This work is dedicated to the many dozens of Samburu who, over a period of thirty years, took care of me, guided me, patiently answered my questions, reviewed manuscript entries over and over and over again. Thank you.

This work documents a culinary vocabulary of taste, aroma, and mouthfeel that far exceeds that of English, and I suspect nearly all other languages. The food itself, the smoke cured fermented milk, has been dismissed by observers from outside Kenya with two reductionist observations. The anthropological literature observes that the Samburu staple food is (was) milk. Travelers with published accounts of visiting the region going back to the 19th century have observed the Samburu drink “smoked milk.” In fact, the Samburu cuisine of smoke cured fermented milk is a cuisine of incredibly complexity and subtlety. And their Northern Maa vocabulary of taste and texture terms is exceedingly complex. Speaking as an English speaker, I can say that there are a large number of culinary ideas that the Samburu can discuss that we have no words for – or concepts. An example is xxxx, tasteless, and xxx, lacking its essence.

The Samburu smoke cured fermented milk is the quintessential poverty food that is dismissed by outsiders as a nothing.This work is dedicated to the generations of Samburu women whose lives revolved around preparing the milking container with burning sticks, a skill they began learning as small children. The work is tedious. It is also harmful to ones health. Eye and lung problems go hand-in-hand with the milk preparation.

Just before electricity came to the Wamba area I described a refrigerator to Elizabeth, one of the women who taught me how to make the milk, and who I stayed with on many occasions, even though we could not directly speak to each other. Through a translator, I described a refrigerator to Elizabeth. I told her that would keep milk cold so that it would last for a week or more. I asked her whether, if she had such a box, she would still clean the containers with burning sticks. Without any hesitation, “No.”

This work is dedicated to all of the Samburu women, and all of the women everywhere, in all times and places who, living lives with few material possessions created meals for their families with limited ingredients for which they were taken for granted. Their labor and skill assumed by their families and communities, and their work entirely over looked by outsiders who looked down on their foodways as too simple to bother with. It is to you that this work on one of the quintessential cuisines of poverty is dedicated.

The Samburu milk cuisine, infinitely nuanced, consists of the skill and connoisseurship of generations of women going back to the time of myths who skillfully created foods of distinction using wooden and gourd containers for production, selected botanicals to sterilize the containers, flavor and to preserve the milk, milk, of course, and time.

And, personally, this is dedicated to my mother under whose guidance I learned to pay attention to taste, aroma, and presentation. The skills I needed to recognize in my first sip of Samburu milk that there was a treasure passing between my lips.

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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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