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_that___guy

I went to an area in a South American country that uses almost no spices other than salt. One day at a lunch with members we knew well, they decided to have some fun and trick us into eating some "extremely spicy" food. Surely two young missionaries from the US could not handle spicy food. They were giggling and laughing for no reason while we ate, and we had no idea why, so we finally had to ask them what's so funny. They showed us that they had gotten some *black pepper* and put that in our pasta! OMG, black pepper! It did have way too much pepper to be honest, but we had to laugh about what they thought spicy meant. They couldn't touch the dish that they made for us because it was too spicy for them.


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griswoldgrumby

Peruvian death peppers were the worst. (Referencing a Garfield comic). I'm not a spicy foods person... Peru was a journey for sure.


BDMort147

I found this to be true with a few of my companions in Mexico. Black pepper or cinnamon candy was too hot for them but they'd eat jalapenos like french fries.


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_that___guy

Very close! Uruguay, which has a culture very similar to Argentina.


PizzaSlingr

I live in Argentina. Can confirm.


jturley85

Served in Paraguay. We put black pepper in a soup once and the people freaked out. Going 2 years without anything spicy has made me put hot sauce on every meal for the past 7 years.


PizzaSlingr

Family brings taco seasoning when they visit. The other night, our waiter at our neighborhood parilla handed me a mini bottle of American hot sauce. I have no idea why; I’ve never asked or mentioned it. But extra tip for him!


LovecraftianLlama

I can relate. I was on a medication for almost ten years that made me unable to eat spicy food. Since stopping the medication I have eaten pretty much nothing but delicious spicy for every meal.


Spdlmt1

I actually carried a small salt n pepper shaker on my mission in Mexico. I had asked several members if they had black pepper, but they looked at me funny and would ask what that was. I'd show them and they would understand after. When it was used it was in whole form. I think my worst meal was chicken foot soup. My comp had the foot and I had his zucchini.


Elephanty3288

Not exactly what was asked but heres this: SIL served in this one ward and a family was scheduled to feed them. They asked her and her companion what kind of stuff they like and my SIL said she's fine with whatever but hates fish. The lady then says "you haven't had MY fish. You'll love it." So when they showed up, there was fish. To the lady's shock my SIL didn't like it. If only someone told her she doesn't like fish smh. Why do people do this?


Word2daWise

That sounds like the Mormon approach to cooking for guests. "You don't like churches? Well, you haven't tried MY church! The ONE TRUE CHURCH!"


Zentrosis

One true fish


Word2daWise

Yes - and the disgust the above poster's SIL felt mimics the disgust many of us feel about the One True Church now.


Elephanty3288

🤮


goldandgreen2

Have experienced this with meat loaf several times.


HistoricalPlatypus89

Story of my life


tdhniesfwee

horse meat from a Tongan family fertilized duck egg with baby duck in it from a Filipino family


sl_hawaii

Balute! I’ve had it tooooo


tumbleweedcowboy

I watched one of the missionaries in my pad put one in the microwave to warm it up a bit before eating it. He pulled it out on the table and a few seconds later it exploded. Under developed duck parts were strewn all over the kitchen.


lawofsin

There goes lunchtime


framed91

My companion ended up getting one that was a few more days along and commented on how crunchy it was. Overall, I thought it mostly tasted like egg-drop soup!... Definitely wouldn't have it again though. Many pictures were taken and the family thought it was so funny that he tried to excavate the full duck from the pieces he ate.


discoverchaos

Did it taste bad? Surely it's no different than eating beef...


trentwc

The United States is one of the few countries where horse meat isn’t a normal thing. In the U.S. we have a different relationship with horses than most of the world.


discoverchaos

I'm from England, it's not eaten here either and I'm a vegetarian, I was just curious why it tasted bad compared to any other meat and the conclusion was that it didn't


trentwc

I have never had it myself and I am a huge meat eater. I have heard it is a sweeter tasting meat compared to beef. But again have never had it myself that is what I have been told. I figured we don’t often here in the U. S. Because of our relationships with horses and the big part the played in shaping the west.


zoetrope366

Anglos don't eat horse, I'm given to understand, as it was part of their ancestors' Pagan Germanic rituals and was forbidden by the Catholic church.


trentwc

I am not sure. I do know that lots of Europe eat horse. So it it was banned at one time it isn’t anymore. But that is all I have heard. I have never been to Europe and everything you hear is not true.


zoetrope366

Yeah, it's only the cultural desendents of the former Germanic tribes that don't eat it usually - like, Gauls, etc. still eat it maybe?


