Chopsticks

[chefzadi]

How OTHER parts of the world work.

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Hashi. Stuck in rice.

Fork. Stuck in potato.

If we do this, it doesn't much matter where we are, we're a doof and take that with us until we learn to look up and see what's around us.

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Universals in regards to manners? Maybe I'm missing something in your statement. I've said several times a genius in one cuisine is an ape in another. We're all doofs in one context or another.

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Yes, indeed. Especially as to the finer points.

But there are behaivours that are found generally egregious and are not subtle at all.

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Fork stuck in potato will generally topple over; the potato will roll.

Hashi stuck in rice will generally remain upright.

The similarity between the two actions is not immediately intuitive. Well, they both seem kind of childish, but there's more inherent logic to the rice move. To me, at least.

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How about hashi stuck in potato?(rhetorical question). Not a baked potato, but a whole potato about the size of a baby red. I've seen Koreans eat sauteed whole potatoes this way. It's not considered terribly refined, but it is common.

[chefzadi]

I did some sleuthing. My wife's parents both come from old yangban families, they have relatives who were politicians and diplomats. (Just to give a context to the following). So I asked my FIL about eating rice with chopsticks. He says it's not a rule, so much as a habit. It's not considered rude to eat bap with chopsticks. However it is common to teach children to eat bap with a spoon because it's considered more ergonomic. So it's more like "this is the way you eat bap" NOT "this is the way you HAVE to eat bap or you are being rude or lacking in table manners."

[Marylisa L.]

[Andisenji:

I wish I could watch and learn with the cooking chopsticks. I love eating with chopsticks and use them regularly.. however, I'm a total idiot with the long ones. Besides, every pair I've ever seen/had have been warped and don't even touch at the bottom.

By the way... what's the difference between Chinese and Japanese chopsticks. It makes sense there's a difference.. but I have no idea what it is.

Edited February 5, 2005 by Marylisa L. (log)

[andiesenji]

Most Chinese eating chopsticks are longer than the Japanese eating chopsticks.

This guy has a very large collection.

Eric

chopsticks.

I use either kind.

The cooking ones often get warped from steam, etc., so I buy 6 pair at a time and toss them when they become unusable, they are so cheap, it is easier than trying to use ones that don't fit.

[Bux]

If I am sitting at the sushi bar, I am more likely to use my hands than chopsticks. I'm not sure why.

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In Japan, you can eat sushi either way. There are no strict rules to follow anyway. At the counter, we, especially males, tend to eat sushi by hand, for fear of being looked down on by the sushi chef as not being a tsuu (connoisseur). Besides, flipping a piece of sushi upside down, dipping the neta (topping) in the soy sauce, and putting it in your mouth can only be accomplished by hand. Females, on the other hand, tend to hesitate to eat sushi by hand, even at the counter.

Note that in the Edo period, when sushi was just fast food sold at a stall, eating it by hand was the norm. People would eat a few pieces, and wipe their fingers on the noren (kind of curtain) as they left. They could tell how popular a stall was by looking at the noren!

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I was aware that both hands and chopsticks are considered proper for eating sushi, but I appreciate learning the other little pieces of information. I've not thought before of why I tended ot eat sushi with my hands at the bar and with chopsticks at the table. I think it's because I see the sushi chef make the sushi with his hands and it seems appropriate to take it with my hands. My wife has always preferred to eat sushi with her hands. Many years ago in Japan, I remember seeing a woman in a sushi bar in Kyoto eat her sushi with her hands. She was very graceful. Usually in the west, we think using utensils is the more refined way to eat our food. It seems that the more educated one is, the more one realizes this thing called etiquette is not a universal set of rules.

[jhlurie]

It's always seemed to me, Bux, that most "manners" based around not using your hands to eat developed as some kind of a reaction to a period of history where people began to understand about disease, but had incomplete knowledge. I suppose it's undeniably true that you are more likely to get sick from flesh than metal or wood, but it seems to me that hygiene has improved a bit in the past few centuries.

It seems that the more educated one is, the more one realizes this thing called etiquette is not a universal set of rules.

Ah, but that's how it started in the west--as a classist division. Peasants ate with dirty hands and knives only at one point, didn't they?

[chefzadi]

It's always seemed to me, Bux, that most "manners" based around not using your hands to eat developed as some kind of a reaction to a period of history where people began to understand about disease, but had incomplete knowledge.  I suppose it's undeniably true that you are more likely to get sick from flesh than metal or wood, but it seems to me that hygiene has improved a bit in the past few centuries.

