My adventures in dried foods continue. Today I went through my cupboard and found some powder that was supposed to expand into “tomato sausage pot”. The sausage was not mandatory, you could also make a vegetarian version, so of course I did that.

The first thing I noticed when I loaded the dish onto my plate, was the disgusting gray brown color. Now, I don’t want to be judged by my color, so I decided to also give the dish the benefit of doubt. Perhaps it’s just didn’t use artificial colors?

Unfortunately, it did not really taste like human food, or at least not completely. I’m not sure exactly what it tasted like, but I gave up after a few forkfuls. I am sure many starving children in Africa would have appreciated this food, and I like to think that they would also survive it. Especially since I like to think that I will survive it myself. But I quickly concluded that it would be safer to stop, just in case. So I threw away the rest.

I was about to write a warning against the product on my Norwegian-language blog (since this is a product sold exclusively in Norway, as far as I know). But before I came that far, the ever helpful voices in my head (still not literal voices, but “the thoughts in my head” makes it sound like it was my thoughts) told me to go check the packaging. And sure enough: “Best before January 2008”.

The list of contents shows mainly dried vegetable matter, so I am not sure exactly what kind of processes have been at work in the intervening years to transform it into the sludge I found on my plate. But I guess I’m not going to cook any of the stuff I bought before 2005…