Every missionary eats really cool things that usually sound pretty gross to the rest of the world. So here goes, again, in no particular order, and I'm not going to mention things that I'd already eaten in Tonga. Oh, and if you get queasy easily, I suggest you not read the details.
1. Moko Hunu. I'll start with the one thing I didn't like. It was ok the first time I ate it, but by the second time I ate it, I had to stop of fear of losing it all. I looked it up in my dictionary. I'll save you the meaning. Unless I get lots of requests to know what it was.
2. 'Ota. Fresh fish. I really liked fresh fish in Tonga, but I had only had it in salads and such...yummy flavors....In Ha'afeva I not only learned to eat, but love eating fish straight out of the water, straight off the bones.
3. Fish heads, raw or cooked, doesn't matter. I'd say that eating it raw it's almost not worth the effort because the head is so hard break open, but cooked it's really good, especially the lungs.
4. Fingota. I think it's.....ok, I'm not really sure what it is, but it's another raw thing, and it's really good. I didn't get to eat it that much though.
5. Tuku Misi. (Dear family members: Dad doesn't even want to try it....I'm one up!) The biggest it gets is about the size of a really small coconut, and it's blue and has white spiky thingies. Then you open it, and pour most of the goopy, yucky looking stuff, and scoop out about 4 small spoonfuls of orange, goopy, yucky looking stuff. But it's actually really good, as long as it's eaten with 'ufi (tuber plant, some sort of boiled tubers are eaten at almost every meal). I'm not sure I could do it without. It's also really salty.
6. Tuna. And you thought it only came in a can! Ok, it's really good, but it's really fatty. Probably 1:1 ratio. I can handle a little of it, but not that much! The meat is really good though. :)
7. 'Anga. Shark. This might be the yummiest thing I have ever eaten! It was so tender, and cooked in cury, and maybe because it was my birthday or something, but it was soooo good!
8. I ate all kinds of fish, but the two others I will mention are Pone, and 'Ume. 'Ume is the best fish, and it really is soooo good. Both are good cooked or 'ota (I believe the only fish that can be 'ota), although I prefer Pone for 'ota.
9. Sadly, I never ate jelly fish or sea turtle. I've heard turtle is really good, and as for jelly fish, I only wanted to eat it for the sake of trying it. (I've also had octapus, which is really good, but strangely, I never had it in Ha'afeva.) And then I ate lobster and crab often enough, not worth reporting more.
Ok, now for land animals!!! (or in some cases, sky...)
10. Lupe. Dove. Yummy. Delicious. Ifo.
11. Peka. BAT!!!
12. Kulii. Dog. Ok, everyone, I'm really sorry, but it's really yummy!
13. Kosi. Goat. It tastes quite similar to lamb, but really good.
14. Keke Faka-Tonga. Tongan pancake/cake. I'ts like flour and water and fried....if you like deliciously greesy foods, it's totally for you.
15. La'ipele. It's the leaves from the manioke/tapiocca (spelling?) plant, and I like it more than Lu, which is the leaves from the Taro plant. (Both plants are tubers) The Tongans just eat it with some kind of meat, and I really like it.
16. Also, as the title says, I ate a lot of guava and a lot of orange. Both are so delicious, and I'd never had guava before. I highly recommend them to those who get the chance to eat them. I almost love them more than papaya, but not quite. (That's my favorite thing here.) And Ha'afeve banana's are even sweeter than Tongatapu bananas! But that's how long I was there for, two fruit seasons!!
17. This one isn't about what I ate, but how I ate. I rarely used a fork or spoon, and today at lunch I think the ravioli we ate would have been much easier to eat with my hands than with a fork. I am very pro at that now.
I think that's about it. Really, I just know that I am a Tongan, and I was just born in America. And now I'm back to a city of cars and lights and roads and American food and it's all very crazy. Happy birthday Danny. (Hopefully we'll do a post later on that...)
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9 comments:
I want to know what the moko hunu is!
me too! and also, i wanna know how the fish in tonga have evolved to have lungs in their heads. :)
Yep, count me on on the moko hunu! What is it?
Ahh, Eunice, the lungs are kind of border between the head and the body. But now that I think about it, maybe the Tongans are dumb and I haven't actually been eating their lungs this whole time!!! My goodness! That would be odd! OK, fine. Moko Hunu is sea slug. I guess it's not that gross...
apes, if you can get a pic of the moko hunu, that'd be fun to see. eunice and i ate abalone in korea, as well as tons of raw tuna (her aunt owns a tuna-sashimi restaurant). good times, in a very unvegetarian kind of way.
April, all I can say is that I'm totally impressed.
I'll also post this here because I'm too tired to do a full post at McMurrayz, but April and I had a great virtual tour of her mission today thanks to Google Earth. She showed me the island where she served (tiny!), and we also got to survey the temple, Liahona High, and the neighborhood where I ran around as a little tyke. Google is amazing, if not a little freaky.
OK, I'm late to reading the blog. It's just trickier with no internet at home. But FUN! Don't worry, my cooking won't even phase you when you get home! Good!
Thank you for sharing and thank you for teaching the gospel to my people. I left the island since 1999(wow almost 20yrs) and never been back but I am taking my family with me next year!
Love your posts and pictures!
Ma'ake Soakai
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