How to economise and a famous soup sauce

Dolf - obviously well fed - posing with one of his paintings for a Brisbane (Australia) Newspaper. M.V Van Neck 1959.

When I was quite a bit younger I used to be a ship’s mate employed by an illustrious company by the name of “Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappy” or KPM Lines. It was one of the last remnants of the Dutch Colonial Empire. During the fifties, when Indonesia already had gained independence, it maintained the inter-insular traffic in that sprawling archipelago as in the old colonial days. This was a major irritant for the late President Sukarno, who wanted get to rid of us once and for all and who was especially irked by the fact that the Dutch stubbornly hung on to New Guinea or Irian. In retrospect I understand this, after all, one wants to do one’s own thing even if you have to impoverish the country in the process.
The honourable company which employed about 120 ships of sizes between 300 tons and 9000 tons has unfortunately ceased to exist due to changing times. Merger after merger swallowed up this piece of Dutch colonial history and I am now dealing with a company called Nedlloyd for my tiny pension. The K.P.M. was a most curious and amazing institution which we often referred to as a floating grocery empire and it was to this company that I sold my soul even before I had officially joined it, as it paid me a modest sum for many months to finish my study for my third mate ticket. Once I had that, I was obligated to go to the East and work for the company. The company’s flag still has a place of honour among my objects d’art and may be viewed at the restaurant if so desired. I have never regretted those years as they were adventurous and colourful. Sometimes it bordered on sheer madness and at other times it was reminiscent of the writings of Somerset Maugham and other authors concerned with the mysterious and exotic East from the days of yore. It was hard work and hard living but it was worth it.
The head office was in Jakarta on the Medan Merdeka, full with self satisfied bureaucratic land-lubbers called “wal slurpen” in our jargon, which we, sailing personnel, detested with a passion. The employees and directors would think of the most outlandish schemes to make us more productive and sent us the most peculiar circulars and notices. The catering department excelled in this pastime and I will never forget one concerning a famous bottled soup sauce of Swiss origin called Maggi, one of the main stays of Dutch cuisine. It is popular in the kitchen as well as on the dinner table and has made great strides in Thailand as an addition to expensive steaks and morning eggs.
It was customary among us officers in the dining room to cover our bread rolls - traditionally served as soon as were seated - generously with butter as well as a sprinkling of Maggi. Although the company was making millions and millions, for as long as I was in their employ, they had periodic spasms of austerity, during which all the departments would sent us a barrage of letters with warnings to curb our deplorable spendthrift and advice us how to save money, as times were extremely bad.
One day the catering department - they had their spies - knowing about our lavish dining on bread rolls with butter as well as soup sauce, sent the captain of our ship a circular, in which the head of the department told him that, as from that day onwards, he had to see to it that this wasteful and deplorable practice was to be discontinued immediately. We could either have butter on our bread or Maggi but not both. This C.D. circular was only topped in absurdity by one which said that we had to charge the passengers 10 Dutch cents (at the time probably the equivalent of a present day Baht) for a glass of water. Of course nobody took any notice of it.
My mother was under the impression that Maggi was a vegetarian sauce and she told us that she used to make a vegetable soup with Klöse or dumplings, flavoured with, among other things, Maggi sauce for her vegetarian lodger in Holland before we were born. The woman marvelled at the aroma and the flavour of the brew, which we did as well, as it was also one of our favourite soups. We usually ate it as a main course and later when the leftovers were in the refrigerator I would eat it cold when I was hungry, which was practically all the time.
When I was living in Bangkok, being curious about the sauce, I wrote a letter to the importer and distributor at the time, asking him if he could confirm my mother’s believe that it was an vegetarian sauce made mainly from Lovage a herb of the umbelliferae family, also called “the Maggi plant” but they preferred not to answer my query. Later I heard from a Swiss friend that it is not a vegetarian sauce but made from soup bones. He knew, as he lived practically next door to a Maggi factory when he was young where large truck loads of bones were driven into the gate continuously. So, that mystery has been solved and my mother’s ”vegetarian lodger” was fooled into eating something which was not absolutely kosher.