Samburu Research

December 5, 2024February 19, 2025 William Rubel Milk Taste and Texture Terms

keisukut

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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December 5, 2024February 19, 2025 William Rubel Other Samburu Words

kenana

Adjective
Pronunciation: keh-nah-nah
Soft, tender meat or fat. The best meat.

In Kenya, animals that are young and kenana are preferred in the urban centers, hence the large demand for young Samburu-raised animals in the Nairobi market. The Samburu themselves seem to prefer older, tougher meat. As Samburu animals are all free range, no mature animal will have flesh marbled with fat. At the same time, Samburu animals have a pronounced taste, so each bite or spoonful of stew is flavorful.

Goat tends to be more tender than cow, and meat from a young goat is more tender than that from an old goat. Because cows are so valuable, young cows are not slaughtered. Kenana meat is rare.

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December 5, 2024January 9, 2025 William Rubel Milk Taste and Texture Terms

keisiicho

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.

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December 5, 2024January 29, 2025 William Rubel Milk Taste and Texture Terms

keisamis

Adjective
Pronunciation: kay-sahm’-ihs
Rotten smell; very stinky.

Milk left too long in the lmala to ferment becomes kule torok — keisamis (stinky) — while milk in a plastic container becomes stinkier still — kong’u. People in the countryside consider this to be rotten, and won’t drink it, but some people in town will. Keisamis milk is dog food, not fit for humans. Nobody drinks kule torok because it is keisamis. When something is keisimis it can trigger a sense of disgust. It can trigger the gag reflex.

Food giving off this smell is inedible, for example, green and maggoty meat is keisamis. Keisamis meat is only fed to dogs. A public toilet in Nairobi can be keisamis.

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December 5, 2024February 21, 2025 William Rubel Milk Taste and Texture Terms

keirucha

Adjective
Pronunciation: kay-ruh’-sha
Thick, when applied to milk; also rich mouthfeel. The opposite of kebebek.

Keirucha is used to compare the texture of goat, cow, sheep, and camel milk with each other, or to compare the changes in texture, because milk from a given animal becomes more or less fatty depending on the seasonal condition of the forage and time from lactation. Goat milk is the most naturally keirucha, as is dry-season cow milk. Keirucha chai (tea, milk, water, and sugar) contains more milk and is less dilute (1.5:2 milk to water) than the standard recipe (1:2). Some people, especially the young, may request tea made to this ratio.

The term is also used for other thick/thin comparisons. For example, cloth with a rich hand can be termed keirucha, as can a chubby person.

“Used only for fresh milk, when it is the texture of thick porridge almost at the ugali stage. Also used to refer to very heavy rain with big drops.” — Robin Leparsanti, Longhiro Lekudere in conversation with William Rubel, April 1, 2016.

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December 5, 2024February 21, 2025 William Rubel Milk Taste and Texture Terms

keirapirap

Adjective
Pronunciation: kihr-ahp’-ihr-rap
Astringent; the aftertaste that remains in the back of the throat after swallowing smoke-cured and fermented milk.

Keirapirap is appreciated when mild, but not when it produces a harsh sensation in the back of one’s throat. It is one of the culturally attractive flavor and sensory components of lmala-prepared milk. The astringency might come from forage, for example, when the goats have eaten loisuk; from the process of preparing the lmala interior with burning botanicals; or from an unusually long period of storing milk in the lmala before consumption. In the latter case, the astringency can become overpowering and unbalance the milk’s flavor profile. Kerirapirap astringency is analogous to the heat of pili pili (chili pepper), or the skin of orange that burns the tongue and can be felt in the back of the throat near the tonsils. It is like many small thorns hitting the throat, such as when one ingests loisug and other medicinal plants.

Samburu tend to translate this word as “bitter,” but bitter is also kodua, one of the five fundamental tastes along with sweet kemelok, sour keisiicho, salty makakai, and umami (a term the Samburu do not have in the northern Maa language) that are experienced in our tongue and mouth taste receptors. Keirapirap is more sensation than taste. It is especially pronounced when bitter woods, like serai — a wood esteemed by many — are used to clean the lmala, but which overpowers the taste balance if the lmala is not wiped well after the ash is poured out.

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December 5, 2024February 19, 2025 William Rubel Milk Taste and Texture Terms

keidukulan

Adjective
Pronunciation: kay-doo-kuh’-lahn
Tasteless with a hint of bitterness. No strong sensations from the tongue; no one taste is dominant. Reflects a small difference in taste perception. Compare this with the concept of meishiamu (“taste that lacks its essence”).

Keidukulan can be translated as “tasteless,” but it is more the tastelessness of a well-made, neutrally flavored white bread than of water. The term applies to fluids that are relatively neutral in taste. Manyatta milk is always suffused with the complex tastes of fermentation, fused with the flavors and aromas of the burnt botanicals used to sterilize the lmala (milk container). If you are used to milk with a complex taste interplay between stages of fermentation and burnt botanicals, then milk without this will be perceived as keidukulan, lacking taste, or as being “raw.”

