Category: Samburu Milk Project

Adjective
Pronunciation: XXX
Creamy. Cream of the milk; fat.

[Should this be lata ate?]

Descriptive term for milk with a smooth, fatty mouthfeel; the feeling of meat fat. 

This is the fat that rises to the top of the milk when it sits. This mainly applies in the Samburu highlands around Maralal, where the climate is colder, and milk sits longer before it ferments (maybe 4 or 5 days). The milk from the Samburu herds of small Boran-breed cows is relatively less fatty than milk from European cows, and may require days to separate.

Lata is milk in an early stage of development, as the milk is maturing to yogurt. A young kule naoto has the lata mouthfeel. The kule naoto will have a flavor profile from the woods that have been used to clean the lmala. In my experience, this is the most delicious stage, most appreciated stage, of milk fermentation. It can taste sweet, like vanilla ice cream, but with an ineffable hint of smoky flavors and aromas.

“Milk as smooth as when you  are eating liquid fat. Very smooth. It just slips down.” — Robin Leparsanti or Longhiro Lekudere, in discussion with William Rubel, April 1, 2016.

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

Adjective
Pronunciation:
Nice smelling. The opposite of kong’u. 

Koropili especially applies to a freshly cleaned lmala prepared with ng’eriyoi or lorien. Also applies to any sweet-smelling wood, such as sandalwood. Locally, the leaves of nataraquoi [What is the botanic name? Leave your remarks in the Comments below] — a small tree or shrub that looks like ginger [fact check] and grows in mountains, such as the Mathews Range near Wamba — can be added to tea to make it smell nice.

Koropili is also used to refer to the various scents and perfumes used by the murran, and that girls add to their beads. 

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

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.

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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.]

Adjective
Pronunciation: kehm’-eh-lohk nod’-u-wah
Sweet-bitter. This term complements kemelok nesiicho (sweet-sour).

This taste is generally thought of as a fault, and is used when the flavor of the botanical used to sterilize the lmala dominates all other flavors in the finished milk. This especially applies to the bitter woods. Milk becomes kemelok nodua when not enough of the smoke has been removed, as even bitter woods, such as serai, taste good when the cleaning is done well. This defect is a side effect of failing to wipe clean the lmala after it has been sterilized with burning sticks. Milk from nkalani women (sloppy, careless, slovenly) has not had enough charcoal and smoke removed from the lmala, therefore the milk tastes only okay, not exactly good. A well-prepared lmala leaves only a hint of charcoal on a testing finger swiped on its interior, but kemelok nodua is produced by a distinctly sooty interior. Some complain that kemelok nodua milk makes your stomach rumble, boil, and may even cause diarrhea (see quote below). The aftertaste will also have a strong astringent component. 

Outsiders may read this flavor as overpoweringly smoky. In the Northern Maa language, kemelok nodua is not an appreciated taste, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t favored amongst other culinary cultures. Other pastoralist tribes in the region, such as the Kalenjin, Pokot, and Turkana, have different aesthetic standards. This can include milk that is sooty, presumably kemelok nodua, but in this case it is culturally appreciated. If you are not Chinese and have not grown up with bitter melon, I think you will find it a taste that is very difficult to embrace. 

See also the related term kemelok nesiicho.

“If you drink this milk, it can make your stomach boil, make the gassy rumbling noises.” — Robin Leparsanti, Longhiro Lekudere in conversation with William Rubel, April 1, 2016.

“[I have heard that] When you take this milk, you can see your stomach run around like riding in a bus — vroom, vroom, vroom.” — Longhiro Lekudere in conversation with William Rubel, January 15, 2025.

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

Adjective
Pronunciation: kehm’-eh-lohk nay-see’-shoh
Sweet-sour. This term complements kemelok nodua (sweet-bitter).  

This compound term speaks to shifts in taste as foods move from the tip of the tongue, where sweet is registered, to the back of the tongue, where it registers sourness. Equal quantities of salt and sugar mixed together is kemelok nesiicho. Kule naoto, an often preferred early stage of milk fermentation, can become kemelok nesiicho four or five months after the animal’s lactation ends. The sweetness comes from the sweetness of lactic fermentation and the sour from acidic fermentation.  

Other foods that have the complexity of kemelok nesiicho include certain kinds of oranges and the local fruits morron (fruit from the mountains), nadonder (looks like a cucumber and you eat the stem), loilei (fruit of the euphorbia used for fences, a favorite of both goats and people, also medicinal if one has the flu), and mpachach (a small plant with tiny pineapple-shaped fruits).

See also the related term kemelok nodua.

