Noun
Pronunciation: XXX. 
Newly collected milk warm from the animal and somewhat sweet. Most Samburu people do not drink kule nairewa because it is kong’u (smells of cow) and has not yet acquired the desirable flavors from fermentation in a lmala.

Kule nairewa, as with all Samburu milk, is consumed either from a small lmala into which the animal is milked, or from a container into which the milk was transferred. 

Murran (warriors) drink kule nairewa while out with the animals when they are too far from a manyatta to get fermented milk from a home. Otherwise, fresh milk is only consumed by elders — all of whom are by definition men. From the fresh milk, elders can tell a great deal about the herd and the state of the forage. Through the subtleties of mouthfeel, they can taste how far the animals are from the start of lactation, and from taste and aroma they can tell what plant or plants the animals have been eating.  

To Samburu people, the dominant smell and taste of kule nairewa is of the sweat or basic smell of the animal — thus, the smell of cow, goat, sheep, or camel. While fresh milk can be used to make chai (tea boiled with milk and sugar), when milk was plentiful, most tea was made with kule nairobi, a stage in which milk has absorbed taste and aroma from the lmala but has not yet soured enough to curdle when mixed into a hot liquid, as it will at the next stage, kule naisukutan. 

“Straight from the cow, it can give you an upset stomach. You need two or three hours to cool.” — Robin Leparsanti, in conversation with William Rubel, Feb. 1, 2016.

Return to the Stages of Milk Fermentation.

This is the draft manuscript of the Samburu Milk Project, © 2024 William Rubel. 

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Published by William Rubel

I am an author who writes about traditional food and foodways. My book, The Magic of Fire (2002) is about hearth cooking. I have written an introductory history of bread, Bread, a global history (2011) and am currently writing a history of bread for the University of California Press. Other areas of interest include wild mushrooms, and specifically the treatment of Amanita muscaria in the historic record. I also write about Early Modern British Gardens, and for a more general audience, I write for Mother Earth News on bread, gardening, and more. I have an ongoing research project into the smoke-cured fermented milk of the Kenyan Samburu tribe. I am a co-director of the Samburu Lowlands Research Station, Lengusaka. I am the founding editor (1972) of Stone Soup, the magazine of writing and art by young people.

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