Camel milk is perceived by many Samburu to be keidukulan by nature. The milk has a salty taste Samburu perceive to be “inside” the milk. Fresh camel milk, with its rich, sweet, and smooth flavor and texture, tastes flat to the Samburu but, to outsiders like me, it is the most delicious milk I’ve ever tasted. The next most keidukulan milk is cow. It does not have the salt within the taste. Cow milk becomes more keidukalan as the milk’s mouthfeel becomes thinner, as the milk becomes increasingly less fatty in the months following lactation. Goat and sheep milk have stronger, more distinctive tastes.

All fresh milk, kule nairewa and kule nairobi, is, by definition, relatively keidukulan, because, while the milk may pick something up from even a short stay in a prepared lmala, the flavor is subtle compared with what the milk will become as it ferments. All store-bought kule is considered keidukulan. Tea lacking enough tea and sugar, thus lacking a rich taste, is keidukulan (tasteless).

Milk is keidukulan when stored in a lmala “prepared” by rinsing in cow urine rather than with burning sticks, which is the urine shortcut used by murran (warriors) when they have milk-producing cows but are too far from a manyatta to get the communal milk that was traditionally left out for them in the lmala loolmuran in each manyatta ngaji. As today there are no longer large cow herds in the Samburu Lowlands, the custom of leaving out milk for the murran is no longer practiced. Fresh urine is understood to be sterilizing, so, besides being used to “clean” the lmala by murran, it is also used to clean wounds. Keidukulan is also used to describe the taste of cow urine; when young boys look after the cows, they sometimes drink cow urine where there is no water.

Keidukulan may contain an astringent or bitter component. For example, alkaline water, which is fed to camels — although it may have kodua (bitter) and keisiicho (astringent like a lemon) components — is perceived as tasteless in the sense of keidukalan.

“Some of these words, like kebebek and this one, keidukulan, you will find a very small difference. Keidukulan is no longer edible.” — Robin Leparsanti, Longhiro Lekudere, in conversation with William Rubel, April 1, 2016.

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December 5, 2024March 6, 2025 William Rubel Milk Taste and Texture Terms, Uncategorized

kong’u

Adjective
Pronunciation: kohng’-oo
Stinky; bad smelling. Negative term. The opposite of koropili (smelling nice).

Kong’u foods may be unpleasant to consume, but they are still consumable, unlike foods that are so rotten they are keisamis.

Kong’u is used to describe an uncleaned lmala, one that is due for cleaning and thus quickly causes milk to sour and clot. You can see the lmala is due for cleaning because the milk inside is clotting. [Is the following statement correct?] When an nkalani (dirty) woman’s lmala is cleaned and then used, the interior (instead of returning to black) is coated with a white-ish-yellowish film, somewhat analogous to the ring that forms in a bathtub, but likely biologically active. This film gives the milk of the nkalani woman a bad taste.

The lmalasin of most murran (warriors) living on their own in the bush tend to be poorly prepared or haven’t been cleaned properly for a long time, and thus become kong’u. (The murran tend to clean the lmala with cow urine.)

Milk kept in plastic containers quickly becomes kong’u, often in as little as one day. This milk tastes even worse than that from a dirty lmala.

More generally, kong’u can be used to describe the smell of rotting meat, fruit, or cabbage, and can also be applied to meat from a very old animal that has a strong smell, for example, from an old he-goat.

Pasteurized milk from shops becomes keisamis (totally inedible), rather than kong’u.

“When you use the urine to clean the calabash, the milk becomes bad, bitter, like a lemon (kodua). The murran do it in the bush because they don’t have time to clean the calabash, so they’re usually using the cow urine just for the day. But the milk becomes kodua. We use the urine to wash our hands in the manyatta. The calabash is not cleaned with urine in the manyatta, only by the men in the bush.” — Longhiro Lekudere in conversation with William Rubel, January 15, 2025.

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December 5, 2024February 21, 2025 William Rubel Milk Taste and Texture Terms

kelili

Adjective
Pronunciation: XXX
A disgusting bad smell or taste so extreme it makes you gag or want to vomit.

Examples of things that are kelili are rotten food, donkey’s milk, and the smell of rancid fat and sweat emanating from women’s bead necklaces that have been polished with butter or rubbed with sheep fat or ghee to protect against lice. Beads cleaned with cow or goat fat tend not to get as stinky.

Kelili can be the taste of milk fermented in a poorly prepared lmala. This milk tends to be super keirapirap (astringent) and is usually attributed to the careless work of a woman who is nkalani (sloppy, slovenly, and dirty).

“That is alani but still developed to kule nawato, with flies or cockroaches in it.” — Robin Leparsanti, Longhiro Lekudere, in conversation with William Rubel, April 1, 2016.

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