So I’ve had this tin of smoked paprika for easily five years, maybe more, using it probably at least once a week. Today I sprinkled it over my egg & potato salad and noted that in addition to the fine reddish powder, some of what I shook out was black and coarse. And also moving. WTAF?
A quick search taught me that pepper is very popular with critters and generally a great source of filth. But not why it took so long for this particular plague to reveal itself. Anyone have a similar experience?
Eggs probably stayed dormant until the right conditions to “motivate” them to hatch.
Look on the positive side. Extra protein.
Ground, dried chili peppers? Interesting! I have not had this experience, but I think I rarely have dried crushed peppers more than a year. I did notice what I suspect might be something like webs in some crushed peppers from Turkey. DIL brought them about a year ago. I haven’t seen insects but I haven’t looked too carefully. 
Google says "Silky webbing: Small, sticky webs, which usually point to moth pupae or larvae*.
How much did you have? I’m imagining it must have been a lot to last this long while being used every week!
Five years?
Sometimes it’s best not to look too closely.
Qhen we were both still living with our folks, my sister went to great pains to make a pot of chili.
All that work literally went down the drain when she opened a can of chili powder and seasoned it with a healthy dose of dead bugs.
She might have broken a local record for profanity (not that I blame her). It was pizza that night.
I’m trying to figure out how the conditions might have changed in my kitchen cabinet, which is generally stable, temperature- and humidity-wise. I know from Game of Thrones that dragon eggs don’t hatch unless they’re exposed to fire, but these are just bugs.
I have had similar experiences with bugs only hatching after years. My suspicion (entirely unsupported by data) is that the bugs came in with some other spice, but migrated to something else in the cabinet that they also found tasty.
I tend to put things like flour, rice, etc. in the freezer for a while (like a month) as soon as I bring them home from the store. Even that doesn’t always work, but it helps. I live in a buggy climate.
