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On the evening of the 26th January I was watching TV when my daughter came in much agitated and interrupted my Breaking Bad orgy to show me the thing she found in her mug of coffee. Being of a squeamish disposition I didn't look too closely but it looked like a mouse embryo or a piece of intestinal tubing of some sort. See image.
I eschewed my normal tea and biscuit that evening and went to bed feeling decidedly queasy. I had been pouring milk from the offending carton over my meusli for three days.
The following morning (stomach still upset) I contacted the Consumer Protection Association. A very nice lady shared my concern and then passed me on to the Food Safety Authority. A man there informed me that this was an issue for my local Environmental Health Officer in Dun Laoghaire and supplied he relevant number. I got in touch with a very helpful lady called Grainne who asked me to email her the details of milk's origins and an image of the creature.
She queried me about how the coffee was made and whether the thing could have been in the coffee machine. No chance I assured her as the milk had been poured directly into the coffee mug and the machine had been used to froth it only.
Things rested so. An hour later she called me back and said she'd spoken to her scientific advisor and that he wouldn't be able to look at it until Monday - it was now late on Friday afternoon. However she said he wondered was it possible that it was a lump of curdled milk. Not a chance I said - it's definitely animal. However a seed of doubt had been sown.
That night I took the thing out of the deep freeze and resolved to examine it more closely the next morning. Getting up early I took it out to a table in the back garden, laid it on a sheet of paper, and dissected it with a sharp knive. It was indeed a lump of curdled milk that had built up inside the frother on the coffee machine.
It's clearly time I instituted a new cleaning regime in the kitchen.
