Hubby was lamenting the fact that I had a fit over his introduction of contraband to the challenge last week.
He came home from an incredibly long day at work (this is what happens when houses blow up in Grand Junction) and brandished a drool-worthy container of my favorite gelato.
“Um, no,” I said. “That is NOT in the challenge.”
He already had his argument well-prepared. “But it’s DAIRY and I picked DAIRY as my cheat food,” he said.
More on that whole argument later, but the gelato remains sealed in the confines of the freezer. Its fate is undetermined at the moment.
Last night, hubby said, “Man, this not eating sweets is killing me. I just want dessert.”
I said I would make him something with the stores we had, but he said, “Ugh, it’s after 9, forget it.”
I remembered a small stash of boxed pudding mix in the cupboard. I fished out a box of pistachio pudding, whisked in 2 cups of milk and let it set for a few minutes in the fridge. Voila! We had an instant LEGAL dessert that conformed to the challenge.
After the first few bites, I realized it had an incredibly musty flavor. It looked fine, the texture seemed normal, but then I bit down on one of the miniscule bits of chopped nuts in the pudding and it tasted like battery acid. Ugh. The pudding was absolutely disgusting.
“Don’t eat the pudding,” I warned hubby, I think it might be expired or something.
“Oh, I’m eating it,” he said, digging in with desperation. “Ugh. It tastes like dust.”
He dug the box out of the trash, laughing maniacally as he checked the expiration date.
Turns out, this pudding expired in 1998. The same year I met hubby. And after calling the Kraft Foods hotline, I discovered that boxed pudding is good for two years after manufacture, meaning it was actually made in 1996. Nice. This pudding is as old as my driver’s license. And I ate it. Sick.
I have no idea how I ended up with this box of pudding. I probably moved it four times. And now, it met its end during the Armageddon Pantry Challenge. I suppose it’s appropriate that we actually ate it, since we probably would in an emergency. If you’re wondering if you can eat 15-year-old pudding, the answer is yes, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
westlifegj 
After sharing your column today with my husband as a nudge to ferret out long past expiration dates from our pantry, his response: “In Vietnam we were eating C-Rations from WWII.” Of course those were all canned. I asked him about pudding and he said no, that they did get canned peanut butter, jelly and pound cake (their favorite) in cans. He said that they became adept at combining different canned “main meals” to make them taste better. Where is a will, there’s a way. So best of luck on your Armageddon Pantry Challenge.
Haha! Jeannette, thanks for sharing that. I wish we had some pound cake right about now. Yum. Even if it was canned. I’m running out of chocolate and it’s about to get ugly around here.
I just ate pudding from a pudding mix from 2009….no wonder there was no taste to it. Its 2016.
Considering I just moved to North West Territories, it just seems apt somehow…should have realized why the pistachio pudding was cheaper than the chocolate ones. 😛