What to Eat in Aruba: Typical Dishes

The wonderful nature of Aruba not only produces dreamlike landscapes and atmospheres but also excellent ingredients for tasty typical dishes: what to eat in Aruba is certainly not a problem, even for the most refined palates.
The Aruban cuisine is in fact a mix of flavors deriving from different traditions but now beautifully blended, given the influences coming from other Caribbean islands, the Netherlands, and South America.
The typical dishes of Aruba are naturally based on fish but there are also inspirations based on meat, all enriched by locally grown vegetables.
The fish most commonly present in the local cuisine are wahoo, snapper, mahi-mahi, and barracuda.
The traditional Creole dish of Aruba is called Pisca hasa crioyo and is made with slices of bread, a sauce based on onion, tomato, peas, and garlic. Another specialty that is found alongside Pisca hasa crioyo on every menu is Keri-keri, cooked like a classic fillet boiled in salted water, then cut into pieces and sautéed with butter, tomato, onion, celery, basil, peas, and spices.
If you prefer meat, you can delight in Stoba, a meat stew: carni stoba is made with beef, while cabrito stoba is made with goat meat. In both cases, it is cooked with potatoes, onions, garlic, and chili peppers in a tomato-based sauce.
Two of the most common side dishes when eating in Aruba are Pan Bati (a fried bread) and Funchi, a type of polenta.
There are also many pumpkin-based specialties: Pampuna llena is pumpkin stuffed with minced pumpkin, hard-boiled eggs, onions, and tomato. Pampuna Stoba is pumpkin cooked with meat, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes. Then you can taste Lsopi di pampuna (pumpkin soup) with beef, vegetables in broth, and pieces of pumpkin and potatoes that are previously blended and mixed with cream and butter.
As for typical Aruban desserts, the bolo is the classic cake, offered in various versions (with cashews, chocolate, egg, and prunes) or there is Ponche Crema, mainly served at Christmas or for important celebrations: it is a sweet drink with egg yolks, cream, rum, and spices.
Finally, there is an ingredient suitable for various culinary uses: the papaya.
It can be eaten as a fruit or dessert, but it is recommended to try the batido, a papaya smoothie with vanilla, which can be enriched as you like with other fruits such as pineapple or orange.