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: in Aruba what to eat is certainly not a problem that will affect even the most refined palates.
The cuisine of Aruba is in fact a mix of flavors derived from different traditions but now splendidly blended, given the influences arriving 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 vegetables grown locally.
The fish most present in the local cuisine are wahoo, snapper, mahi-mahi, and barracuda.
The typical Creole dish of Aruba is called Pisca hasa crioyo and is prepared with slices of bread, a sauce based on onion, tomato, peas, and garlic. Another specialty found on all menus along with Pisca hasa crioyo is Keri-keri, cooked like a classic fillet boiled in salted water, then cut into pieces and sautéed in a pan with butter, tomato, onion, celery, basil, peas, and spices.
If instead you prefer meat, then you can enjoy Stoba, a meat stew: carni stoba is based on beef, while cabrito stoba is based on goat meat. In both cases, it will be cooked with potatoes, onion, garlic, and chili pepper with a tomato-based sauce.
There are two most common side dishes when eating in Aruba: Pan Bati (a fried bread) and Funchi, a kind of polenta.
There are many specialties based on pumpkin: Pampuna llena is the pumpkin stuffed with minced pumpkin, hard-boiled eggs, onions, and tomato. Pampuna Stoba is instead the 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 the typical sweets of Aruba, bolo is the classic cake, offered in various versions (with cashews, chocolate, egg, and prunes) or there is Ponche Crema, served especially at Christmas or for more important celebrations: it is a sweet drink with egg yolks, cream, rum, and spices.
Finally, there is one ingredient that lends itself to various uses in the kitchen: papaya.
It can be eaten as fruit or dessert but it is recommended to try the batido, a papaya smoothie with vanilla, which can be enriched at will with other fruits such as pineapple or orange.