Milk, or something like it

Peak evaporated milk and Nido powdered milk, two alternatives to fresh milk in Southern Nigeria.

Two and a half spoon-fulls of creamy white powder, a half spoon-full of sugar, add filtered water and constantly stir–pam! a bowl of milk. Add Corn Flakes and enjoy.

You cannot find fresh milk around southern Nigeria. In the north dairy cows are plentiful, but in the south you only see skinny, gangly cows used for meat. At some select grocery stores that sell a lot of imported food you can find cream sometimes. Instead of selecting from the varieties of nutritious white liquid in the refrigeration section of the grocery store, we grab bags of white powder or cans of evaporated milk from the pile at the market. If you have never tried evaporated milk with cereal, please don’t. It tastes like thick vegetable oil mixed with non-dairy creamer. Fresh milk would also be hard to keep in southern Nigeria because refrigeration is not consistent, just like the electricity to power the refrigerator comes and goes every few hours. I have gotten used to powdered milk for now, but nothing can replace a glass of chilled skim milk.