Milk for Everyone?

ABSTRACT The significance of food in colonial Malayan society went far beyond sustenance. Food reconfigured Malaya’s physical landscape, mediated social difference, accentuated hierarchies, and shaped the textures of everyday thought. These contentions are grounded in a case study of bovine milk, focusing on how different versions were created, processed, traded, consumed, and perceived in Malaya. By analysing bovine milk’s multi-faceted history alongside other important edibles such as breast milk, sugar, rice, and coconut oil, this study investigates the extent to which patterns of agriculture, household consumption, child-rearing, and state intervention changed during Malaya’s colonial period. The social histories surrounding these foodstuffs also indicate that the fundamental drivers of Malayan consumption – namely those related to life and death – were differentiated primarily by wealth, rather than ethnicity.