Mursik

Mursik is a basic element of the cuisine of the Kalenjin people of Kenya. Made from curdled dairy products cooked in a specially made gourd container, it is commonly served at dinner.

Preparation

A gourd is burned inside with special charcoal, so when you pour the thick, sour milk, you sometimes see gray lines. In preparing the gourd, the Kalenjin women, for instance, make a brush from the stick of the sosiot tree to clean the inside. Brushes made from this tree are hardy and may last for up to two years before replacement.

Charcoal, formed from the smouldering embers of branches from the Ite tree is used as a milk preservative. Women use the embers to coat the inside of the cleaned gourd. The charcoal has various effects. It lines the inside of the gourd, reducing its porosity and therefore making it airtight. The smoke from the embers also has a preservative effect which prevents undesired bacterial multiplication that causes spoilage, while allowing natural souring The charcoal smoke imparts a special flavour to the milk, and a bluish colour which is of high aesthetic value to the consumer. Having prepared the gourd, women pasteurize the milk by boiling. The pasteurized milk is left to cool before pouring into the gourd. Mothers training their daughters in the treatment of milk emphasize that hot milk is never poured into a gourd. Finally the gourd is corked to render it airtight, making it possible for the milk to be preserved for up to a month There are various flavours of mursik, depending on how it is prepared and what quality of milk is used.

When a cow has recently calved down, it is often necessary to dispose of the colostrum which invariably is too much for the young calf. Colostrum is very thick and has a high nutritive concentration, called 'toloek' in Nandi. What is good for the calf is also hood for you. The mursik prepared from toloek is different in consistency, texture and flavour from that prepared from the milk of normal lactation. Also, different cattle breeds give different qualities of milk, the distinguishing factor being its butterfat content. Ayrshires are reputed to have the better milk, although the farmer will prefer the Holstein which gives a larger quantity of low butterfat milk, depending on how much water it has taken. The resultant mursik therefore is differently nuanced.

The preparation of mursik is an undertaking of serious consequence. Because of the fermentation, extreme care is taken to ensure that only the lactobacteria useful for the purpose are not eliminated, and that the harmful bacteria are all suppressed.

Cooked milk is sieved into a sufuria and boiled. While the milk is cooling, you select a gourd which was thoroughly washed and dried on Saturday. Take a stick of iitet and burn a portion of its tip into an ember.Insert the flaming ember into the gourd and shake it to avoid burning. Take your sosiot and, with methodical, circular movement of your hand, while applying gentle, consistent force to the tip of the sosiot against the inner walls of the sotet, grind the ember into a fine soot.(indeed, the suutet, as this action is called, represents a complete and graphic metaphor of the sex act, whose currency is classical). Once the ember is totally ground and the gourd cooled, the soot is poured out and you can now pour the cooled milk into the sotet, cork it tightly and store it away in the 'lengut', awaiting the ripening of your milk.

Itet. Many tree species have been adjudged suitable for the purpose of imparting the preservative and aromatic effect to milk.Because of the many causes of unusual milk flavour, including the effect of plain gourd walls( which give a bittersweet, rotten like tang) and the plainness of white ripened milk, the role of itet is paramount. Several trees are good for the purpose. I have a friend who did his thesis entirely on the subject, for his PhD in agroforestry.One characteristic is common though: high tannin content in the bark of the tree concerned. The popular ones include sertwet (acacia), simotwet, and in 'shamba', wattle. Senetwet is by far the most commonly used, on account of nearly universal availability, although sertwet is preferred by the purists.

Mursik can be prepared from a full gourd of milk corked in all at one go. Another method of preparing it is be pouring in a pint every three days or so. The fermented milk provides the culture for the new milk, and seems to accelerate its ripening. After the gourd is full, it is corked for a while, to achieve a varied consistency of proper sour milk, with a clear, sharp(almost bitter in some cases) liquid in which white globules of butter float, shaken well. Another type is the fast fermenting, even type, which gives a white, porridge like consistency.