Tacos for Breakfast is Culture, But Prices Have Increased
Tacos have been a Belizean staple in every city, town, and village over the last three decades. Many vendors have raised their families by making and selling tacos. They have also become favourites of their customers over those years because of the unique taste of their tacos. While many vendors will remain in demand because of the flavor in their tacos, across the board the reality they will have to face is raising their prices – or serving fewer tacos for the same price. News Five’s Marion Ali visited today with a tacos vendor and filed this report as this week’s edition of Kolcha Tuesday.
Marion Ali, Reporting
Tacos in Belize, as everyone knows, may have started out as an Orange Walk alternative to a homemade breakfast. But the idea of tacos has become such a staple among Belizeans over the decades that vendors are now a familiar and a prominent sight in every district. Served with chicken, pork or even beef, the meat is rolled in either corn or flour tortillas with your choice of onion or cabbage mixed with cilantro and sometimes diced tomatoes and pepper sauce to your liking.
Estelita Baeza
Estelita Baeza, Tacos Vendor
“Depends how they want it, we do it. You want cabbage, we give you cabbage. You want onion, you want mix, you want pepper, without pepper, however you ask for it, they will serve it. They roll the tacos. I help too, but sometimes I don’t because I have to collect.”
Estelita Baeza learned how to make tacos as a child. It was ingrained in her. She is from Orange Walk and comes from a family of tacos vendors. Now, she too has her own business, but she has brought that tradition to Belize City. For the past seven years, even through COVID, from six-thirty to ten o’clock each morning, from Sunday to Sunday, Baeza is at this location near Channel Five on Coney Drive, selling her chicken and pork tacos.
Estelita Baeza
“Every morning, I prepare in Orange Walk because I live in Orange Walk. They prepare it for me over there, and every morning, 4:30 in the morning, I have to grab a bus and come here to Belize City.”
Preparing tacos requires a special process that some people don’t consider. And that also includes the method of cooking the meat and everything in between.
Estelita Baeza
“We have to cut it up, take out all the things that are the chicken, and wash it good with vinegar and lime, and then put it on the fire, in boiling water, recado and the seasonings weh ih ker, the fire and everything. Then after that, you take it out, you mince it up, and then you put it back on the fire hearth with all the gravy and everything. And then you boil it again on the fire hearth.”
Marion Ali
“That takes how long?”
Estelita Baeza
“Maybe half a day.”
Marion Ali
“Wow, that’s a long process!”
Estelita Baeza
“Yes, it’s a long process. Sometimes you could use any firewood, but me, especially, I use the tinder, and that is very expensive.”
The pork takes even longer to cook, but is easier to mince because the bones are bigger. After the meat is prepared, it’s time for the sides.
Estelita Baeza
“You prepare your vegetables and everything fresh, onions, cabbage, pepper, and tomato sauce.”
Marion Ali
“Cilantro?”
Estelita Baeza
“Cilantro if I could afford it because everything is expensive right now. Some people use carrots. I don’t use carrots. I use onion and cabbage, tomato for the tomato sauce, cilantro for the tomato sauce, and your pepper. You blend your pepper fresh every day. My girls roll the tacos with the tortillas – flour, corn, white, yellow.”
At Baeza’s stall, the meat is kept hot on a portable stove and the tortillas are wrapped in several pieces of cloth and placed inside ice boxes that keep them warm for a long period of time. This is to ensure that everything is sold as fresh as possible, even to those customers who show up to purchase the last of the tacos. But as with everything else, indulging in this alternative to a homemade breakfast just got a bit more expensive.
Estelita Baeza
“The tortilla gone up last two weeks. The yellow corn gone up to $2.25. It was $2. For every two pounds, I pay $4.50 now. The white corn also, it got up also by a shilling for the white corn also, and the yellow corn. The flour I will not raise the price yet, but eventually I will raise. Cabbage gone up to $2.25. I used to buy it for $1.25 for the pound. The onion also, it was at $2., now it’s $3.00, depends where you buy it. Cilantro was a dollar. You could buy $1. and it was a good amount. Now you get the pound for $15.00. One lee stem is a dollar. And the pepper, it was at $5, now it gone way to $16 a pound, the habanero pepper. Tomato, I used to get it for $1.50. Now it’s gone to $3.50 or $3, depends where you buy it.”
Marion Ali
“So now, your tacos are how much?”
Estelita Baeza
“Well, I used to have it three for $1. for the chicken, and the pork, two $1. for the pork eena corn. Now I put it up to two for $1. for the chicken eena corn. And the pork will be $1. for one eena corn.”
But the price increase has resulted in an immediate dip in business, Baeza says.
Estelita Baeza
“Fewer people come and when they hear the prices, they leave. It’s not because of the customer service or something, but it’s for the cost of the price of the tacos.”
Marion Ali
“So business isn’t that great right now?”
Estelita Baeza
“No.”
Even at the adjusted prices, the next time you decide on tacos for breakfast, enjoy! Marion Ali for News Five.