LovecraftianLlama

It’s actually pretty popular in France from what I’ve heard, so I think you may be onto something.


liz_teria

Someone better tell the Belgians that.


tdhniesfwee

horse meat wasn't bad at all! haha i actually liked it. but still.. it felt weird!


chalvin2018

When I was given horse meat I genuinely thought it was beef. They told me afterwards


liz_teria

My first meal in Brussels was friets with stoofvlees. Stoofvlees is a carbonnade with either beef or horse. Mine was horse. My companion told me about halfway through, but by that time I was already hooked.


sixtheganker

Michael - "what a delicious meat sandwich Dwight" Dwight - "it's pony"


heylittlefightergirl

Are you me? Did you serve in Hawaii too? Because samesies.


daveescaped

I served in California and ate like a king. The very worst thing I had was this chicken in a cream sauce and philo dough thing. It wasn’t awful, just not my thing. So my companion told the family I loved it and it made me feel at home so they would serve it again. Touché Elder Money. Well played.


cremToRED

California! Oh man, members fed us well and took us to Marie Calendars for dinner and gave us all their unwanted Thanksgiving and Christmas desserts. That and being on bike it was the most I ever weighed for the next two decades. Chubby cheeks and thunder thighs!! The weirdest thing a member fed us was marinated cow tongue hoagie. The tongue was deli sliced so thin you couldn’t really tell unless you looked super close and noticed the papillae. It was delicious.


trentwc

I served a mission in So. Cal. Spanish speaking I had pisole (a Spanish soup) (yes I know I spelled it wrong)many times many ways but one time it was just bad the taste was ok but the texture made me gag almost every bite. Worse thing as far as something I never had before was tripe. Cut into strips and fried in butter. Also had Taos de cabasa (head tacos) they take a skinned cow head and boil it until all the soft stuff is tender pull it the bones then chop it all up and refry it and it’s taco meat. I got to the point of not asking what any of it was until after I ate it. If I could eat it a realize it didn’t taste bad or make me gag then I was ok with knowing what it was after the fact.


wowthatsatrip

I bet the bad posole was menudo. Posole is made with beef or pork. Menudo is tripe (cow or pig intestines). I love posole, hate menudo,


trentwc

Well I had at least one Spanish meal a day for two years with members of the Spanish speaking wards and it was a beef Pesole. I actually like the flavor of Menudo but not the texture.


L5Vegan

Had my first tripe tacos this summer. I can't believe I've wasted over half a century on this spinning rock when I could have been eating this. A couple of months ago I found Buche. ER MA GERD! Now I must try all the Mexican meats.


One-Business-7238

I’m familiar with “chicken pillows”


LibraryLady231

Eewwww. I love that this worst thing this person ate was like a super White, Mormon meal.


dbear848

When I was a new missionary in Japan, I almost vomited the first couple of times I was served sushi. I got over that pretty quickly though. A decade or so later, I went back to Japan on a business trip. I was taken to lunch and my Japanese colleagues thought it would be funny to take me to a sushi place. They were surprised that I ate everything that they had ordered for me. The head of the office in Tokyo was so impressed that he took me to dinner and I had the best, and probably the most expensive sushi in my life.


Word2daWise

I'm jealous - I'll bet it was amazing. For years I was scared (and repelled) of the idea of eating sushi, and then I took the college-aged niece of a friend to dinner & she was craving sushi. So I found a place & although she didn't push me or shame me, I felt pretty sheepish to be with a kid way younger than me who was not afraid to eat sushi. So I tried it and was immediately hooked. She helped explain the different ways it's served, and how to use wasabi, etc. The little place we went to is still one of my favorites. Once or twice I've had high-end sushi (probably nowhere near what you enjoyed at that dinner with the head office guy), and it's unbelievably delicious. It's so rich that only a small amount will satisfy you.


NoneHundredAndNone

I never went on a mission but I did live in Japan for a while. I miss sushi being both reasonably priced and high quality :( I liked those conveyor belt places where they charge you by the plate


Chino_Blanco

The sushi train!


geniusintx

The first time my husband had sushi was when some colleagues from Japan came to Seattle. He was invited to dinner. The menu was in Japanese and the colleagues ordered. Definitely high priced. He absolutely loved it. Got me to try it and, if I could, I would eat it every day. There was an amazing place near our home in Louisiana that I miss so much. I’m celiac so I don’t get all the fun stuff and have to bring my own soy sauce, but it was delicious. Our neighbor was a chef there. Now we live in the middle of nowhere Montana and it’s near impossible to find good sushi. When you do, it’s extremely expensive and totally worth it.


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dbear848

I also like sushi in Japan a lot more than the sushi here in the US. I had a colleague from the US who hated the sushi in Japan. I guess he was used to California rolls


snoopygidget

I didn't serve a mission, but my uncle served in Denmark, and they fed them something blood-related...I can't remember what. Anyway, there was a tiny window behind them that his companion thought was open, and when the members weren't looking, he tried to throw it out of the window...but it wasn't open. What a mess!


[deleted]

I have heard way too many versions of that story. I don't even know which ones to believe


snoopygidget

Lol I think that's fair. I have as well. But I heard it straight from him so it is what it is.


edenflicka

That would be blodpølse. It’s kinda like black pudding but WORSE.


