Got Milk??

So when you think of Africa you usually would assume that most things especially food would be dirt cheap. Well that is sooo not the case in Nigeria. Most grocery that we buy are at least 3x if not 4x the price of the regular every day food i would buy in Canada. Of course that is not what most locals buy. The food they would eat is cheap but my weak white stomach can not handle it. The few times i have ate local food i have spend the next day or two living by the toilet. Ill show you why.....




I know these pictures aren't very good but its all i got. If you look closely though you can see all this meat just laying out on these sick wood table. The meat just sits there all day in heat and humidity with flies and bugs constantly landing on it. The grossest part is, people are constantly coming by, picking up one piece, checking it out, putting it down, then grabbing another one. Since most people dont have access to bathrooms you see them EVERYWHERE (and i mean like every 3 seconds) taking care of their business on the street.......i would be pretty confident in saying their hands are pretty darn filthy, at least their left one.(left hand = wiping hand. Right hand = shaking hand......GROSS!!) One time Jeff saw a man transporting a huge bag of beef on the back of an okada (small motorbike). The meat kept falling out of the bag and dragging in the dirt while the man quickly tried grabbing it and stuffing it back in the bag. Pretty nasty! Needless to say, we try and stay away from the local food as much as possible even if that means paying a little more for clean food.

Although it has been a constant battle for me paying as much as we do for certain grocery. I just can not bring myself to paying ridiculous prices for food we can go without for a few months. I have been forced to look outside the box and improvise a lot while cooking, which has been challenging but fun. Another thing about grocery shopping here is if you find something you like, buy as many as you can because sometimes stores will have one thing for a while then you will never see it again. Examples, brown and icing sugar, cream of tarter, corn syrup, whole wheat anything, brown rice, cream of mushroom or chicken soup, chocolate chips, marshmallows. Just random things like that - so if its your lucky day you will find things like this and when you do buy it up!!

Let me give you a few example of how ridiculous prices can be......just last week i was in the grocery store. I saw a man carrying the most wonderful looking celery i had ever seen in Lagos (most celery, if you can find it, is pretty much all leaves and if there actually is a stock its completely flimsy). Anyways i hunted the store for it and found a huge bag of it. I looked for the price tag....3650 Niara which is $24 bucks for a bag of celery.....NO THANK!!! I usually never get veg in the stores because its all imported which is why they can ask such ridiculous prices for it. We try and stick to the vegetable markets although local veg has kind of a dirty bitter taste to it but you get use to it. I only notice when i come back from visiting home. Here is just one of the many veg markets around....



You have to pay top dollar for soo many things here....clean meat(chicken, tuna and sometimes ground beef is pretty much all we eat, its the least expensive), potatoes, peppers, all dairy products, if they even exist here - a block of cheese smaller then the size of my hand is about 8 or 9 dollars. One thing we are constantly craving and always on the look out for is fresh milk. You can easily buy boxed or powder milk.....but i have to admit i am spoiled. I can barely bring myself to smell that stuff without gagging, let alone taste it. Last year a new company called "Farm Fresh" starting bring in fresh milk...first fresh milk in Lagos. We splurged and bought a liter for 9 bucks( CRAZY HEY!!) You know you have lived in Nigeria too long when are treat is fresh milk........ but we literally thought we were in heaven eating cereal for breakfast. Can ya tell.....



Unfortunately it didn't last too long. When Jeff brought it home for the 2nd and 3rd time it was already sour and chunky and even if it was days before the best before date it would still be sour. It actually became a game....looser of Yahtzee has to try the milk first. We finally gave up on the 4th time and were soo disappointed. Every time we would walk by it in the grocery store we were so tempted to give it one more chance but didn't because we couldn't agree on who would have to taste it first. Eventually this company went under. They could make great milk, but just couldn't get it from their farm to the stores without spoiling. So after all of that you can guess how excited we were when this new company "Clover" starting bring milk in just a couple months ago. This time its about $7 a liter and so far it has been WAY better. Never gone sour, even is ok a day or 2 after the best before date. Like i said its a treat, so we dont get it regularly but when we do..... HEAVEN!!!!!! Jeff may not look as excited in this one, he now just takes his cereal time very seriously.....and he wouldn't stop eating so i could take a picture.....



When we are home and are walking through a Walmart or something like it, we seriously walk around and just look at the prices on everything and can't help but think that the stores are practically giving the food away for free...........So be grateful for all the yummy and cheap food you can buy because we are jealous!!