“Milk from which fat has been removed. Put in a bowl, shake the bowl, and then remove all the fat. The milk that is left in the bowl tastes at the same time sweet and sour. Kamanang’ is the name of that milk. Ngorno is what rises to the top. Tastes fatty. Used to give weaning childen. Take ngorno, put in a pot, and cook it until it turns brown, and that fat is used on any food. Stored in a calabash covered with skin, hollow with skin at both ends. Keeps for one season. Don’t prepare the container, just fill. Lkisiich is ghee. Lkisiich is the end product of ngorno, used medicinally for children, especially if they have a deep cough. Ngorno does not stay more than 2 to 3 months. When you see the upper covering changing covering and then use it to clean your own milk container. Similar for nyapoor container. Last time has seen it is with her mother — They are the last age who know this food. The man who is 101 said tasted last time he was married, around 1945. Nyatio is the container to separate and shake the milk. Wooden with skin. Why stopped making it so long ago? What changed? Civilization. Now can get the steel containers. People in the deep country might still make it but these people have been around Wamba for a long time.” — Robin Leparsanti, Longhiro Ledukere in conversation with William Rubel, April 1, 2016.

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

Adjective
Pronunciation: kehm’-eh-lohk
Positive term meaning sweet; delicious; well done. Only used in the context of the taste and smell of food (but not just milk). See also the related terms kemelok nesiicho and kemelok nodua.

Kemelok is similar to the American English usage for “sweet,” in that the general liking for sweet tastes has extended the term to an abstract sense of good, lovely, etc. Thus, sugar and honey are literally kemelok, but the word can also be used to figuratively praise a tasty piece of meat, especially goat from the lowlands (e.g., the Wamba area), because it is the right climate for these animals, providing ready access to salt licks, salty water, and enough leaves. Many lowland Samburu prefer the taste of their own goats to those of highland animals, preferring the stronger taste of lowland meat, which they refer to as kemelok. 

Milk is kemolok when consumed fresh, just as the foam subsides and it has cooled after milking. In the traditional Samburu milk-consuming context, fresh milk is not the preferred taste, however kemelok it might be, because, among other cultural faults, it is perceived to smell slightly of the cow’s body and of urine. Kemelok milk is also not appreciated because it is keidukulan (tasteless), as it has not had time to develop the more complex flavors that come from fermenting milk in a wooden container cleaned by burning botanicals. As all milk is milked into wooden containers prepared by burning botanicals, even fresh milk has flavor components most non-pastoralists are unfamiliar with. A shift to plastic milking containers changes the experience of kemelok milk to the relatively homogeneous product that most people are familiar with. In its figurative sense of “good,” even milk that has soured can be referred to as kemelok by someone who thinks the milk is particularly wonderful that day. 

See also kemelok nesiicho and kemelok nodua.

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

Adjective
Pronunciation: kay-soo’-kuht
Mild sour.

We do not have a word for this state of milk in the English language, though many of us have experienced keisukut. It is milk on the cliff-edge of sourness. At this stage, though appearing to still be emulsified, the milk curdles when boiled with tea. Keisukut milk no longer tastes sweet, but it also does not taste fully sour. The closest English term might be milk that is “turning.” 

The next time your milk curdles when added to a cup of hot tea or coffee, you can explain with newfound precision to whomever is within earshot that the milk is keisukut. It is said that adding salt to keisukut milk prevents curdling in hot beverages, but it still cannot be boiled. 

Keisukut milk is naisukutan, on its way to becoming sour. After one or two days it becomes fully sour.

Keisukut is also applied to foods other than milk, and can be a culinary preference. Ugali mixed with meat, or rice with beans, become keisukut when left for a day (depending on storage temperature). Before eating, keisukut food must be cooked again with a little salt and fat. Some Samburu really like the keisukut effect on meat set aside for two to three days — but the dish must always be recooked before eating. This may be analogous to the preference of certain British people for birds that have been hung until they are “high.”

“Children like the keisukat kule. When they used to eat the ugali, they like it. It’s good for them. And also, when you mix porridge ugi (in Swahili), it’s good when you cook the ugi with keisukat milk. It becomes not like a bitter lemon, and not salty, it’s in the middle. Children like it and it’s good for them. Also, when you cook the tea (chai), [when it stops boiling] you drop down to the fire and then you pour this milk. But you cannot cook cute naiskut in the fire like you would tea.” [You have to let the temperature drop.] — Longhiro Lekudere, in interview with William Rubel, Jan. 9, 2025. 

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

Adjective
Pronunciation: kay-see’-sho
Very sour with bitterness or astringency. Salty with a hint of bitterness. A positive term.

The English language does not have the concept of keisiicho. Its primary use is to describe a super-sour astringent (keirapirap) and slightly bitter (kodua) taste that occurs during the final souring stage (kule naisicho), just before the milk goes bad (kule torok) and becomes keisamis or kong’u. 

At this point, the milk is beginning to separate into ing’anayoi (curds) and taar (whey). This highly fermented milk creates the feeling in your mouth you get while eating orange peels. Your tongue feels funny and a little dry. Because of that strong sourness, you either spit it out or you swallow it immediately, because if you leave it in your mouth it gets unpleasantly strong. You may even feel the sensation in your ears.

Return to Milk Taste and Texture terms.

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