We went out to dinner at the Kazu restaurant last Friday. I always eat with chopsticks when we go there… in fact if chopsticks are available, I usually use them no matter where I’m eating. After dinner, Anne and Winfried gave me a set of chopsticks — made from cherry wood. They don’t use chopsticks and almost always comment when Claire and myself use them.
So being completely fed up with the political, economic and racist news and nothing better to do, this is going to be my first chopstick blog…
I don’t remember the first time I used chopsticks, but l’m sure it was in a foreign country and more than fifty years ago. I don’t remember ever having a problem with them — that proved to be fortunate because when I spent a few months in China in the early 70s, knives and forks were hard to come by…..
Early chopsticks were used mainly for cooking — it wasn’t until about 400 A.D. that people began eating with them. About that time, a population boom in China sapped resources and forced everyone, including cooks, to develop cost-saving habits. Cooks began chopping food into smaller pieces that required less cooking fuel. As food became “bite-sized” knives became less useful, and chopsticks were just right for picking up the bites of food.
It appears that Confucius, a famous Chinese guy that you’ve probably heard of, had a lot of influence on things in China, including chopsticks. Confucius believed that knives were associated with acts of aggression and didn’t think they belonged at the dinner table. In the past I’ve blogged a lot about the Chinese New Year and various superstitions associated with it. One superstition is the use of knives during the Chinese New Year. The Chinese believe that the food needs to be prepared ahead of time and all knives put away. If a knife is used during the first day of the New Year, the good luck will be cut away for the following year.
When chopsticks became popular for eating, different cultures, especially in Asia, adopted them — usually with a different style… Chinese chopsticks usually feature a blunt, rather than a pointed end. In Japan, chopsticks were 8 inches long for men and 7 inches long for women. The Japanese invented (in 1878) the first disposable set — typically made of wood or bamboo. The wealthy could eat with ivory, coral, jade, brass or agate versions, but the most privileged used silver chopsticks.It was thought that the silver would corrode and turn black if it came into contact with poisoned food.
Eating with chopsticks lends itself to some types of food more than others — if you think about it, rice isn’t one of the first foods that pop into your head. But if you live in Asia, or have visited the area, the rice there is of the short or medium grain variety. This type of rice contains starches that when cooked, make the rice gummy and clumpy — not like the fluffy rice that most Americans eat… most rice here is a “long-grain” variety.
So why, if you’re not in China or other parts of the world, and don’t have a choice, would you eat with chopsticks? The best answer is — it’s fun… part of the experience. By the way, the fear of chopsticks is called consecotaleophobia. If you don’t use chopsticks and would like to try, I found some directions on how to do it that are simple… take one chopstick, hold between thumb and index finger of the right hand — then extend your right arm up over your head and calmly call out to the waitress, “Excuse me ma’am, could you please bring me a fork?”
I’ve heard it said that chopsticks are one of the reasons the Chinese never invented custard.
But there’s an old Chinese story involving chopsticks that makes a point that we could all take to heart — especially today. It goes like this…. A man is sent to Hell. He arrives in a room where everyone is sitting at a round table trying to eat with 3 foot chopsticks. No one is getting anything to eat, even though there is plenty of food and everyone is unhappy. The man is then sent to Heaven where he walks into an identical room, where everything is exactly the same but everyone is well fed and happy. How? Each one is feeding the other opposite to them. So whether you eat with chopstick or a fork, maybe sharing is a good thing.
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