Adjective
Pronunciation: XXX
The smell of milk, especially goat and sheep milk. Negative term.

Lkiraeu is the unpleasant smell of goat and sheep milk [Is it true of sheep milk? Leave your remarks in the Comments below] when at its strongest, especially during the dry season, and not yet placed inside a prepared lmala to ferment. The shift in milk taste from wet to dry season happens within weeks of the last rain. 

“The smell of the milk, particularly noticeable around sunset (5 or 6 p.m.) when the animal’s blood is very hot. Some girls say they don’t drink this milk as is smells too strong, not good. It also applies to the sticky residue left on your hand after milking goats. Before milking a cow they need to wash their hands as the smell would transfer. They are unhappy when this milk gets on their clothes because of the lkiraeu smell it leaves.” — Robin Leparsanti, Longhiro Lekudere, in discussion with William Rubel, April 1, 2016. 

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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