Adjective
Pronunciation: kay-sahm’-ihs
Rotten smell; very stinky.
Milk left too long in the lmala to ferment becomes kule torok — keisamis (stinky) — while milk in a plastic container becomes stinkier still — kong’u. People in the countryside consider this to be rotten, and won’t drink it, but some people in town will. Keisamis milk is dog food, not fit for humans. Nobody drinks kule torok because it is keisamis. When something is keisimis it can trigger a sense of disgust. It can trigger the gag reflex.
Food giving off this smell is inedible, for example, green and maggoty meat is keisamis. Keisamis meat is only fed to dogs. A public toilet in Nairobi can be keisamis.
Return to Milk Taste and Texture terms.
This is the draft manuscript of the Samburu Milk Project, © 2024 William Rubel.
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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