STI·CKS "ONCE YOU LEARN YOU'LL NEVER GO BACK.'.' ,
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FIRST. CHOPSTICKS ARE OLDER.
weapons and sufficient quantities of mead, violent outbursts
were common.
Once Confucius had blessed the use of chopsticks, they
~
Though an exact date cannot be put on the first time a young
spread from China to neighboring countries such as Korea,
Chinese girl pulled twigs off a branch and used them to
Vietnam. and Japan, In Japanese chopsticks are called hashi,
pluck food from a large firepot, it is thought to have been
which means bridge, We do not know the significance of this.
around five\thousand years ago (not long before Noah
started building his ark l )' In order to conserve fuel, early
Chinese could agree upon.! The Japanese, fond of eating
IPerhaps it referred to the one thing the Japanese and the
Chinese cooks chopped their ingredients into itty-bitty
with their hands, originally used the implements to wave
pieces so that they would cook more quickly. The tradition
around in religious ceremonies, like wands. But the sticks
continues today-you don't see many whole chickens or
caught on, and Japan now imports from China 96 percent of
ducks or slabs of beef coming out of the Mandarin Garden
the 25.7 billion single-use "bridges" its citizens throwaway
kitchen. What better tool to pick up each cubed morsel than
each year. China itself discards more than 45 billion pairs, or
a pair of thin splints? Chinese chopsticks are called kuaizi,
25 million trees' worth, Once upon a time the ruling classes
which means "quick little fellows." Quick little fellows l
refused to eat with chopsticks made of anything but silver,
After years of slicing open their lips on the nubs that
since it was believed that the metal would turn black upon
lined the twigs, ancient cooks eventually winnowed them
contact with poison. II only the superstition had endured,
down into two smooth. slender sticks. By then (around
the nation would be in much better shape environmentally.
the 5th century BCI the rice sweepers found an ally in that
In 2001, environmentalists warned that if the current rate of
gentle giant Confucius Ihim againJ. who as a vegetarian
timber use for chopstick production continues, the mainland
and animal lover believed knives to be savage reminders of
will clear-cut its remaining forests in about a decade.
slaughter-Iar too uncouth for the dinner table .
In his book on semiotics, Empire of Signs, the French
scholar Roland Barthes argued that chopsticks suggested a
Any attempt to phase out or even limit chopstick
use is bound to meet with strong emotional opposition.
The utensils are believed to improve memory, increase"
cultural divergence that went beyond mere manners. He de
finger dexterity, and even allow us to pay more atten..
scribed the delicate movement of chopsticks as "maternal
tion to our food. Don't laugh. Eating with a fork is
and opposed to the "predatory" instinct of Western cutlery.
mindless: Just stab and lilt. It can be done while
"The chopsticks are the converse of our knile: they are the
reading or watching TV. But if
alimentary instrument which refuses to cut, to pierce. to
you're picking up
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mutilate, to riP'" he wrote "By chopsticks. food becomes
no longer a prey to which one does violence, but a
substance harmoniously translerred."
Those seeking a more hermeneutical
explanation might pair the decline of the knife
with that of the feudal warrior class, and the rise
of the chopstick with that of the scholarly gentry.
David Graeber points out that the intellectual elites
bits of food with
brought with them different manners, inspired by
Confucius lagainll, whose vegetarianism led him to
wooden tongs, you have to pay
more attention as the food moves from bowl to
believe-long before any French philosopher alighted
mouth. You have to oversee the progress, which brings a
on the idea-that knives encouraged men in the direction 01
kind of mindfulness that's missing from the Western meaL
the barbarism of the slaughterhouse.
At European tables. diners used knives and spoons
Ironic. then, that the English chops lick should have its
roots in a perversion of the Chinese "quick little fellows ..'
(when lingers wouldn 't do). Because metalworking was
by nineteenth-century British traders and journeymen, who
expensive, Europeans brought their own cutlery to public
replaced that translated phrase with their own slang for
mess halls-usually their personal daggers. With ready
"hurry up"- "chop ChOpl"
..""
~ Chopsticks should be held in the right hand, even by
~ Having got all that wand waving out of their system early
[smarter, but more endangered by mishaplleft-handers . In
on, the Japanese decided that sticks should be used for eat
East Asia, as in Muslim nations, the left hand is designated
ing and nothing else.
for the toilet, the right hand for eating. Though left-handed
eating has become more common [many restaurants make
antibacterial soap available in their bathrooms!' ancient
.Chinese traditions die hard .
1. Do not point or gesture with chopsticks, and do not use
them as drumsticks, no matter how hooky the song .
2. Do
no~
oig arcund in the bowl for choice bits of food. Eat
from l' e top and identify what you're going for before
T
The sticks should encounter minimal contact with the
diggi ng in .
3. Neve~ stab or perce food with chopsticks.
mouth. It is poor table manners to suck on the tip of chop
sticks.
4. 00 not move c;s"es around with chopsticks. They are not
~ Use serving spoons to get the food to your bowl before
5. Do no t lick or
using your chopsticks. [Note, however, that in China it's not
6. Do not
unusual to use your own pair to serve yourself, an often
7. Do not shcve, fa d into yo ur mouth with chopsticks like
mean! to 00 :,eavy ift ing.
alarming custom to those not familiar with it.!
~ et
S Jck U12
ends of chopsticks-it's rude.
:ood dro p orf the ends of chopsticks.
the Chinese. In J2pan. :10 vesse ls, with the exception of
soup or tea bowls , are raised to the mouth .
"}-- After you have picked up an item, it belongs to you.
No backs.
8. Never use chopsticks to trcnsfer iood to someone else's
chopsticks, plate, or bowl. How unsanitary'
9. Place the pOinted ends of the utensils on a chopstick rest
"}-- Never rest chopsticks by standing them up in a bowl
when they are not in use.
of rice. It's lazy, for one, and it's considered morbid, as it
resembles a funereal tradition in which food is offered to
the deceased.
THE CHINESE WAY
'Y- The thin,
slippery surface of the metal chopsticks com
monly used in Korea makes speed eating challenging, so
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Dishes are usually prepared to consist of bite-sized,
pieces. If an item is too big or too small to be picked up, it
Koreans tend to use a spoon for their rice and soup, and
chopsticks for everything else.
is not intended to be eaten with chopsticks, but rather with a
spoon. So logical!
"':'- The rice bowl is raised to the mouth , and the rice
shoveled in using the chopsticks as a kind of forklift (bad
pun, sorryl. If rice is served on a plate, as is more common
in the West, it is acceptable to negotiate it with a fork or
"J'-- Though
they battled the Chinese for decades, the Viet
spoon. Tweezing the rice grain by grain, for the chopstick
namese eat the same way-lifting the rice bowl t'o the mouth
challenged Westerner, is akin to playing Operation with
and shoveling the food in with the sticks. Vietnamese rice is
your food.
very sticky, making this a tidier ordeal than it might sound.