California Fresno Mission

The craziest food that I was able to eat in the California-Fresno mission was, actually, it was chicken brain. Because the Hmong people in Fresno, California, I mean, they raise lots of chickens. And so when they butcher them, I mean, they usually eat most of the chicken. And so I got to, right before I went home from my mission, I got to try some chicken brain. And it was actually really gross. And so, I mean, I wouldn't really recommend it.

I am Hispanic, I am Salvadorian and everybody in my mission thought I was Mexican and they still people in here call me Mexican. Anyway, I had family who lives in Mexico, my mom, sisters, brothers. But anyway, I being a Hispanic and I had my green gate companion, we went to these two ladies from the English world who had food and one of the ladies served me tomato soup and she put like 20 crackers inside the soup and it was just so funny. I thought that crazy and the people thought I don't eat anything else but Mexican food like tacos and stuff like that. Every time my companions will call me a parrot because all the crackers that she put in my soup.

Some crazy food that I had in the California Fresno Mission was actually chicken feet. When we would go with the Hmong people, they would service dinner and they didn't waste any parts of the chicken. So the chicken breast, the chicken legs, the wings, that was all great. But then you get down to the chicken feet, there's not a lot of obviously meat on it. It's a lot of skin and kind of a weird looking little talon claw thing. But that was probably the craziest thing that I ate. But also a ton of really good food though as well. Tri-tip, lots of barbecues, lots of really good fruit and vegetables out there. It's the Lord's Vineyard. So we had tons of avocados, oranges, pistachios, lots of good stuff in that regard. And certainly a lot of really good grapes, tons of vineyards out there as well too. But chicken feet, probably the craziest thing that I ever ate.

The craziest food that I ever ate in the California Fresno Mission was actually very delicious. It was a persimmon. It's a type of fruit that looks similar to a tomato and I had never heard of it before and it has a fleshy center and it's very sweet and so a member made persimmon bread for us and it was absolutely delicious but it took a lot of time getting used to.

The worst thing I ever ate is called menudo and if anyone ever offers it to you, obviously say thank you and pray really hard that you'll be okay. My companion and I both got food poisoning and she threw up while we were at the appointment. She went into the bathroom and threw up and then threw up when we got home as well and it was bad. It is cow intestine. I do not recommend. Look it up. Look at the pictures. It's really bad. Good luck.

If you serve Spanish like I did, you may come across a dish called menudo. Menudo is super gross, in my opinion. Some people like it, I hated it. It's cow intestine and stomach. We had a baptism for this girl, um, and their parents invited us to a celebratory dinner and we- and they had menudo because that's apparently special occasion food. It's just like a soup and there's intestine in it. It's cow intestine and the, uh, the texture is so wrong. It's like chewing rubber. It's really freaking gross. The worst part is when you pull up the jaw bone of some animal and the guy tells you to eat the cheek meat and it's disgusting. So, in my opinion, steer clear. If someone ever offers you, just try to politely decline.

So the craziest food I had was probably ceviche, which is shrimp mixed with like pico de gallo and other stuff, which isn't actually that crazy of a dish. The reason I think it was the craziest dish I had on my mission is because the shrimp is raw, they just soak it in like lime juice to purify it, and I don't think they did it all the way because my companion and I were sick for like two days. That was probably the craziest thing. One thing, one tip I will say for member meals is that sometimes if it looks weird, just don't ask what it is until you've eaten it because, you know, you have to eat it when you're when you're visiting with the people. And so it's a lot easier to get it all down and pretend it's really, really good when you don't know that you're eating, you know, pig hooves and stuff like that.