Advertisements in a cookery book for Malaya

IT IS CURIOUS how some things, heard once long ago, stick in one’s memory. When I was a little boy, I remember my father telling me that there was a product called Klim. I thought he must be joking because Klim is ‘milk’ spelled backwards and my father did have a sense of humour. For example, when we used to visit Italy, he used to say “a penne for your sauce” (instead of ‘ a penny for your thoughts’).

A few years ago, some friends were clearing out some books and gave me a few of them. One of them was “Cookery Book of Malaya”. It was published in 1951 by the YWCA of Malaya and Singapore. Remember that Malaya only became known as ‘Malaysia’ in 1963.

It was only today (1st of September 2023) that I decided to have a look at this book. Edited by Mrs AE Llewellyn, the volume is packed with information about nutrition and recipes. The recipes include many western dishes as well as a selection of “Malay”, “Javanese”, “Chinese”, “Indo-Malayan”, and Indian, recipes. Most of the book is written in English but the section on “Methods of Cooking” is bilingual: English and Malay. I suppose this was so that the British housewives could instruct their Malay cooks.

The book has several pages of advertisements. Four of these are for milk – mainly the powdered variety. To my great delight, one of them is for Klim. The advert says:

“Take pure water, add Klim, stir, and you have safe, pure milk.”

Another part of the same advert says:

“Keep KLIM handy in your cupboard. Remember – it stays fresh – without refrigeration.”

Klim has been around a long time. According to Wikipedia:

“In 1920 Klim was a product of Merrell-Soule Company of Syracuse, New York which in 1907 had improved the spray-drying method patented by Robert Stauf in 1901 by starting with condensed milk instead of regular milk. In 1927 Borden acquired Merrell-Soule gaining the Klim brand and None Such Mincemeat, both already made popular worldwide.”

The Nestlé company acquired Klim from Borden in 1998. Although I have never noticed it in any of the many shops I have visited, it is still sold worldwide.

I am pleased that I finally got around to opening the old cookbook because it contained the advertisement that confirmed that by mentioning Klim my father was not simply pulling my leg.