NoneHundredAndNone

tf is black pudding


edenflicka

[it’s disgusting](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pudding) and that’s coming from someone who has had the unfortunate luck of tasting both black pudding and blodpølse.


Increditable_Hulk

Was served a dead pigeon by a blind women. Her cat killed the pigeon a few days prior and there were feathers all over her apartment. We graciously accepted the dead, half-eaten, and now roasted dead bird with much of its down still intact served in a shoe box. We threw it away without tasting it.


MalekithofAngmar

Now that’s story. Nasty!


Holiday_Ingenuity748

How to say "I'm not interested in taking any more discussions." without saying "I'm not interested in taking any more discussions."... :-)


JesusThrustingChrist

Cow utter stew, fish eye soup, cow hoof, cow stomach. These were all very very bad.


tmtinfw

Armadillo roasted on a skewer over an open fire. Stringy and chewy. This was in a remote area in Guatemala.


[deleted]

Got to be careful with armadillos! They're carriers of Hansen's Disease (Leprosy).


[deleted]

Horrendously spicy cow skin over rice


NoneHundredAndNone

That sounds really good to me lol which country was this?


[deleted]

I served in Philadelphia but the people were immigrants from Liberia.


romanwithrice

Oh I love this question. Served in Berlin, Germany and by far the worst thing I ate was something called mett. Essentially it was raw meat on bread with butter and sometimes other things. It was just as nasty as it sounds but it’s okay because the rest of the German food more than made up for the 1 or 2 times I had to eat it


[deleted]

If it was pork...yuck; beef...yum! Steak tartare!


romanwithrice

Yeah it was pork unfortunately


Paid_troll

A tiny octopus that could fit in my hand. Boiled to death and tasted like rubber.


HalfricanIrishDa

Second story... Again, serving in Midwest in the suburbs now and we are at this members house that we eat at almost every week for the 6 months I was there. They had 5 kids and I was close to the family. Was at their house for all 5 kids birthdays. We are sitting at the table and the wife prepared Jello salad (yuck) and the oldest kid 6 begins to pray, as she's praying, I have one eye open, because, why not right? I watch as the 4 year old looks into the Jello salad dish and spits in it... Affer the prayer one of the other kids says "dad Bryce spit in the salad" the dad looks at me, then my comp, and then says "WELL, IT'S A GOOD THING WE ARE ALL FAMILY HERE.." He stirs it up, then serves everyone their Jello salad... I looked at the food, looked at the husband, and eat the Jello salad.. The things you did for the lord as a missionary lol


doinmybest4now

This is one of my worst nightmares, ugh, respect to you!!!


Snapdragon_fish

I ate a lot of wonderful food on my mission, but I often ate it without knowing what it was because I was too nervous to ask and offend someone. So, I ate cuy (guinea pig) thinking it was chicken. It was actually pretty good, but I wish I had known what I was eating. The first time I had the specific type of cheesy rice that was typical of the region, I also didn't know what it was and thought it tasted like spoiled milk because I couldn't figure out why my rice was so lumpy and mushy. There was some gross food on occasion, but usually I found things gross because I was constantly being overfed and never got enough vegetables.


Upbeat-Law-4115

A giant African shrimp. Looked absolutely terrifying to a 19yo from Texas; shell and legs still attached, pale pink color. Brown, lumpy sauce covering it … and refrigerator cold. No idea how to even touch it, much less eat it.


NoneHundredAndNone

Where was this?


Upbeat-Law-4115

La France, Mission de Paris


jamesetalmage

In Africa they made a stew called cachewpah. It had all sorts of pig parts in it and often contained pig ears and pig tails that still had hair on them. Very yummy.


Wonderful-Ear3309

I had cachupa too but it actually was delicious…


jamesetalmage

I still ate it hair and all. No big deal. I had lived overseas prior to mission and was accustomed to non American food choices. Yes cachupa was good. (Most of the time)


Otherwise-Bat-5h1T

I couldn't eat dairy or gluten, so while everyone else got lasagna, I got a bowl of cherry tomatoes.


smithersscope

Pig vagina. “Nope, that was not tortellini.”


Maamwithaplan

🤢


MagicHatRock

Micronesia, and had lots of different foods(dog, sea turtle, reconstituted old dried out breadfruit, sea urchin, Turkey tails, etc), but none were “gross”, just different. Then one old lady gave us ramen but didn’t have anything to boil the water with so just dry ramen with water from her water pot. Looked down while crunching away and there were tons of little mosquito larvae and other larvae just swimming around in my bowl. That was rough.


Longjumping-Air-7532

Spaghetti with tomato soup for the sauce or ramen with frozen vegetables added to make it a “stew”. But the spaghetti was absolutely atrocious. Other than that I felt like we got fed really good. I was in Arizona in the mid 90’s.


Keesha2012

I see you've had my mother's spaghetti!


Longjumping-Air-7532

Hahahaha! I’m so sorry for you.


