The Colonial Table: Food, Culture and Dutch Identity in Colonial Indonesia

Abstract

This article examines some of the ways in which colonial identities were constructed and maintained with reference to food and eating in the Netherlands Indies (colonial Indonesia) during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It argues that food was an important focus for the cultural performance of Europeanness among colonists with aspirations to European status. Specific notions of class and race informed these social performances, and degrees of competence distinguished between eaters. To eat ‘European’ often meant publicly avoiding Indonesian dishes, even if they were enjoyed privately, and learning to appreciate foods from ‘home’. Class and cultural identity intersected with race at the colonial table.