mexico or by air, how to move between the mainland and the islands, how to reach the Maya world across the Guatemalan border, when to come,…
Joe Post
June 15, 2026
A plate of corn-tortilla tacos with lime, salsa, and onion
Belize Street Food: A Guide to What to Eat and Where Editorial

Belize Street Food: A Guide to What to Eat and Where

Short answer: The best food in Belize is rarely in a restaurant. It is on a cart at the corner, in a market stall, on a fold-out table outside a house at night. Start with the Belizean street-food trio: salbutes, garnaches, and panades. Eat fry jacks for breakfast, tacos in Orange Walk after dark, and barbecue in Cayo on the weekend. Look for conch and ceviche on the coast. Eat where the line of locals is longest. It is cheap, it is fresh, and it is the real thing. I…
Joe Post
June 5, 2026
A small single-engine propeller plane in flight
Flying Within Belize: The Cayes, Flights vs. Ferries, and the Best Route Editorial

Flying Within Belize: The Cayes, Flights vs. Ferries, and the Best Route

Short answer: To get from Belize City to the islands you either fly or take a water taxi. The flight to San Pedro or Caye Caulker is about fifteen to twenty minutes on a small plane, on Tropic Air or Maya Island Air. The water taxi, run by San Pedro Belize Express or Caribbean Sprinter, is forty-five minutes to Caye Caulker, about ninety to San Pedro, and costs a fraction of the airfare. Fly if your time is tight or your international flight lands late, because the last boats leave…
Joe Post
June 5, 2026
Bowl of Honduran sopa de frijoles, a dark savory red bean soup
Sopa de Frijoles Dinner

Sopa de Frijoles

Sopa de frijoles is the everyday bean soup of Honduras: small red silk beans simmered whole with pork ribs, garlic, onion, and bell pepper until the broth turns deep and savory. Near the end, a ladleful of cooked beans goes into the blender, then back into the pot. That is the move that makes the broth creamy without cream. Each bowl is finished with ripe plantain, a soft-poached egg, and a spoon of crema, served with warm corn tortillas and queso fresco. Dried red beans and grains at a Copán…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Honduran nacatamal wrapped in banana leaf and aluminum foil, ready to steam
Nacatamales Dinner

Nacatamales

A nacatamal is a large Honduran tamale of nixtamal corn masa enriched with broth, lard, and achiote, filled with marinated pork or chicken, rice, potato, mint, and vegetables, then wrapped in banana leaf and steamed. Honduran nacatamales are Sunday morning and holiday food, heartier than a Mexican tamal and closely shared with Nicaragua. Why Hondurans Make Nacatamales for Christmas, Not Tuesdays A nacatamal is not weeknight food. It is a whole day, sometimes two, and it is rarely one person’s job. In Honduras the big batches come out at Noche…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Garifuna pounded plantain with coconut seafood soup (machuca/hudut)
Machuca (Honduran Garifuna Pounded Plantain with Coconut Seafood Soup) Dinner

Machuca (Honduran Garifuna Pounded Plantain with Coconut Seafood Soup)

Short answer: Machuca is the Garifuna dish of pounded plantain served with coconut seafood soup — two separate things, eaten together. You pull a piece of the dense plantain mash and dip it into the broth. What Garifuna communities in Belize call hudut, the Garifuna of Honduras call machuca. Same people, same coast, two names for the same inheritance. The Spanish word machuca comes from machucar, to pound or crush: the pounding is the whole point. A coastal kitchen in Tela, Garífuna heartland, where machuca is pounded by hand. The…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Boxboles — Q'eqchi' Maya corn masa rolls with chipilín, served with toasted pepita sauce and crumbled white cheese
Boxboles Snacks

Boxboles

Boxboles are a Maya highland masa roll from Guatemala — corn masa kneaded with chipilín herb, wrapped in squash or chayote leaves, steamed, sliced crosswise, and served with a warm toasted pepita and tomato sauce. The dish belongs to the Achi Maya of Baja Verapaz and the Ixil Maya of the Ixil Triangle, with related versions found across the Guatemalan highlands wherever squash grows and chipilín grows alongside it. What makes boxboles different from Guatemalan tamales? I came across boxboles not in a restaurant but in a market. Wednesday, early,…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Steaming cup of ponche guatemalteco — hot Guatemalan Christmas fruit punch with cinnamon sticks and dried fruits
Ponche Guatemalteco Beverage

Ponche Guatemalteco

Ponche guatemalteco is Guatemala's traditional hot Christmas fruit punch — a spiced brew of dried and fresh fruit, panela, cinnamon sticks, and cloves simmered until fragrant and served steaming at Posadas and Noche Buena. The rum-spiked version is the adult holiday indulgence. Why Guatemalans simmer ponche on Christmas Eve The smell of ponche guatemalteco is the smell of December in Guatemala. A large pot goes on the stove, dried fruits and pineapple rind drop in, cinnamon sticks and cloves follow, and the kitchen smells like the holiday before anyone has…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Corn-and-cheese rosquillas, some filled with rapadura, the Central American baked ring
Rosquillas Hondureñas Dessert