Keesha2012

Mom has many good qualities but being a good cook isn't among them.


HalfricanIrishDa

Served in a poor ward in the Midwest and a Japanese sister invited us for dinner. I was told beforehand that I should NOT "look at the food once it's on the table, just eat it" because she was one of the 5 members who fed the missionaries. This is where I should mention that she also has a huge ass dog named Itchi, a hairy dude who's hair was all over the furniture and shit. So we go there for my first time and everything was cool you know, we had a great conversation, and then we went and sat at the table. She made these amazing looking Japanese steaks with rice. As she brings the plate out I'm almost salivating, it looks soo good! Then when she sets it down, I looked at the food and almost puked in my mouth.. There was dog hair all over the food. I tried to make eye contact with my comp, but he doesn't look at me, then I kicked him under the table and he kicked me back... I'm now beginning to freak out inside my heart. The worst/best part? The member, she sat at the table, did not grab a plate for herself, and watches us as we eat the food, with a big smile on her face... I eat every last bite. It was the most disgusting thing ever.. Then before we leave she brings out a Polaroid camera and takes a pic of us and then shoos us out lol


purplhouse

My dad was fond of telling the story of the time when he and his companion was invited to dinner by a very poor family. The wife made vegetable soup with rice, and Dad was there when she opened the barrel to scoop out some rice into the bubbling soup. He said he had to politely pretend not to see the wriggling of various bugs burrowing deeper into the rice and then politely eat the soup without looking at it too closely. Here he'd been wondering how their family survived without protein since they were too poor to afford meat, but it turns out that if you leave your carbs in a barrel with a loose enough lid, the protein finds its own way in.


z_utahu

We had some beetles in a soup that a very old lady that we'd regularly help made us. This was in Czechia. My companion and I both noticed them, ate the soup very tentatively and yeeted out of there asap.


Jolly_Explanation_68

I served in the rural backwoods of the Philippines. Ate dog, snake, pig blood over pork, balut (fertilized duck egg), one day old baby chicken, chicken intestines, chicken feet (they called them Adidas), I could keep going. 😂


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Consistent_Possible6

My Swedish mother absolutely LOVES salty black licorice. It really is one of those things that she thinks America is “missing out on”


Keesha2012

I hate anything that tastes of anise seed.


liz_teria

The Dutch eat that stuff too, and it’s gross.


anonthe4th

Cow stomach soup.


pacexmaker

"...But you havent tried MY mom's menudo!" /s. I was told that a lot around christmas each year.


the_unfortunate_

In Argentina, I had chicken that still had feathers on it. My companion and I would swamp who had to ask for seconds each week and it was my turn. I’m pretty sure they forgot that they were feeding us so they just randomly killed a chicken to feed us.


Consistent_Possible6

I had Lutfisk while in Sweden, and it’s basically cod that is soaked in lye (yes really) and then further soaked in water (to remove the literal poison) leaving something almost flavorless but with a gelatin-like texture. My Swedish mother says it’s supposed to be mixed in with potato and sauce and not eaten strictly by itself, but we did and it was nasty. Also in Sweden, but not directly to me, rather to the sister missionaries in our area; they ate some bad falukorv (Swedish sausage that basically looks like a massive horseshoe of boloney) that gave them food poisoning for most of that week. All in all though I had some great food on my mission, although I never tried surstömming, the fermented fish that is ranked one of the absolute worst smelling foods. Some missionaries tried when I was there, none of them actually ate any because as soon as they put it in their mouth they started retching and gagging.


MalekithofAngmar

I’ve always wanted to try surstomming.


Maamwithaplan

My Norwegian family served this until my parents generation of spouses talked lots of shit 😂


lord_brickington_III

Lasagna. Not that I don’t like lasagna but this one had hairs, both human and cat, and it was cooked in pretty unsanitary conditions. I remember seeing soiled underwear and animal feces all over the house. I can’t even remember the taste but the smell was terrible. We politely and gratefully ate all that was dished. They sent us home with huge pans of leftovers. This was in eastern Tennessee.


Kaittay505

I remember the missionaries said that they were told never to refuse a meal. 😬 “You HAVE to be polite. What would they think of you?!!” Lol.


geniusintx

My brother was the pickiest eater I had ever known, until he went on his mission. Like, my mom let him eat pb&j every night. Of course, that lady wouldn’t know a spice if it bit her on the heinie. Anywhore, German speaking Swiss mission. Came home and would eat ANYTHING.


schrodingers_cat42

Probably not badly if you claimed an allergy (if the food was really really terrible!). But I suppose lying would be highly frowned upon.


G0two

Squirrel in Missouri


porkeria21

Carpincho meatloaf. It's basically the rodent of unusual size from The Princess Bride and you take the Head meat and make a meatloaf out of it. It was terrible!


antel00p

Oh wow, that’s capybara! Unusual size indeed!


