Adjective
Pronunciation: kay-soo’-kuht
Mild sour.

We do not have a word for this state of milk in the English language, though many of us have experienced keisukut. It is milk on the cliff-edge of sourness. At this stage, though appearing to still be emulsified, the milk curdles when boiled with tea. Keisukut milk no longer tastes sweet, but it also does not taste fully sour. The closest English term might be milk that is “turning.” 

The next time your milk curdles when added to a cup of hot tea or coffee, you can explain with newfound precision to whomever is within earshot that the milk is keisukut. It is said that adding salt to keisukut milk prevents curdling in hot beverages, but it still cannot be boiled. 

Keisukut milk is naisukutan, on its way to becoming sour. After one or two days it becomes fully sour.

Keisukut is also applied to foods other than milk, and can be a culinary preference. Ugali mixed with meat, or rice with beans, become keisukut when left for a day (depending on storage temperature). Before eating, keisukut food must be cooked again with a little salt and fat. Some Samburu really like the keisukut effect on meat set aside for two to three days — but the dish must always be recooked before eating. This may be analogous to the preference of certain British people for birds that have been hung until they are “high.”

“Children like the keisukat kule. When they used to eat the ugali, they like it. It’s good for them. And also, when you mix porridge ugi (in Swahili), it’s good when you cook the ugi with keisukat milk. It becomes not like a bitter lemon, and not salty, it’s in the middle. Children like it and it’s good for them. Also, when you cook the tea (chai), [when it stops boiling] you drop down to the fire and then you pour this milk. But you cannot cook cute naiskut in the fire like you would tea.” [You have to let the temperature drop.] — Longhiro Lekudere, in interview with William Rubel, Jan. 9, 2025. 

Return to Milk Taste and Texture terms.

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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