Traditionally, funchi is cooked into a firm cake and served in slices alongside stews and fish, the starch that goes with everything, the same role polenta plays in northern Italy and its relatives play across West Africa and the Caribbean. Plain, warm, buttery, and completely unthreatening to a child's palate.
The version your kids will actually campaign for is funchi fries: the set cornmeal cut into batons and fried until the outside is crisp and the middle stays soft, then usually finished with cheese. They appear on menus all over the island now, from beach shacks to proper restaurants, and they are the single easiest way to get a local dish onto a children's table without a negotiation.
Ordering them instead of regular fries is a small thing, but it is the sort of small thing that adds up on a trip: a kid who ate funchi in Aruba remembers it, and a kid who ate french fries in Aruba does not.
Aruba's golden cornmeal side dish, a cousin of polenta. Locals eat it with stews, and crispy funchi fries with cheese are a modern island favorite.
Funchi is the Papiamento name, shared across the Dutch Caribbean. Neighboring islands spell and season it slightly differently, but it is the same dish.
More finds nearby
Pan Bati"Beaten bread": the pancake-shaped side dish for a cautious eater.
Keshi YenaThe national dish: spiced chicken baked inside a wheel of gouda.
PastechiThe fried cheese turnover Aruba eats for breakfast. Buy it before ten.
Turn the list into a treasure hunt
Buska gives kids 75 Aruban treasures to find and photograph (this one included) and turns the trip into a keepsake book. Free to start, no ads, private by default.