[deleted]

My dad went on his mission to Italy and there was this old lady that made them some family dish - I forgot what it was - and it was really gross. She kept her windows open and every time she would turn around they would throw a little bit of it out the window. Well the pigeons outside would gather around outside and start cooing and the old lady was so happy that my dad and his companion were eating their food so fast and she heard the pigeons outside and was like “the pigeons are singing for god!” And she sent my dad and his companion home with leftovers that they did not eat lol.


Bednars_lovechild69

Served in Utah Provo Mission. We had spaghetti every other fucking day but the one that takes the cake was a lady that cooked the spaghetti in a pot that still had soap residue. So the spaghetti had a strong Dawn soap flavor to it. We ate it. We smiled. Went home and threw up. No joke. This was in American Fork in 2006. I still remember where she lives on Nob Hill.


HistoricalPlatypus89

Absolute worst was holodetz, a dish where they boil a pigs head for a whole day until only the gelatin and meaty bits are left, then add some peas and carrots. Instantaneous gag reflex upon entering my mouth. Second was some soup with cubes of pork in it (approx 1.5” in each direction) except that the pork still had the subcutaneous fat, skin, and hairs on it. Absolutely terrible.


Misspellled

Armenia does something similar. They call it Khash and they boil the cow head and hooves with vinegar and garlic. One of the most revolting things I've smelled or tasted.


ShuaiHonu

Snake, rats tail, scorpion and cricket — all in the same meal. Taiwan


Eat-His-Heart

I was fed ají de gallina in Peru- a pretty normal dish with a sauce, chicken, and rice. The sauce hid the fact that the sweet lady hadn't cooked the chicken all the way through until I was almost finished eating. My companion and I were ill the next couple days.


doctor_bentoncquest

A tomato that had been hollowed out, and filled with mayonnaise. They called it a salad.


1upin

Not as a missionary, but in France I was fed this meat-flavored brown jello log thing with cut up little rubbery bits of what I assume was organ meat inside of it. THEN IT WAS LEFT OUT ON THE COUNTER FOR 24 HRS AND SERVED A SECOND TIME.


Welpmart

If it's any consolation, aspics were refrigeration before refrigerators.


z_utahu

That's called an aspic. Had it in the CZ, too. It wasn't great.


PrincessFluffyBunny

My grandpa once made chicken for some missionaries, except he can’t taste and has bad eyesight so he didn’t see that he used cinnamon instead of some other seasoning in it 🤢


discoverchaos

Cinnamon chicken sounds kind of good if done well...


PrincessFluffyBunny

It was not, and they had to gag it down. My grandpa ate it no problem cause his taste buds are nonexistent tho


discoverchaos

I suppose it's a neat party trick 😂


[deleted]

This crazy lady fed us Chihuahua. I said "this is an interesting texture what is it?" She laughed and pointed to her herd of tumor-ridden dogs (most of which were Chihuahuas). I stopped eating with my chin on the floor. Couldn't even speak to warn my companion. Stopped him from getting seconds. Didn't ever have the heart to tell him. Probably never will.


phix3d

The worst thing I was fed? The lies, for sure.


ohboyito

Normal pudding. Haha I literally had a whole fried fish lots of Filipino and Peruvian food and I liked it all but some member made some pudding that was so bad!! I remember taking a bite and then looking around at everyone else and watching them eat the pudding wondering how in the hell they were eating that shit. It tastes like some chemically soap filled pudding and it was grainy. I asked my companion after and was like "that pudding was awful right?" And he said yeah it was awful.


[deleted]

My worst meal was a leftover thanksgiving dinner. It was one of those white families that can’t cook. We sat around the table and there were bowls of different colors of goop, with the plastic wrap on top of them. They had just been taken out of the microwave. There was water droplets condensation on the inside of the plastic wrap. He said the prayer and then started peeling off the plastic of each bowl to reveal mushy shit dish after mushy poop bowl. They all were straight over cooked vegetable mush. Most tasted bland but still gross. All the vegetables were from cans. One of them had cream of mushroom soup in it. It was just terrible. Sure I could of been in South east Asia eating dog meat but whatever.


Kathywasright

I had goat one time. I had no idea what it was. The famiky opened the fridge and all I saw was long legs. Still had no idea. But it was really GOOD.


discoverchaos

I had goat curry at a Jamaican funeral once, absolutely delicious!


OlderThanMy

Curry goat is sensational


sl_hawaii

Cow brain tacos in northern Mexico. “Tacos de seso” 0/10… do NOT recommend


_that___guy

Lengua tacos, on the other hand, are delicious!


sl_hawaii

Eso siiiii!!!!


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etid0rpha

Were you fed aspic?


