Adjective
Pronunciation:
Bitter and, depending on context, keirapirap (astringent). Negative term.

When translating to English, Samburu speakers don’t differentiate between “bitter” and “astringent,” but lump them both under “bitter.” To be sure what is meant when speaking to a Samburu in English, you must ask where the taste is felt — on the tongue or at the back of the throat? You can also clarify by using the Samburu word for astringent: keirapirap. 

Milk may become intrinsically bitter if the cow has been grazing on loduaporo [What is the description/botanical name for this plant or tree? Leave your remarks in the Comments below.] More commonly, bitterness enters the milk through the character of the smoke that impregnates the lmala when it is cleaned. Bitterness (kodua) and astringency (keirapirap) tend to be fused in the flavors that emanate from the walls of a prepared lmala. Opinions about the positive and negative qualities of bitterness vary. As a rule, a little kodua is perceived as a good thing. As in many culinary cultures, though, strong bitter and astringent tastes are preferred by some people but rejected by most as being too strong. 

Although kodua is a negative term for milk, the word may be positive in non-milk contexts. Examples include some greens, such as managu (related to sukuma); a rainy season fruit called lmorijoi; some solid (not liquid) blackish honey from the flowers of the lparaa (many people like it, and it’s considered good for a sore throat).

“A very simple explanation. When you start using an herb every day, there is the possibility that the herb will make the milk bitter. Even if they use one particular one — all of them if you keep using the same one — the content of that herb in that calabash makes the calabash bitter. Three times in a week, like every other day, if you are milking every day. If not milking every day, might only be once in a week, but still shift. You keep changing as much as possible, not just alternate. It defeats the tongue, meaning the tongue cannot hold it. It discomforts the tongue. It is bitter. Bitter to the extent the tongue cannot hold the bitterness. Like quinine. Burns the throat.” — Robin Leparsanti, Longhiro Lekudere in conversation with William Rubel, April 1, 2016.

“When you use lorian, so the flavor also of the milk is nice, very nice. and the tree we call inyeryoi, that is the best one. All of the Samburu, you just know when you test that milk. [You get the perfect balance] because when you put that one is good smelling from the smoke. When you mix some different wood in, like today I use inyeryoi, tomorrow I use a different one, another day I use another one, so the calabash becomes kodua.” Longhiro, January. When you switch to a different wood, you stay with that wood for a while before switching again.

The milk will get a bitter flavor if you don’t wipe the interior of the lmala properly, if some charcoal and soot is left behind. Reference to the other tribes having milk that’s not clean.

Return to Milk Taste and Texture terms.

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

Lmorijoi or lmarguet trees (first rain honey, white) used medicinally and not allowed for pregnant women; also some herbs, for example, lneryioy bark used as a treatment for cows that have retained their placenta after birth, especially stillbirth.]

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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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