Funistrada is a fictitious food item.

The term was allegedly (according to Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson

William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before moving back to the US in 1995...

) inserted in a U.S. Army survey of soldiers circa 1974 regarding their food preferences. The "food" scored higher in popularity than eggplant, lima beans, and cranberry

Cranberry

Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium. In some methods of classification, Oxycoccus is regarded as a genus in its own right...

 juice.

It is typical of the sorts of intentional "fake foods" since inserted into military surveys to establish a baseline for taste; it is thought that the word evokes a pasta

Pasta

Pasta is a staple food of traditional Italian cuisine, now of worldwide renown. It takes the form of unleavened dough, made in Italy, mostly of durum wheat , water and sometimes eggs. Pasta comes in a variety of different shapes that serve for both decoration and to act as a carrier for the...

dish. Other similar but less successful "menu items" include a vegetable dish called "buttered ermal" and a meat dish called "braised trake."

The word is said to be similar in sound and cadence to fuori strada, used to describe an offroad vehicle.