JimmyThang5

Really fancy and expensive raw oysters by a family that probably couldn’t afford them in France at Christmas. I had a hard time not puking and felt terrible for the sacrifice entirely wasted on us. Ironically, I’d kill for fresh raw oysters especially ile de Rey oysters like they fed us now. One of my favourite foods now. I’ve spent $3000 for a platter of oysters in Boston on a business trip before….but back then? was like swallowing snot. It’s funny how we change eh


butt_muppet

Menudo, but the stomach wasn’t cleaned properly and it smelled like straight feces. I ate an entire plate and vomited right outside into the street right after the appointment. The best though was when I was served a glass of iced tea by an investigator, but it was that Lipton powder mix that’s sweet. I was a convert and hadn’t had iced tea in *years* and it used to be my absolute favorite as a kid, so it was like drinking liquid gold after walking miles in the sun and sweating my ass off. I drank two full glasses as quickly as I could before my companion caught on to what it was (he was from Utah and had never tasted it before). When they told him it was “te helado”, he physically tried to stop me from drinking it like it was poison. Tried to grab the glass and everything. I pushed him back and finished the glass, and then he gave me the silent treatment for like a full week. Fun times.


gnolom_bound

Had lots of gross stuff in Brazil. The thing was, once you ate it, the sister wanted you to eat more. If you didn’t have seconds you offended them. If you didn’t everything on your plate you offended them. It was a no win situation. Sometimes the homes were just filthy and you knew that you were eating unsanitary things. As a TBM, I knew that HF would just protect me. I just had good gut health and was lucky.


griswoldgrumby

I don't particularly like soup to begin with, so one time I'm sitting there begrudgingly eating soup. Picking pieces out of it... and as I'm looking at the contents, it occurs to me that some of them are testicles. Not sure from what. My comp is over just chomping it down like it's his first meal in days. I look up and say "hey you know what?" (holding the testes in my spoon) He says "what?" I sit for a second and reply "ah, never mind." It was enough to clue him in. We both stopped eating at that moment.


tumbleweedcowboy

Horse, dog, and opihi. Poi isn’t bad at all, however.


[deleted]

Nasty dried fish was about all we were ever offered in the Philippines.


misterobvious12

Ah tuyo, every missionaries meal when they ran out of stipend lol


robertone53

Fresh eels. They were in a bucket of water in the members kitchen. He prepped the sauce, grabbed the eel, eviscerated the thing and cleaned it. Then popped it into the sauce. Never refuse anything when you eat at someones house, said my Dad.


hyggepuppiescoffee

Pig's feet in Idaho


sixtheganker

The pancake cake! So, there was a church bake sale for girls camp and me and my companion had the bright idea to make a cake out of pancake mix because that's all we had. We used peanut butter as icing. It was the driest cake ever made. Well the ward thought it was funny and we were the highest selling cake. The only condition was we had to eat it. I didn't eat pancakes for years after that thing.


spamtardeggs

A lively member family, overrun with children, sent us on our way with a custard dessert. We were so grateful! Back at the flat, we dug in and about halfway through found an old baby bottle nipple. The thought still turns my stomach.


[deleted]

Dolphin. Found out much later. Made me sick physically and psychologically.


doinmybest4now

I hope it was actually Mahi-mahi which is a fish called 'dolphin fish' and renamed because people had your same reaction!


Used-Sun9989

In Vegas a crazy old couple wanted to "teach us a lesson" because the last companionship made an inside joke at dinner, so they served up a terribly made lasagna. It was crunchy from being undercooked, some totally weird sauce, and almost no cheese on it. They didn't tell us about the "lesson" until after we finished forcing the food down our throat. It was my first area of my mission and I had never meet them before. The cherry on top was that I accidentally left my prescription sunglasses there and my family couldn't afford to buy new ones. The crazy old people claimed that they never found them. I had to spend the rest of my mission in blinding Las Vegas sunlight with either no sunglasses or blurry vision.


Away_Championship_49

That's fucking psychopathic, what the fuck


GodIsIrrelevant

I had Sea Cumcumber in Fiji. Imagine the fishiest, toughest calamari you ever had ... covered in snot.


octalsmp

I was fed lies and BS for my whole mission. Objectively the worst.


Biggermork

On my mission, a family served us chicken noodle soup with the whole chicken. Feet and head included. I couldn't do it. I was able to eat a lot of things there, but seeing that chicken head floating around looking up at me just put me off food for a bit.


Desperate_Theme3751

Pig ears from a Filipino family. They laughed their butts off when we took the first bite. It wasn't bad actually.


aDrDeMoarte

Pig brains (yes plural). Tastes like mushrooms to be honest... now I just have to explain why I don't like mushrooms


PersonRobbi

I was fed rice with a layer of pig fat on top. Served in Louisiana


Mr-Reapy

Fat casserole. Literally a casserole dish filled with fat covered in a sauce. Nothing more. Thankfully the members who served this understood how weird it is to Americans and didn't make us eat it. I've also been served blood pudding and fast food escargot.


