Walking south down Main Street, Placencia Village, Stann Creek District, Belize on a beautiful sunset evening, you may see a folding table boasting a big ice box on the left side of the road just before Dawn’s Grill. In front a chalkboard sign proudly proclaims “Dalla Wap!”

For the uninitiated this advertising completely fails to enlighten, but if one takes a moment to observe the action around this cooler one notices that people are flocking to the table, clutching the heavy octagon known as a Belizean dollar coin. In return for this pittance they are handed a small paper bag out of the hot steaming depths of the ice box. Peppa? Ketchup? Inquires the stocky man running the show. Depending on the response, bottles of fiery Marie Sharps habanero sauce and Grace’s Caribbean style ketchup (no high fructose corn syrup, cane sugar only!) fly into action to season what hides within the plain brown hand sized sack.

If you venture close enough you will notice there are 2 different sized bags nestled in neat rows inside the cooler. The smaller one is the true “dalla wap”, costing only a single dollar. For this you get an appetizer-sized serving of crispy fried chicken parts topped with a handful of fresh cut plantain chips, but if you want to super-size your poultry you can upgrade to the 3 dollar bag. Chicken parts, you ask, what does that mean? In a country that loves chicken and adores it deep fried, dalla wap was invented to provide that experience for the bird-lover on an extreme budget. Only the cheapest cuts of the bird are utilized. If you are lucky your paper bag-let will contain a crispy golden chicken foot, deep fried to crunchy perfection, a knobby piece of chicken neck or back, one bite of breast or leg meat and perhaps a chunk of rich liver or heart. Eating the contents requires assiduous nibbling: cartilage, muscle meat and organ meat all will be devoured and well chewed bones returned to the sack, now converted into a convenient trash bag. Crunchy hand cut plantain chips, coated in sweet and spicy habanero and ketchup, complete the experience. This dive into dalla wap ends with well licked fingers and the application of fistfuls of paper napkins.

If you are looking for an authentic Belizean snack with a great name, look no further than dalla wap! Want these experiences for yourself? Learn about and book our Placencia Village Food Tour HERE: A Village Food Tour.

Lyra Spang is owner/guide of Taste Belize Tours, a unique cultural & culinary tour company. She researches & writes about food whenever she can. tastebelize.com/ tastebelize@gmail.com.