Snacks

One day I was craving a snack, but nothing in my pantry seemed to satisfy me.  I sat down at the kitchen table with a glass of water, racking my brain, trying to figure out what I wanted.  And then it came to me.

Kasham.

Probably the most dangerous thing you could eat as a kid. This fine, gritty powder could literally choke you if you took too big a mouthful.  As kids, that didn’t stop us from eating it, though. During recess it wasn’t unusual to see a kid run into the corner store and ask for “tree cents kasham.” The shop owner would twist butcher paper into a cone and pour the kasham in. You would then stroll back onto the playground, and play big, giving only your best friends a taste.

This reminded me of another favorite snack as a kid.

Ideal and sno-cones.

Whenever I see kids these days slurping on a Starbucks Frappuccino or some other trendy drink of the day, I smile and shake my head sadly. They’ve never experienced the sheer joy of sno-cones on a hot, dusty Belizean day. Never strolled home with a friend, sharing an ideal after a long, hard day at school.  If you were lucky and had enough money, you would buy the special kind, the one made with milk!

Calling All Belizeans:  what was your favorite snack as a kid?  Comment below.

Red Bells

Growing up in Belize, we had a hibiscus hedge in front of the house.  Actually, almost every house on the street had one of these out front. Back then, I didn’t know ‘hibiscus’ was the proper name for the flower, everyone just called it ‘red bell.’  As kids, we used to tear off the red petals and stick the yellow part (the stamen) on each other’s faces.  At the end of the day we’d have yellow dust all over our faces – and clothes – and our parents would take us to task.

I can still picture my grandmother, one hand on her hip, head held sideways at a disapproving angle, eyeing me up and down. “You been rolling around in the dirt, or what?”

When we moved to the U.S., I was shocked to realize that red bells – excuse me, hibiscus flowers, came in different colors. There was a pale yellow that seemed washed out and unnatural, and a pale pink that was just seemed like a poor copy of the original red. Then there were the psychedelic ones that started out red in the middle, then faded to light purple at the edges. Blasphemy!

Calling all Belizeans: what’s your earliest memory of red bells? Comment below.