It seems that the more educated one is, the more one realizes this thing called etiquette is not a universal set of rules.

Ah, but that's how it started in the west--as a classist division. Peasants ate with dirty hands and knives only at one point, didn't they?

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Having worked in restaurants for a large chunk of my life. I would trust my impeccably washed hands to restaurant utensils anyday. Also by the time the food arrives in front of the diner, it's already been touched by many hands.

The use of chopsticks in China, Korea and Japan predates scientific knowledge of germs and hygiene by (I'm tempted to guess hundred, if not thousands of years) a very long time.

We all know that there are parts of Asia and Africa where people throughout classes eat with there hands. Even in America though, fried chicken, crawfish, crabs, ribs ... don't you eat them with your hands? Hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza, sandwiches, burritos, tacos are held with the hands.

I just found this (where would I be without google?) A history of chopsticks.

http://www.calacademy.org/research/anthrop...sil/chpstck.htm

[andiesenji]

As a side note regarding bamboo chopsticks that "warp" .....

Bamboo can be reshaped or straightened if gentle heat is applied to the area where it is bent, over a hot plate is easiest but you can also use the steam from the spout of a teakettle, revolving the chopstick so it is evenly heated and keep trying to straighten the curve until it gives, then put it flat on a counter and put a weight on it until it cools.

My gardener bends bamboo, even the big ones, by heating it and when it gets to the point where it is pliable (almost like plastic), bending it around a metal stake or post to the point he wants. This gave me the idea of reshaping my bamboo chopsticks and when I tired it, it worked!

[Hiroyuki]

i am surprised no one has mentioned the wedding hashi.  someone please correct me if i am wrong - i think it is tradition to for the bride and groom of shinto ceremonies to have a special set (oranamental) that are displayed together with the sentiment that as long as the hashi are together the marriage and couple will stay together.

help me if you know more on this.

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I am not familiar with what you call the wedding hashi. Is it really a thing Japanese?

I googled with wedding-chopsticks, and I found some Chinese wedding chopsticks.

[Gastro888]

In the jewelry shops along Canal Street in NYC's Chinatown you will see 24K gold rice bowls with soup spoons and chopsticks. They're so beautiful. I think they're used as gifts - wedding gifts, I suppose (Ben, help!)

[Ben Hong]

I think that they are targetting the frugally challenged, people who would be in the throes of the last twitches of consumptive expiration . Yes, they are meant to be used as gifts, for no pragmatic Chinese person would dare use them for their ostensible purpose

[jhlurie]

The use of chopsticks in China, Korea and Japan predates scientific knowledge of germs and hygiene by (I'm tempted to guess hundred, if not thousands of years) a very long time.

http://www.calacademy.org/research/anthrop...sil/chpstck.htm

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That's not exactly a counter to my argument. It's not the use of the utensils themselves that came with that knowledge I think, but the cultural and class tension between those who use them and those who don't. It's the elaborate etiquette I'm talking about here. The Europeans may have been more representative of this than the Asian cultures though.

[Ben Hong]

I don't think that hygiene had anything to do with the adopting the use of eating utensils, be they chopsticks or knives and forks. It was something more practical, like hot foods from a communal pot or a roasting beast on a spit. The human animal has a unique way of creating rituals, rules, customs and taboos about new "inventions". Over time they may even stylize certain aspects of this new method or implement. Witness the evolution of the early basic pictograms of the Shang Dynasty in China to the ultra refined and beautiful calligraphy of today. Or how the act of slapping a puck with a hockey stick evolved into a game that is defined and regulated by a rule book that is 2 inches thick. The evolution of customs and rituals is part of what defines a community/society.

[jo-mel]

I don't think that hygiene had anything to do with the adopting the use of eating utensils, be they chopsticks or knives and forks. It was something more practical, like hot foods from a communal pot or a roasting beast on a spit.  The human animal has a unique way of creating rituals, rules, customs and taboos about new "inventions".  Over time they may even stylize certain aspects of this new method or implement.  Witness the evolution of the early basic pictograms of the Shang Dynasty in China to the ultra refined and beautiful calligraphy  of today. Or how the act of slapping a puck with a hockey stick evolved into a game that is defined and regulated by a rule book that is 2 inches thick. The evolution of customs and rituals is part of what defines a community/society.

