Milk Fermentation Stages – Samburu Research

December 2, 2024February 11, 2025 William Rubel Milk Fermentation Stages

kule ntorok

Noun
Pronunciation: koo’-lay uhn-tor’-rok
Spoiled milk.

This meaning is different from kule nataroitie in that kule ntorok is already bad, while kule nataroitie, though it already tastes terrible, is only on the verge of becoming as terrible as kule ntorok.

Kule ntorok has no use. It can’t be eaten or used to make butter, it cannot be cooked with, it cannot be put into tea, so it is fed to the dogs. It is keisamis.

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December 2, 2024March 26, 2025 William Rubel Milk Fermentation Stages

kule sikiria

Noun
Pronunciation: koo-lay see-kee’-ree-uh
Donkey milk.

The Samburu don’t eat donkey meat. They don’t drink its milk. The Turkana do eat donkey, and there is even a butcher for donkeys in Baragoi. Like foods other cultures use to clarify their cultural identity, such as the frog legs eaten by the French, kule sikiria is called “Turkana milk.” This rejection is more akin to Jewish Kosher laws, as the reason the Samburu don’t eat donkey is that they don’t eat animals with a single hoof — thus, they would not eat horse or zebra.

Kule sikiria is used by Samburu as medicine for children with whooping cough, and topically where the skin has come into contact with millipede toxin.

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December 2, 2024March 26, 2025 William Rubel Milk Fermentation Stages

kule saroi

Noun
Pronunciation: koo’-lay sah-roy’
Mixture of kule naoto (perfectly fermented milk) and cow blood in a 1:1 ratio. See kule njuloti for a discussion of how the cow blood is collected.

As with njuloti, which is made with fresh milk, kule saroi is both a food and a medicine. As medicine, it is fed to boys after circumcision for a period of seven days. It is also consumed, along with kule njuloti, by anyone who has been injured, especially resulting in blood loss, as part of the healing process. As a food, however, this is milk is only consumed by boys after circumcision, but not anyone else.

This milk is also given to one’s friends in the same “age set” who have been recently circumcised who come to visit when you are recovering. An age set is a friend group of five or six men who are close in age. When they come to visit, each friend is handed a cup. The murran (warrior) pours out the milk from the lmala into its lkupuri (a lmala cap which also serves as a cup), takes a sip, says “Saroi,” and then hands the cup to his friend, who also drinks. From then on, they refer to each other as “Saroi saroi.” They use this form of address with each other for the rest of their lives.

“Kule saroi helps the boys recover the blood from when they are circumcised.” — Longhiro Lekudere in conversation with William Rubel, Jan. 24, 2025.

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December 2, 2024March 26, 2025 William Rubel Milk Fermentation Stages

kule nkubuk

Noun
Pronunciation: koo-lay uhn-guh’-book
True uncultured buttermilk.

Kule nkubuk is the whey that separates from making ngorno (butter) from ing’anayoi (the curdled mix of butter particles and whey that indicates cream breaking-point). When cooked, the buttermilk makes ranganya, the cooked whey product that shares similarities with the Norwegian cooked whey cheeses gjetost and mysost.

There is no word for this in English.

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December 2, 2024March 26, 2025 William Rubel Milk Fermentation Stages

kule njuloti

Noun.
Pronunciation: kool-ay uhn-juh-lott’-ee.

Both a food and a medicine, kule njuloti is the combination of kule nairewa (fresh milk still warm from the cow) mixed with cow blood in a 1:1 ratio. As a food, this strengthening mixture is reserved for the murran (warriors). As a medicine, anyone can consume it who has experienced an injury and blood loss, including women after childbirth. (Menstruating women do not consume njuloti.) Whether consumed as a food or medicine, shake after mixing. The blood collection system is described below.

Murran make njuloti when in the bush, where milk is scarce, as women make kule saroi for their children. Saroi may also be made when milk is plentiful, because it is a food that many enjoy. Because this milk is hard to digest, murran usually consume it in the evening so they can digest it when asleep. However, if it is a day when they can rest for some hours, some murran make consume njuloti in the morning.

I am told that the milk and blood mixture can make you hot and sweaty, so people do not like to consume it and then go out in the sun. In my personal experience, I did not feel hot and sweaty. But I drank and enjoyed this milk without having been advised to rest for some hours after consuming. (I suspect this was a trick was played on me by my late friend John.) After drinking two cups of it, I walked a couple of kilometers and then vomited the moment I got near where I was staying.

The herds were kept around the manyatta during the long rains. After the long rains, the main part of the herd was moved to better pasture, anticipating the drought between the long and short rains. Beginning in January and until the milk flowed more freely after the short rains, the main herds were grazing in better pasture, wherever that could be found. Only a few cows were retained at the manyatta to feed the family. Thus, in the months of January and February, this milk made from 1:1 milk and blood was fed to the children, the blood nutritionally making up for the dearth of milk.

To collect blood, cows are bled by tying a rope around the neck and then shooting an arrow into their jugular vein. The blood spurts out in an arc, and is caught in the lmala ngoiti. When this small container (capacity between 1 and 1 1/2 cups) is full, the rope is removed, and in a single gesture, the wound is rubbed with dirt. The blood is immediately stirred with a stick. The stick is removed from the milk after stirring, and in a single gesture, the clot that forms at the base of the stick is flung to the dogs.

When mixed with kule naoto (perfectly fermented milk), the milk-blood product is called saroi. It is drunk by boys who have just been circumcised.

