The Curaçao Christmas table is built on the ayaka, a cornmeal parcel steamed in a plantain leaf. Around it sit bolo pretu, sùlt with oliebollen, and ponche crema. Several other dishes the internet calls Christmas food are eaten all year.
An ayaka is cornmeal dough spread on a greased plantain leaf, filled with a stew of beef, pork or chicken with raisins or prunes, olives and capers, then folded into the leaf, tied with string and boiled or steamed for a couple of hours. It is closely related to the Venezuelan hallaca. Families make them in large batches together, and that is the part that matters, because the making is a December occasion in its own right rather than simply a recipe. The season it belongs to is set out in the hotel's guide to Christmas and New Year in Curaçao.
The batch is the tradition. One ayaka is lunch, forty of them is December
Around the ayakas sit three more fixtures. Bolo pretu, black cake, is a dark, dense dried fruit cake soaked in rum or brandy, served at Christmas and also at weddings and birthdays. Ponche crema is a thick, sweet cream and egg liqueur drunk through the holidays. And sùlt is pickled pork in vinegar with onion, bay leaf, carrot, cloves and peppercorns, a Dutch influenced year end treat sold through December alongside oliebollen, the Dutch fried dough balls. For the island's cooking the rest of the year, see the Curaçao food guide and where to eat in Willemstad.
- Collection
- Holidays & Carnival
- In the series
- No. 102 of 105
- Papiamentu
- Pasku · ayaka · sùlt
- Signature dish
- Ayaka
- Good to know
- 4 notes
- Questions
- 8 answered
- Last checked
- 24 September 2026
- Read
- 5 min
What is an ayaka?
An ayaka is a Curaçao Christmas parcel: cornmeal dough spread on a plantain leaf, filled with a spiced meat stew, wrapped, tied and steamed. The filling is beef, pork or chicken cooked down with raisins or prunes, olives and capers, so it comes out sweet and salty at once. The leaf is a wrapper and a cooking vessel, not a plate, and it is unwrapped at the table. It is the signature Christmas dish of the island and the one a local reader will look for on a page like this.
Why do families make ayakas in batches?
Ayakas are made dozens at a time because the process is long and the work splits well across a kitchen full of people. One person spreads the dough, another fills, another folds and ties, and then everything goes into the pot together. Batches get shared out across a family and across neighbours, which is why the making is remembered as an event rather than as a meal. Ayaka is primarily a home dish, so it is not reliably on restaurant menus and this page will not promise that you will find one.
Which dishes are not Curaçao Christmas food?
Pan bati, kadushi and sopi di pampuna are year round kuminda krioyo, the island's everyday home cooking, and no source could be found linking any of them specifically to Christmas. Pan bati means beaten bread: a soft cornmeal pancake served as a side with stews and grilled meat. Kadushi is the tall columnar cactus that grows across the island, and sopi di kadushi is a thick, deliberately slippery cactus soup in the same family as okra soup. Sopi di pampuna is pumpkin soup, pampuna being Papiamentu for pumpkin.
All three are worth eating, and the place to eat that kind of cooking is a krioyo kitchen such as Plasa Bieu, five minutes away. Calling them Christmas dishes is an error that travels from blog to blog, and it is the sort of small mistake a local reader spots instantly.
How are the names spelled in Papiamentu?
Christmas is Pasku in Papiamentu, the parcel is ayaka, and the pickled pork is sùlt, with a grave accent on the u. Bolo pretu and ponche crema are written as two words each. Kuminda krioyo is the general term for the island's own cooking. The nativity appears as e nasementu di Kristu, and Christmas of the Nativity as Pasku di Nasementu.
Spellings are given here as they appear in Papiamentu language sources. One weaker source gives the Christmas Eve midnight mass as Misa di Gallo, noting a Papiamentu form Misa di Gai, but that could not be confirmed against a church or a Papiamentu language source, so it is not asserted here.
Good to know
- Ayaka is the signature Curaçao Christmas dish, and families make them in large batches.
- Bolo pretu, ponche crema, and sùlt with oliebollen are the other year end fixtures.
- Pan bati, kadushi and sopi di pampuna are year round krioyo food, not Christmas dishes.
- Pasku is Papiamentu for Christmas. Sùlt carries a grave accent on the u.
Questions & answers
What do people in Curaçao eat at Christmas?
The Curaçao Christmas table centres on the ayaka, a cornmeal parcel filled with spiced meat stew and steamed in a plantain leaf. Alongside it come bolo pretu, a rum soaked dried fruit black cake, ponche crema, a thick cream and egg liqueur, and sùlt, pickled pork, sold through December with Dutch oliebollen.
What is an ayaka?
An ayaka is a Curaçao Christmas dish: cornmeal dough spread on a greased plantain leaf, filled with a stew of beef, pork or chicken with raisins or prunes, olives and capers, then folded, tied with string and boiled or steamed for a couple of hours. It is closely related to the Venezuelan hallaca and families make them in large batches together.
Is pan bati a Christmas dish in Curaçao?
No. Pan bati, literally beaten bread, is a soft cornmeal pancake eaten all year as a side with stews and grilled meat. It is kuminda krioyo, the island's everyday cooking. The same is true of kadushi, the cactus soup, and sopi di pampuna, the pumpkin soup. Several travel blogs list all three as Curaçao Christmas dishes and no source supports it.
What is bolo pretu?
Bolo pretu, black cake, is a dark, dense dried fruit cake soaked in rum or brandy. It is served at Christmas in Curaçao and also at weddings and birthdays, which makes it a celebration cake rather than a Christmas only one. It is sold by bakeries across the island through December.
Sources, and what is not settled
The ayaka is attested as the Curaçao Christmas dish across several independent food sources. Sùlt and the other year end customs come from NTR Caribisch Netwerk. There is no primary source for holiday food, so the rest is Curaçao food writing, and where a Christmas link could not be sourced this page says so rather than repeating it.
- NTR Caribisch Netwerk, five Curaçao New Year traditions. caribischnetwerk.ntr.nl
- noskultura.com, kuminda krioyo. noskultura.com
- antillean-eats.com, main dishes. antillean-eats.com
- NTR Caribisch Netwerk, Sinterklaas with su amigunan. caribischnetwerk.ntr.nl
Last checked by Majestic City Palace Hotel, 3 Breedestraat, Punda, Willemstad. Anything unannounced above is marked as unannounced. Corrections are made in place and dated.