Belize, a tiny corner of the Caribbean wedged into Central America, has been a fast food nation since buccaneers and pirates first stole ashore. As early as the 1600s it was already caught in the great paradox of globalization: how can you stay local and relish your own home cooking, while tasting the delights of the global marketplace? Menus, recipes and bad colonial poetry combine with Wilk's sharp anthropological insight to give an important new perspective on the perils and problems of globalization.

Richard (Rick to everyone who knows him) is a Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University. His main interests in life are the country of Belize, where he has been working for 30 years: his family, teaching, writing, woodworking, fishing, diving, cooking and studying food, and reading science fiction. Richard Wilk is married to Dr. K. Anne Pyburn . Anne is an archaeologist, a Professor at Indiana University, and the excavator of an important ancient Mayan city in Belize, Central America, called Chau Hiix.