Samburu girl with a container of milk

I took this photograph in February, 2002, near Wamba, Kenya. It is a photograph of a Samburu girl holding a milk container. Dairy containers must be sterile. In the semi-arid desert of Northern Kenya there isn’t enough water to allow for thorough washing of containers. Instead, the container is sterilized by heating a small amount of water to the boiling point with burning sticks. The burning sticks leave a taste in the milk — thus the milk of the Samburu is always flavored with the smokey taste of the particular wood that is used to sterilize the container.

I am returning to Kenya in January to continue work on this project.

The breadcrumb trail: Home William Rubel Author and Cook Specializing in Traditional Cooking
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Primary Subjects Home Hearth Cooking Bread Eating Chicory Buds Online Vegetable Seed Catalogs Stories from Africa Homemade Alcohol Wild Mushrooms Heritage Turkeys Unrelated to Food Traditional Foodways Samburu Contact	I took this photograph in February, 2002, near Wamba, Kenya. It is a photograph of a Samburu girl holding a milk container. Dairy containers must be sterile. In the semi-arid desert of Northern Kenya there isn’t enough water to allow for thorough washing of containers. Instead, the container is sterilized by heating a small amount of water to the boiling point with burning sticks. The burning sticks leave a taste in the milk — thus the milk of the Samburu is always flavored with the smokey taste of the particular wood that is used to sterilize the container. I am returning to Kenya in January to continue work on this project.