Tonight's we'll take you back to the south - but not to any fancy tourist destination, but to Sabal's Cassava Farm at mile 3 on the Hummingbird Highway just outside Dangriga. It's a family owned enterprise that does a lot more than put crops in the ground.
The farm's premier product - the cassava - is an essential part of Garifuna culinary culture, and the Sabals take it from the root, to the dinner table.
And, they open that process to visitors who can tour the farm and observe the processing of the root vegetable, and the actual making of cassava bread. Our news team visited the farm over the weekend and found that intersection between farming, food and culture.
Sabal's farm is located just outside of the Garifuna Culture capital of Dangriga. Sabal's is the only commercial farm in Belize that produces cassava bread made from the cassava tuber. A tour makes it abundantly clear that Sabal's is more than just a farm: it is an immersive cultural culinary experience.
At Sabal's farm a variety of different products are made from the Cassava tuber.
The Cassava tuber is a root crop that takes 9 months to fully mature for the purpose of making bread.
Cassava is what is called a striving crop said to have originated in Africa. It is widely eaten in various forms throughout the world but only the Garinagu make it into Cassava bread. Cyril Sabal told us that Cassava is a vital part of the Garifuna way of life.
Cyril Sabal, Entrepreneur, Sabal's Farm
"Cassava and eriba or his farm has been existing even before me. So it's like from my father and mother but the Cassava bread as a business well as processing up to this point is from 1985 by this family."
"Cassava bread is what I would say my mother. That's the way of life that is Garifuna food."
"We being farmers on this farm would make our own bread. The excess we take to the market to the market to Dangriga and the demand grew higher and higher and then we came up with the product as it grew to a business."
We experienced the full processing of the eriba from scratch down through the end product, but what we got at the end, starts at 6 in the morning. Farmers go to fields and uproot the tuber which can weigh up to 1,000 pounds.
The Cassava is then brought into a shed, peeled, washed, grated, dried, drained, then sieved and baked.
Watching the baking of the bread with its grains jumping and coalescing above the heat of the comal is almost mesmerizing.
We observed how the process of baking done on the comal harkens back to long held traditions of the Garingu people.
These recipes, cultural elements, are passed down through generations for a culinary continuity and community, because preparing this unique cultural dish, requires teamwork and soul, integral elements of the Garifuna culture.
Sabal's food products can be bought in grocery stores all over the country.
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