Adjective
Pronunciation: meh-shah’-moo
Tasteless; doesn’t appeal to the palate. This word pairs with keidukulan, but goes beyond a mere lack of flavor to name “taste that lacks its essence.” 

Meishiamu can apply to milk, but is more usually mentioned in the context of meat and other foods. The term is the opposite of kemolok, which means sweet, perfect, and in harmony.

Nutraloaf, an American prison food that sits on the edge of torture, is often formulated to taste of nothingness. Its absolute lack of taste makes it difficult to eat, so its empty taste is part of the penal concept. The concept underpinning meishiamu is more subtle than something that is simply the nothingness of tastelessness. Food that is meishiamu has lost its intrinsic flavor, so the food is perceived to have a flat, empty taste — for example, goat meat that does not taste of goat.

An animal that has died from an illness or old age yields meishiamu meat. If someone living near a town or shop has such a carcass, they will buy fat, tomato, onion, and salt — ingredients to make up for the missing flavor. However, as one friend observed, you cannot really make up for what is missing, because you still “cannot feel the taste.” The drought-starved cow is skinny and has no fat, so all parts of the animal are tasteless, including soup made from its meat. 

Also, sick and starving cows are kenana (tender) because the muscles have broken down. This is not a texture Samburu appreciate. A friend who lived in Paris for some years says that most, but not all, Parisian steaks, are meishiamu. In this case, the tastelessness comes from the way the animals are raised. Indeed, healthy Samburu pasture-raised animals are notable for their intrinsic flavor, something that is almost entirely missing from meat sold in urban centers internationally. 

Samburu like their meat freshly killed, focusing their connoisseurship on taste rather than soft texture. Once, when I was a young man in Paris, I got chewed out by my host for praising the steak as “tender” (kenana) rather than for praising its taste. 

Milk is said to be meishiamu when the lmala has not been cleaned with burning sticks, or has been so poorly prepared that the aroma of the smoke left by the burning botanicals is not properly fused to the flavor of the fermenting milk. 

Animals that have fed on certain trees, such as lnduapor, lschipuiluo, and euphorbia, produce meishiamu milk. This applies to the milk of cow, sheep, goat, and camel. It affects not only the milk, but also the taste of the meat. Meishiamu milk and meat does not appeal to the Samburu palate as it lacks its essential defining taste.

Porridge cooked with maize flour and lacking all other ingredients, such as oil and salt, is also meishiamu. 

“You cannot feel the taste.” — Robin Leparsanti 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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