1 - Food and Indifference: A Cultural History of the Rijsttafel in the Netherlands

Summary

Abstract

This chapter examines the role played by colonial cuisine in the metropole. By the turn of the twentieth century, the rice table found its way to the metropole and became a vehicle for imperial propaganda. Attempts to popularize the rice table remained fruitless and its spread was limited to circles of former colonial civil servants and Indo-Dutch families. This chapter tracks that contours of the dissemination of the rice table, and thus shows what we could call the ‘limits of permeation’: those instances where indifference to empire took the upper hand in metropolitan imperial culture.

Keywords: food history, rice table, popular imperialism, Den Haag, indifference

The history of the introduction of the rijsttafel (rice table) to the Netherlands is in the first place a history of indifference. The dish and the social practice around it were not adapted readily by the Dutch public, nor, in general, looked upon favourably. Although some evidence points in the direction of racialized hostilities finding a way of expression in relation to food from the colonies, the dominant attitude seemed to be indifference. The history of the rijsttafel in the Netherlands can therefore also serve as a methodological case study into ‘indifference’. While Tara Zahra has suggested that indifference to one thing often means an interest in something else (in her case this related to allegiance and non-allegiance to nation and empire), I take a different approach here, because in the case of metropolitan colonial culture, it is the indifference itself that has an active function. This chapter is an attempt to trace what I call the ‘limits of permeation’ of colonial tropes or symbols, in this case the rijsttafel. By tracking where it was popular, and where it appeared, we can also approach the limits of this dissemination, and get sight of the forces that worked against it.

The limited appeal of the rijsttafel around 1900 may be a surprise in light of its postcolonial popularity. When Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte sat down for a Q&A session on social media in 2015, he answered the question as to what his favourite meal was with: ‘Indonesian rice table’.