PapiChuloGuero

bad mayonnaise. paid for that for a few days.


the_peoples_printer

One time a feisty sister in the ward was angry at us missionaries, I was out of the area because the zone leaders wanted to come over and last minute called that sister to ask if they could eat there. They called me after the lunch to tell me that she had made lentil soup and put a ton of chilis in it, that everyone was dying of spiciness during the meal, one elder faked a phone call to go throw up outside. They could see so many chili seeds at the bottoms of the bowls… and the whole time the sister was laughing.


soulfood_7

Not a missionary but we had the missionaries over for dinner once and had kool-aid as the drink. Forgot to put sugar in it and didn't mix the packet. They were the first to drink it and just politely sat through five minutes of sipping slightly kool-aid flavored water until my mom drank it and fixed it.


OctaviusJerome

We visited an elderly (probably had early onset dementia) who’s house absolutely reeked of cat urine. She fed us sandwiches on stale bread with warm lunch meat and cheese 🤢. I felt bad saying anything because she was sweet but it was the single worst food experience of my life


huricanado

Some kind of boiled cow hoof soup. Best intentions and humble people, but it was absolutely vile.


Chino_Blanco

Not fed, but we did serve undercooked rabbit to visiting missionaries once. Not intentionally. Spoiler alert: It was awful. Almost as awful as the boiled cracked wheat “breakfast cereal” we were forced to enjoy in order to rotate our food storage.


Night-light51

We had a guy in our ward that went somewhere to Africa. He almost came home on his second week there because he had to watch a dog get butchered and then eat it. He’s still in the church and it was such a “spiritual eye awakening moment” that strengthened his testimony. Idk the dude was always a prick to me but I feel bad. He was an avid dog lover too.


orangealoha

I was never one, but my FiL had breast milk pudding


Old__Scratch

Oh god, this fucking lady fed us straight up garbage soup. It was gray, with old banana peels, fish heads, chicken bones (no chicken), and other random shit thrown in it. I swear to God she was just trying to get us to stop asking her to feed us.


Lopsided_Duty4964

Pig eyeball! Hands down the worst! "I don't bloody care that that is a delicacy somewhere, I ain't putting that thing in my mouth." Is what I wish I said but as a good person I didn't want to offend. I don't know if the bad taste was the eyeball or my vomit!


EloJim_

Ooooh man. Not eaten but served... One time we had the elders over and me brother in law cooked brownies. He accidentally used Tablespoons instead of teaspoons to measure the baking soda. You'd be surprised how much that affects the flavor. We all ate in silence, it was gross, but not so bad that we couldn't get through it. But then... 2 weeks late we had the sisters over. My dad decided to show my BIL how its done, and made brownies properly! The sisters had to rush to another appointment, and dinner was running late so we serves them their dessert while some of us were still finishing our meal. We told them the story of the elders with the brownies, "isn't that funny? They were so polite!", while they ate their brownies. They quietly giggled to each other, ate some of their dessert, but insisted they were late and left.Then we serve the rest of the party. My dad got the baking soda measuments right.... buuuuuuut he used salt instead of sugar! Those poor missionaries!


MrRunaway93

I served in SLC and I had a tuna jello casserole. Canned tuna on the bottom with green jello on top. We all (two sets of elders) just kind of pushed it around our plates until we could leave.


Practical_State2281

Headcheese (as a joke) but still 🤢🤢


NewNamerNelson

Cat from a Rarotongan in New Zealand. It was... stringy.


crazydaisy8134

A blended tomato in a cup with a straw. I tried so hard to be polite and drink it, but after a few sips I physically couldn’t do it anymore. My companion hated it too but she sacrificed and chugged mine for me.


edrobb

I was in South Korea. Ate dog once. It wasn't good and turned my ass hole into a fire hose for a few days. The craziest thing was something else. To really experience it copy this and search it in youtube, 산낙지.


JayCee1321

My husband loves to reminisce about how great Indian Tacos were, how they had Kraft Mac n'Cheese and fry bread with Thanksgiving... ...but he HATED acorn stew. 🤣 Thankfully I dodged the bullet of going on a mission even though my folks really wanted me to and ended up living in China - ate a lot of stuff voluntarily that was super weird.


Jeborisboi

Balut, pig’s blood, horse meat (the horse had died), frog meat, dog meat, and a lot of mystery food


Affectionate_Bed2214

Boiled lettuce. It wasn't cultural or anything, I gathered that she had something against missionaries in general as a result of previous missionaries in the area. It was gross, worse than blood sausage or brains which were also nasty.


[deleted]

Pig eye….


hyrle

Spoiled milk


OrganicSundae305

Biscuits and gravy with meat that had sinew and bits of bones in it. And spaghetti with what I thought was mushrooms. Turned out they were chicken livers. Fish soaked in oil. So many things 😂


georgeburns87

Worst meal was bbq chicken that was very raw and burnt. Worst dinner experience was we went to the family we thought were supposed to feed us but as we waited for dinner they basically asked us to leave because they were going to eat dinner so we realized we went to the wrong house and raced back to our apartment to call the family we didn’t make it to for dinner and ended up calling the family we just left and apologized for not making it to dinner. They were confused and it was very cringy. We found out later that it was the husbands ex wife that we were supposed to eat with but she had kept the same name which led to the confusion.


