Ode to Marie Antionette Keasberry-van Beekom | Grandma Keasberry's Indo Cooking Secrets

This text was translated using AI and may contain errors. If you have suggestions or comments, please contact us at info.ode@amsterdammuseum.nl.

Dear Grandma Keasberry,

How we would love to go back in time and sit down at your Indian restaurant Djokja at the Ferdinand Bolstraat 13 in Amsterdam. The tables with white damask tightly lined up, a hundred seats to choose from, the delicious smells of kunyit, lombok and ketumbar wafting towards you. How we would have loved to meet and interview you, the pioneer in passing on Indian food culture, live. Let's introduce ourselves, we are Wendy Ripassa and Elsbeth Vernout of Riboet Verhalenkunst, an Amsterdam-based creative collective dedicated to our shared Indian heritage and its celebration, contemplation and transmission. Through collecting and sharing personal stories, creating stage programs, theater performances, podcasts and exhibitions.  
 

Silence about the suffering from the former Dutch East Indies has been instilled in us, as “Indos,” “Indians,” “gado-gadoos,” or “mixed-bloods of European and Indonesian descent,” at the very beginning. Unfortunately. Because many subjects are or were too painful, because the focus had to be forward to make something of the future, for the children. Fortunately, you were an exception to that rule. At least when it came to Indian cuisine. In many Indian and Moluccan families, family recipes are shrouded in secrecy. People preach of “the secret ingredient” and share the true recipe only with intimates. Perhaps in the hope that the food at Grandma's is so delicious that everyone returns there as a matter of course. 

But you had your heart on your sleeve, we are told. You started restaurant Djokja in 1954, it only closed again after 35 successful years in 1990. You sat behind the counter like a queen. You wore the title “Grande dame of culinary Amsterdam” with verve. After all, you had brought Indian cuisine to the capital. Raised gray hair, large buttons in your ears and lots of jingling jewelry on your wrists, hands and neck. And every three days you paid a visit to the barber. You ran a fashion store in Indonesia for 25 years - good looks were extremely important to you. Your grandson Jeff Keasberry, who now keeps your legacy alive from Los Angeles and is a culinary entrepreneur himself, calls you a strong, single woman and the matriarch of the family. And your regular guests, including many Dutch celebrities, worshipped you on their hands.  

 'The customer is king, but I am the emperor,' was your motto. You were not shy about expelling troublesome customers. For example, you once removed an entire soccer team after they made insulting remarks to a friend and customer of yours, “Now get out of my restaurant, leave the food, you don't have to pay!” That woman was singer Liesbeth List.

Your restaurant Djokja was a stopping place for many, from Indos and Amsterdammers to famous Dutch people. In a few decades it grew into a household name in culinary Holland and far beyond. Together with an enormous kitchen brigade of in total about ten cooking Indian aunties, all dishes were prepared under your strict leadership. And you grew into an icon in the Indian world. 

Your past was not easy, we also understood that. Just like that of our ancestors, who were also born in the former Dutch East Indies. In 1903, you came into the world as Maria Antoinette van Beekom, in Central Java in Gombong. In Java, you ran a fashion store for 25 years. During the Japanese occupation, it was now 1945, you lost your husband. You were on your own and guided your six children through wartime. On Jan. 26, 1950, you arrived in the Netherlands to build a better future for your children. Initially, you set up a fashion store, “Maison Keasberry,” in the same building on Ferdinand Bolstraat. But Dutch housewives were mainly looking for bargains, and the Dutch concept of 'sale', you had nothing to do with that. In 1954 you decided to start the Djokja restaurant. And that was a hit. 

 With food you can express your love. And you have certainly done that. Not only did you establish a legendary restaurant, you also passed on the culinary heritage of Indian cuisine. In 1976, your cookbook “Grandma's Indian Kitchen Secrets” was published, full of Indian recipes and tips for cooking. It has since become a kind of Bible for lovers of Indian food. It's also on our shelves. And you had to explain a lot to the Dutch. Like how they eat a rice table. “I say: people, don't shuffle and don't mash!”

Secrets about Indian heritage abound. But things are beginning to change. Slowly, the veil is lifting and stories about the former colony are becoming accessible to a larger and larger group. You started this and we and so many others are following in your footsteps. Older generations are being enticed to share their memories, younger generations are breaking the Indian silence and turning suffering and history into so much beauty. In documentaries, exhibitions, films, visual arts, theater, podcasts and literature. And in new dishes based on old family recipes. 

Not long ago, even the Indian rice table was included in the Inventory of Dutch Intangible Heritage. What would have been your thoughts on that? Agree or disagree? Indian, Indonesian, Dutch or shared Dutch and Indonesian heritage? There is a lot going on about the colonial past and discussions like this are part of it. You would probably enjoy it, Grandma Keasberry.

You contributed greatly to Amsterdam and the Netherlands as we know it today. Sadly, you passed away in 1992. We want to honor you as a remarkable woman of great significance to those around her. Thank you, Grandma Keasberry, for your enterprising spirit, your humor and survival instinct and for revealing your Indian Cuisine secrets. We and so many with us carry on the Indian legacy.

Best regards from Wendy Ripassa and Elsbeth Vernout, Riboet Storytelling