There I was, about to do Ken Hom's chicken in sesame seeds for dinner, having marinaded the chicken strips, dry-roasted and ground the szechuan seeds, prepared the last-minute sauce, finely chopped the spring onions, and just had to do the sesame seeds in hot oil, when I opened the sesame seed jar to find live maggots inside!

The lid must have been not quite closed.

Never fear, I thought: I had a 400 gram bag of sesame seeds, procured from Manchester this year, in the spice drawer. This too was contaminated (no maggots, but definitely weird).

So chicken and sesame with no sesame seeds tonight.

We also recently discovered an opened bag of sliced almonds which had turned to powder: full of little maggots.

We had a very hot, dry summer here in the South of France: I guess insects (flies?) will lay their eggs wherever they can find edible stuff.

Moral of the story: keep everytning in airtight containders, and keep opened bags of spices and herbs firmly closed (I use rubber bands, but it's not foolproof).

Phil

I would check everything, especially flours. Once you have had an infestation, the bugs seem to get everywhere, from one who has suffered! Some bugs can even get into sealed jars, so check everything!

Anything that has oil, like all the nuts (almonds, pistachios, cashews) and seeds (melon and sesame), are best kept in a freezer or fridge, or else they begin to smell rancid. If you have limited space, always buy small packets, works out cheaper in the end.

I have 2 upright freezers, one which has 3 pull out drawers dedicated to all kind of nuts, oily seeds, surplus spices and a few other things like Baries and my mum's hand made vermicellis. I buy larger (not too LARGE) packets of spices and since it is only 2 of us most of the time, the packets last quite a while. So most of my spices/nuts live in a freezer, apart from a small amount in my kitchen cupboard.

If you have a small freezer and have some surplus space in your fridge, that is better than a kitchen cupboard.

A good warning to us all.... and if they are getting in, that suggests the "sealed" jars aren't !

Steve

Hi Phil

so I'm not on my own, had the same problem, putting packets in freezer as Mamta recommends is good as this is how most infestations start, they are in a packet you buy could be spices, rice, flour, nuts etc. This is the little bugger:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianmeal_Moth a right pain in the butt, putting each packet in the freezer for a week will kill off any eggs that are in the unopened packet, they will get in everywhere they also chew tiny holes into sealed packs, it's a case of checking each pack throwing out anything you find infested and putting everything else in the freezer for a week and buy some click type sealable containers or glass jars once removed from freezer I put product through a sieve to check there are no lava in the product before placing in sealed container, vacuum out the cupboard then wipe out with cider vinegar.

I sadly promise they will not disappear over night.

Bonne chance

curry-man86

Strangely enough, I don't get this problem with my rice/lentils/nuts and other things that are not in the freezer either. Not sure why, may be just lucky ;-)!

Thanks. I didn't know that you could put nuts, or indeed anything with oil, such as sesame seeds, in the freezer.

In our cupboards, during the summer, we put little cards which trap small moths: there are lots of them. How do they get inside a sealed jar? Beats me!

As for ants: don't get me started!

The trouble with living in an area with hot dry summers is that there are beasties everywhere. The first frosts have just arrived here, which helps, but not if there are larvae already there.

Anyway, the chicken was still good, what with the sauce and the szechuan peppercorns (yeah, I know they're not really peppercorns, but that's what they're called).

Phil