How long until I can enjoy a decent cup of tea again, I wonder ? Last night, at the end of a tiring day, I settled down to relax with a nice cup of tea – and was dismayed to find that it had rather an odd taste to it, and that I also had an oily layer stuck to the roof of my mouth after drinking it – ugh ! I wondered if it was the water ? Or possibly something disgusting floating in the kettle (again) ? I got up to check and after ruling both the water and the kettle out, I decided to check the milk … a new 1 litre carton of imported UHT Skim milk which I had just opened. (I don’t risk buying local milk here as even boiling it does not kill all the germs/viruses you can get from it, and few people here vaccinate their livestock).
Aha ! It WAS the milk. It had separated and had strange fatty white particles floating on the top of it (but oddly, was not sour) … so I checked the expiry date on the top “06th April 2008” it read. “Must be the very last litre of the old batch I bought before I recently re-stocked in the Big City”, I thought. So I went through to my pantry to get another box off the shelf. That, too, was marked “Expiry 06th April 2008”. Oh no. I checked all the other boxes (all 12 litres of them!) and they all had the same expiry date. So I opened one, two, three boxes and checked the contents of each one … all had separated. I had a ‘dodgy’ batch of milk – the only milk in the house (save a lone litre of Soy milk and half a tin of my daughter’s full cream milk powder) until our next trip to the city which is weeks away !
Now, in 3rd world Africa we do not really bother too much about expiry dates as several imported dry goods found on our shelves here are almost nearing the end of their shelf life anyway, and most Tanzanians know that it is pretty safe to eat certain products waaaay past the marked “expiry date” on the tin/box. In fact, it is very common here to see expiry dates which have been forged and changed. Some of them are very well done, too. (My guess is that consignments of ‘almost near expiry' goods are offered to the retailers at discounted prices – the expiry dates are then changed and they are sold on to the public at the original/full price - hah !)
Anyway, back to the milk ….. It was my fault. I should have checked. Milk is one of the expired products I would never take a chance with. I am an old customer at the shop that I bought it from, and I know that they will have no problem replacing the milk for me, or even refunding me. The problem is, simply, that we are now ‘stuck’ with no ‘decent’ milk in the house for at least the next 2 weeks, until we go in to the City again.
You know what ? What gets to me is not actually the fact that we will be drinking black tea (or herbal - or Soy - or Full Cream - perish the thought !) for the next 2 weeks. What gets to me is the feeling of sheer frustration (and helplessness ?) over a simple thing like milk. Which I have no control over. Which I cannot “fix”. I mean, it’s not like I can pop down to the shops and replace it now, can I ? I’m usually very organized and am annoyed that I have been ‘caught out’ …. just when I thought I’d learnt (almost) every trick in the “making sure you don’t run out of supplies in the middle of nowhere in Africa” book.
Lesson number #4383 of Life In Africa ?
There’s no use crying over expired milk !
Aha ! It WAS the milk. It had separated and had strange fatty white particles floating on the top of it (but oddly, was not sour) … so I checked the expiry date on the top “06th April 2008” it read. “Must be the very last litre of the old batch I bought before I recently re-stocked in the Big City”, I thought. So I went through to my pantry to get another box off the shelf. That, too, was marked “Expiry 06th April 2008”. Oh no. I checked all the other boxes (all 12 litres of them!) and they all had the same expiry date. So I opened one, two, three boxes and checked the contents of each one … all had separated. I had a ‘dodgy’ batch of milk – the only milk in the house (save a lone litre of Soy milk and half a tin of my daughter’s full cream milk powder) until our next trip to the city which is weeks away !
Now, in 3rd world Africa we do not really bother too much about expiry dates as several imported dry goods found on our shelves here are almost nearing the end of their shelf life anyway, and most Tanzanians know that it is pretty safe to eat certain products waaaay past the marked “expiry date” on the tin/box. In fact, it is very common here to see expiry dates which have been forged and changed. Some of them are very well done, too. (My guess is that consignments of ‘almost near expiry' goods are offered to the retailers at discounted prices – the expiry dates are then changed and they are sold on to the public at the original/full price - hah !)
Anyway, back to the milk ….. It was my fault. I should have checked. Milk is one of the expired products I would never take a chance with. I am an old customer at the shop that I bought it from, and I know that they will have no problem replacing the milk for me, or even refunding me. The problem is, simply, that we are now ‘stuck’ with no ‘decent’ milk in the house for at least the next 2 weeks, until we go in to the City again.
You know what ? What gets to me is not actually the fact that we will be drinking black tea (or herbal - or Soy - or Full Cream - perish the thought !) for the next 2 weeks. What gets to me is the feeling of sheer frustration (and helplessness ?) over a simple thing like milk. Which I have no control over. Which I cannot “fix”. I mean, it’s not like I can pop down to the shops and replace it now, can I ? I’m usually very organized and am annoyed that I have been ‘caught out’ …. just when I thought I’d learnt (almost) every trick in the “making sure you don’t run out of supplies in the middle of nowhere in Africa” book.
Lesson number #4383 of Life In Africa ?
There’s no use crying over expired milk !
