The Indonesian Servant

What stands out immediately on this label? Right, the Indonesian servant carrying a tray with steaming platters of food in one hand and a gong with the Leiden keys in the other. The keys symbolize both the Nieuwenhuizen brand Sleutels and the city of Leiden’s coat of arms. Nieuwenhuizen started out as a producer of canned vegetables but gradually expanded with fruit syrup and meals such as nasi goreng or bami – all canned of course.

This label was made for a can that contained nasi goreng. This Indonesian dish originated from a combination of European and Indonesian cuisine. While the Dutch in the colonies were influenced by the local cuisine, the food in the can was not made according to an authentic Indonesian recipe (fig. 1). The Dutch had ‘westernized’ the dishes by making them less spicy or by using other ingredients that were more common in the Netherlands.

Indonesia captured the imagination of the Dutch consumer, and Nieuwenhuizen capitalized on this. It was common in the Dutch Indies for European immigrants to have local servants in their house. That is why the label shows an Indonesian servant. The gong was also common in the houses of European immigrants in the Dutch Indies. It was used to call upon the house servants to serve supper. Although the label was designed approximately 20 years after the independence of Indonesia, it still uses recognizable colonial imagery. And apparently, that still appealed to many people. Indonesia may have been decolonized, the Dutch consumer was not.

The can thereby not only contains an Indonesian dish, but the label refers in many ways to the colonial past of Indonesia. This Southeast Asian country was used by Nieuwenhuizen to promote its products, while the Indonesians would never have considered the contents of this can to be Indonesian.