The Kalipuna Island Farm to Table Cooking Class is a two-hour, hands-on Garifuna cooking class on Kalipuna Cultural Heritage Island in Hopkins, Belize, taught by our family. You cook hudut from ingredients picked and prepared that day, then share the meal you made.
You arrive by kayak — a short, calm paddle across Fresh Water Creek Lagoon — and often the woodsmoke and coconut reach you before the island does.
We start in the herbal garden. You'll walk it with one of us, learn which plants season our food and which are used for healing, and pick the herbs that go into your own pot. For us, "farm to table" simply means the meal begins in the ground, not in a shop.
Then the cultural kitchen and the fire hearth. You'll make hudut — fish in coconut broth, with green plantain pounded in the mortar until it turns smooth. You'll husk the coconuts yourself and press the milk by hand, the way it's done in a Garifuna home. Everyone in the kitchen works, us included.
Then we sit down together at our table and eat what you made.
What you'll do
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Make hudut over an open fire hearth — the real dish, not a demonstration of it
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Pick your own herbs from the garden before you cook them
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Husk a coconut and press the milk by hand, the way it's done here
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Fish caught fresh, plantains and coconuts from the island
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Arrive by kayak across the lagoon
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Cooked and eaten with our family, at our table