“When you drink njuloti and saroi, you don’t eat anything. You don’t even drink water.” — Longhiro Lekudere in conversation with William Rubel, Jan. 24, 2025.

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December 2, 2024January 28, 2025 William Rubel Milk Fermentation Stages

kule nkirimo

Noun.
Pronunc. koo-lay uhn-kee-ree’-moh
Milk from a lactating mother, whether animal or human, who has gone one or two days without releasing milk. For a cow, this may be because the calf has died. For a human, the mother may have had to travel away from her child for a day or two.

Milk that has stayed in an udder or breast for too long changes taste. It is not fed to calves or children because it may cause diarrhea. Also, milk from the very end of the lactation period becomes sticky, salty, and undesirable. There is also less of it. This milk is never used.

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December 2, 2024March 26, 2025 William Rubel Milk Fermentation Stages

kule nataroitie

Noun
Pronunciation: XXX
Milk that has gone bad but hasn’t fully soured.

Compare kule nataroitie with kule naoto, which is milk that is fully soured and separated into curds and whey. Nataroitie is likely caused by bacteria that have been favored by a poorly cleaned lmala. This milk still looks good, but it will not taste good! A simulacrum! You discover kule nataroitie by accident. You find it out when you add to boiling tea and see the milk curdle upon contact or, if added to a cooler tea infusion, you discover the milk is off by the disappointment of the bad taste.

Kule nataroitie is a term we do not have in English. A synonym might be “rotten,” with the understanding that kule ntorok, the milk stage that follows and means absolutely intolerable and inedible rottenness, is also a vocabulary term English lacks.

When children are served kule nataroitie, they say “Papa mayeu!” (I don’t want!). Most people feed kule nataroitie to dogs, while everyone feeds kule ntorok to the dogs.

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November 27, 2024March 26, 2025 William Rubel Milk Fermentation Stages

kule naoto

Noun
Pronunciation: koo-lay nah-wah’-toe
Fermented, ripened milk. Milk for children; westerners might call it yogurt.

Kule naoto is prepared in a lmala nkirau, one of the larger fermentation containers. The kule naoto preparation is appropriate for cow, goat, and sheep milk, but not for camel milk. Around Wamba (elevation 1,300 meters), milk takes two to three days to reach the naoto stage, when it is fully soured. The solids form a soft clump at the bottom of the nkirau, while the whey rises to the top. The sour whey can be served to children to stimulate their appetites, or thrown away. Many children enjoy sour tastes (oxalis flower stems being a favorite of children in my California neighborhood), so they can be made happy with this drink. Adults may be less enthusiastic.

After the sour whey has been removed from the nkirau, the lid is replaced and the fermentation container is shaken. This can be done by holding the nkirau and shaking sharply. People have different styles. My friends hold it at a 45-degree angle in front of their bodies and shake it in a vigorous manner, with as forceful an upward jerk as they can manage. This can take 30 minutes. The nkirau can also be hung from a tree or from the strong center beam holding up the manyatta roof, parallel to the ground, with the nkirau container shaken back and forth. (This is similar to the method for making the yogurt drink known as ayran in Turkey, where in the countryside the fermentation container is often hung from the limb of a tree.) After the solids have been liquified by the shaking, the nkirau is allowed to rest for a few minutes before the whey that has risen to the top is again poured off.

“Milk is ripened, salty, no longer liquid, slightly sour, but not very sour. The milk is fermented and ready to use: kowoto (adjective). It tastes kemelok, the most preferred stage. Camel milk never becomes naoto; you can’t make butter with it. Goat can be naoto, but you can’t use it to make butter — that only applies to sheep and cow. Two hours after naisukut [in Lengasaka], slower in Wamba. … It might take two days to get to this stage.” – Robin Leparsanti in conversation with William Rubel, Feb. 1, 2016.

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November 27, 2024March 26, 2025 William Rubel Milk Fermentation Stages

kule naisicho

Noun
Pronunciation: XXX
Sour milk.

As milk continues to ferment in a lmala, it becomes demonstrably sour: kule naisicho. This is the fermentation stage after kule naisukutan (milk with a relatively neutral taste).

People used to drinking commercially processed milk from a container will say, “This milk has gone sour,” but pasteurized milk does not really sour. Instead, it goes bad. Sour milk was an esteemed drink in many parts of Europe prior to the spread of industrial milk. In interpreting the Samburu concept of “sour milk,” one has to remember that this is not milk prepared in sterile metal containers. Besides the sourness, there is a range of taste sensations that local people note, such as the wood used to clean the lmala, the type of animal milk fermented, the length of time the milk is from the start of lactation (which affects mouthfeel and taste), and the seasonality and type of forage the animal has consumed. For most non-Kenyan readers, our language impoverishes the product.

Because the way the lmala is cleaned affects the milk’s taste, one becomes accustomed to one’s mother’s method. There is no sour milk like the sour milk of one’s mother, unless of course, she is nkalani (slovenly), in which case (like those of us who grew up with mothers who were horrible cooks) one prefers to consume this type of milk at a friend’s house.

“Moving towards bad but still edible. More separation of liquid and solid. The water is salty. It is shaken to mix again. Lemon taste. Gives you the ‘balloon ear’ feeling. Nowadays some people add sugar to this one to eat on its own, or eat with ugali. Although you can use it as milk, you are more likely to leave it to become kule nataroitie. Happens about two days after kule naoto.” — Robin Leparsanti in conversation with William Rubel, Feb. 1, 2016.

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