Rosquillas Hondureñas

Rosquillas hondureñas are small baked rings of corn masa mixed with dry, salty cheese, shaped by hand, baked until crisp, and eaten with black coffee. They are the definitive snack of southern Honduras, made year-round but reaching their peak during Semana Santa, when families in Sabanagrande bake them by the hundred in clay ovens fired with ocote pine. What Makes Rosquillas Hondureñas Different from Nicaraguan and Spanish Rosquillas? The first time I bought rosquillas on the highway south of Tegucigalpa, a woman at a roadside stand near Sabanagrande had a…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Fried tortilla cups filled with pickled beet curtido, a Guatemalan antojito
Guatemalan Fried-Tortilla Snacks: Garnachas vs Tostadas vs Enchiladas Editorial

Guatemalan Fried-Tortilla Snacks: Garnachas vs Tostadas vs Enchiladas

Garnachas, tostadas, and enchiladas guatemaltecas all start from the same humble base: a fried corn tortilla. That is exactly why they get confused. Order one expecting another and you will be surprised. But each of the three carries a single feature the others do not, and once you can name that feature you will never mix them up again. The deciding signal is almost always the pickled-vegetable layer on top. This is the short guide to the three Guatemalan fried-tortilla snacks: what sits on each one, how big the tortilla…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Torrijas de Semana Santa, egg-dipped sweet bread fried and soaked in cinnamon syrup, the Holy Week tradition that shares its technique with molletes guatemaltecos
Molletes Guatemaltecos Dessert

Molletes Guatemaltecos

Molletes guatemaltecos are sweet bread rolls split, filled with manjar custard, dipped in whipped egg batter, fried golden, then steeped in warm panela-cinnamon syrup. They appear on the Guatemalan table twice a year: on the Day of the Dead (Día de Todos los Santos, November 1), where they sit alongside fiambre in cemetery ofrenda spreads, and during Semana Santa (Holy Week). They are not related to Mexican molletes, which are savory open-faced sandwiches. This is a Ladino colonial sweet — the mestizo, Spanish-influenced tradition — with no Maya antecedent. What…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Honduran semitas, jam-layered lattice-topped sweet bakery pastry
Semita Hondureña Bread

Semita Hondureña

The Honduran semita is a yeasted sweet bread, egg-yolk enriched, topped with a cookie-paste disk that bakes into a crisp sugar crust over a soft, pillowy interior. Sold in every Honduran panadería and pulpería, it is the bread Hondurans reach for with morning coffee and afternoon fresco — not a jam pastry, which is what the Salvadoran version is. Getting that distinction right is the whole story. The definitive Honduran semita is the semita de yema: a round, egg-yolk-enriched yeasted roll topped with a thin disk of cookie dough that…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Vendors at Chichicastenango market in Guatemala, with traditional food items on display
Champurradas Dessert

Champurradas

This champurradas recipe makes the large, flat, crisp round cookies found in every Guatemalan panadería — roughly saucer-sized discs, four to five inches across, built from wheat flour and masa harina creamed with butter and sugar, pressed thick with sesame seeds on top and throughout the dough. A colonial-era pan dulce staple, champurradas are dunked in morning coffee or the afternoon café de las tres. They are not to be confused with champurrado, the Mexican chocolate-corn drink. Why Guatemalans dunk their cookies — the pan dulce tradition behind champurradas In…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Honduran carne asada thin marinated beef grilling over charcoal
Carne Asada Hondureña Dinner

Carne Asada Hondureña

Carne asada hondureña is thin beef marinated in sour orange, garlic, and cumin, then grilled over wood or charcoal. In Honduras it is served as a full plate alongside chismol, fried green plantain tajadas, refried beans, grilled spring onion, avocado, and tortillas. Threaded onto skewers, the same marinated beef becomes pinchos. You smell it before you see it. Drive any highway in Honduras on a Saturday afternoon and somewhere off the shoulder there is smoke, a steel drum split into a grill, and thin steaks turning over wood coals. The…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026
Tortillas topped with Honduran quesillo cheese and tomato sauce
Quesillo Hondureño Snacks

Quesillo Hondureño

Quesillo Hondureño is a soft, mildly salty, stretched-curd melting cheese made from whole cow's milk. It is the cheese that goes inside a baleada, that melts into an anafre, and that gets folded between two hot corn tortillas for the snack Hondurans simply call tortillas con quesillo. It is not the same as Nicaraguan quesillo, a corn-tortilla street snack wrapped around soft cheese and pickled onions, or Venezuelan quesillo, which is a caramel flan. Same word, three foods that have nothing to do with each other. Why Quesillo Hondureño Is…
Joe Post
June 11, 2026