Nassi Goreng (1924)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

Ben Zimmer writes (Jan. 6th):

OED3 has 1958 for "nasi goreng" (Indonesian/Malaysian fried rice).  I'm
sure Barry can do better, but here are LA Times cites from 1938 and
1939...


I've got more books to look at and NYU's longer hours on Tuesday will help.
Meanwhile, there's this.

EASTWARD
by Louis Couperus
translated by J. Menzies-Wilson and C. C. Crispin
London:Hurst & Blackett, Ltd.
1924

Pg. 142:
If a European wishes to remain healthy he needs the rice-table. And I am
willing to bet that whoever says that it is a bad thing does not know how to eat
it. For there are many Dutchmen who have been in India for years and who do not
know how to eat rice-table. They pile upon their plates rice, vegetables,
meat and sambals, one on top of the other, and mix it into a sort of olla
prodida. The taste is good, just as the taste of nassi-goreng (baked rice) is good.
But, mixed up like this, it is an indigestible and unaesthetic mess, most
unattractive in appearance. Whoever eats rice in this manner will not keep healthy
and will take a dislike to rice-table. At the same time he runs the risk that
his clever cook, if he has one, will think, "Why should I take the trouble to
prepare my boemboe (spices) if my toean mixes up all these fragrant delicacies
on his plate?"

("Toean" or "tuan" is a "European" or "master." OED from 1779, from
Malay--ed.)