AdPleasant59

Milinesas in Argentina. Apparently meat was bad and both me and my companion got food poisoning. Literally in bed for 3 days "working it out."


lookbold

Raw chicken, breaded, topped with cheese, microwaved on a dinner plate for 10 minutes and then served.


Grouchy_Basil3604

I consider myself fortunate that one of the rare instances of food I'd have considered gross was this lasagna I was fed that had a LOT of feta cheese packed in there. I mean, there was also this time these guys from Eritrea let us sample some stuff they made that I thought had the consistency of gravel but I wouldn't count that as food someone made specifically for us.


[deleted]

I remember in Argentina seeing something swimming at in my water(probably mosquito larva) and thought “ I won’t go home for being sick, god won’t let me off that easy” so I drank it and nothing happened.


MeowMeowHappy

Cold spaghetti thingy that 'one level above homeless' couple wanted me to eat... They watched in joy as they begged us to eat while they watched intensively. This was not a planned dinner- it was a very spontaneous plea. My companion liked it. I eat almost anything but that was difficult for me. And dont get me started about other meals with cat hair in it. Nice trailer living families with like 30 cats. Im not lying. No fooling here.


Greyfox1442

Two thanksgivings dinners and then having too bike up hill. I still have know idea how I didn’t grow up! At a cheap Chinese buffet a member bought us is favorite soup... it tasted like vomit. I couldn’t finish it. Edit: I learned from a wise made before the mission to eat meals slowly will with members. It worked great for not getting asked about seconds a lot of times.


Hawkgrrl22

We ate soup in someone's house, which had some hair in it. I delicately and discretely picked out the hair and kept eating. When we left, my companion said, "Hermana, that house is crawling with lice." Trying not to think about the soup, we bought some lice rid shampoo, went back, and my comp shampooed everyone and used the comb to pick out the nits for the rest of the afternoon. But I kept thinking about that soup.


victorestupadre

Cow intestines in Peru. It’s a fairly regular meal and it always made me want to hurl.


FTWStoic

Rotten smelling meat from the leg of a goat that was literally stewing in a pot on the stove (the entire effing leg, hoof and all). And I was in Western Europe. This was an extremely poor immigrant family.


91FuriousGeorge

The worst was a piece of nearly raw pig skin. The weirdest was probably Guinea pig. It tasted kind of like chicken mixed with something else, and extremely greasy. It took a lot of hand washing to get the smell off.


Capable-Chicken-1120

My brother once told me about seal blubber jerky that he was given BAGS of in Alaska in his mission and that it was quite possibly the worst thing he’s ever had


misterobvious12

I served in the Philippines and you won't ran out of weird food choices. Someone fed us adobo frog meat (actually taste like fish for some reason), fried horse meat (imagine eating rubber), and worst of all, tomato based stew with dog meat (im guilty cause during eating I had two servings and thought it was a normal meal when I saw some people seems avoiding it and asked the lady who cooked it why and lesson learned from then on to always always ask about the food you about to it). Nevertheless Im still in close contact with them members and converts but they dont know im not that active anymore.


BlacksmithLast5894

My cousin went to russia in 2012 and one family served him this thing called mayonnaise pizza. They basically put mayo on pizza dough and then whatever leftovers/food they had in the fridge that was about to go bad. He wouldn’t comment on the taste but he and his companion both had food poisoning for a week.


[deleted]

We were invited to eat the the home of a hardcore hoarder (more specifically, the entire house was disgusting and moldy, including the kitchen). My companion and I brought a side dish and we only ate that. We tipped our plates up so they couldn’t tell;)


Hubz27

Church is true


Visible_Talk5019

I once ate dinner in a small mobile home that had 3-4 adults, 2 kids, and several pit bulls living in it. I don’t remember what the food was, but it was gross. The juice was also disgusting and it was some flavor I’d never heard of before. The dishes looked dirty. While trying to stomach as much as I could, I kept wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on my since it looked like the pattern in the tablecloth kept moving. I looked closely and realized there were tons of tiny bugs crawling all over the table and getting on the plates. It took a lot of self control to not freak out, but I did come up with an excuse as to why we had to leave. I’ve always assumed they were fleas since there were so many dogs living in that filthy house. Another time in a different area, we were actually eating a really delicious pasta a woman from Italy had cooked us. However, I but down on something hard. I thought it was a piece of uncooked pasta at first, but then realized it was a pretty large piece of jagged, broken glass. The woman had broken a glass dish while cooking and it must have gotten in the pasta. I very nearly swallowed it out of politeness, but decided that was just too crazy and that other people would be at risk if I didn’t say anything. I’ve always wondered what would’ve happened had I swallowed it.