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I had read that sticks, in the forest, were the first 'chopsticks' --- used to pick meat off cooking pieces of meat. Wasn't it also influenced by Confucious who didn't think that knives should be on the table? He was a vegetarian, and knives meant slaughter. Another bit I read was that knives on the table were threatening to visitors.

On one of those wonderful timelines, forks were introduced to European tables in the 1400s, while chopsticks were in use in China in 300 BC.

[chefzadi]

More proof that etiquette is not a universal or even "general" set of rules.

http://news.surfwax.com/manners/files/Table_Manners.html

In our home we four cultures or "sets" of table manners that often times contradict eachother. Needless to say we have come to a compromise for fear our children will develop personality disorders. ;-)

[chefzadi]

The Asians have their share of elaborate rules of etiquette that address social hierarchy at the table itself. Class distinctions or tensions exist in every culture.

The use of western utensils as we regognize them for, knife and spoon happened over a long period of time.

http://www.cuisinenet.com/digest/custom/et..._timeline.shtml

http://csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/durableRedire...p22s1-csm.shtml

Maybe someone should start a thread on forks, spoons and knives.

[Gastro888]

I think that they are targetting the frugally challenged, people who would be in the throes of the last twitches of consumptive expiration . Yes, they are meant to be used as gifts, for no pragmatic Chinese person would dare use them for their ostensible purpose

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No, only the reaaaaaally high society folks, huh?

They are lovely, though.

When I use nice chopsticks I feel a bit more elegant when I'm eating a proper meal. Same thing happens when I use nice silverware.

What I dislike is when I'm using them and people gawk at me. Had that happen at my first job out of college. For my office meals, I had a whole fork, spoon and chopstick Hello Kitty set (yes, yes, yes...I know...but I was just outta college ) and my coworkers said, "Oh, look, she's using chopsticks!" as if I was some sort of rare exotic bird.

I resisted the temptation to show them the many ways you could maim a person with chopsticks....

[Ben Hong]

Gastro just feel proud that you are properly using and eating with the most civilized eating utensils on earth, other than the spoon. I remember when my mother first joined us after immigrating from Hong Kong in the late sixties. Being of stout, "unsophisticated peasant" stock, she had not been exposed to that many ways of the gwai loh. We threw a banquet in her honour, and being that the guests were a good mix of Caucasian and Chinese, suitable utensils and chopsticks were laid out. On approaching the table my dear innocent Mother asked a very telling question when she exclaimed "Ai ya, why are there so many weapons on the table"?, pointing at the knives and forks. I often agree with her assessment when I see that knives and forks are sometimes wielded like weapons in the hands of some of the people with more boorish table manners.

[PCL]

I resisted the temptation to show them the many ways you could maim a person with chopsticks....

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The fly-catching crap in Karate Kid is totally outclassed by some brilliant displays of constrained violence and aggression in some mid-80s - mid-90s Kungfu flicks.

Chopstick daggers, chopstick poison delivery, chopstick blow pipe, plain chopstick eye-gouging... plain chopstick vs sword/spear/chains/nunchakus... chopstick catapult hurling beans at warp speed...

Going to DVD store after work in Chinatown.

[chefzadi]

How many us will admit to trying the fly catching crap though? ;-)

[PCL]

I"ve tried the fly-catching, was easier to swat to stun, then pick up off table to dispose.

I've also used chopsticks are throwing weapons against my younger sister. Also to get a wayward friend's attention during yum-cha (dim sum).

[Gastro888]

Oh, can I admit that I've put my chopsticks together and rapped my friend on the knuckles at the dinner table for being a putz? The clean end, of course...

Ben, I'm proud to use chopsticks! I just have no love for my workplace. Hee hee.

PCL, you forgot to mention chopstick in the ear. I forgot who committed suicide that way. Drat.

[snowangel]

When I was 8, we moved to Thailand. Our trip there involved a stay at the old Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. It was there I learned to use chopsticks, using dimes (culled from mens' pants. no longer useful) as the target).

In Thailand, chopsticks are used only for slurpy noodles. Otherwise, it is the big spoon, using the fork as a pusher.

My son, Peter (age 9) likes to use a single chopstick as a magic wand, sword, whatever, but never at the table. And the choppsticks he uses as his imaginary whatevers are never part of the meal.

I really hate going to a "Chinese" restaurant and receviing that packet of peel-apart chopsticks in the paper wrapper. If they are going to present wooden chopsticks, at least they should present something presentable.

[porkpa]

Generally speaking, I eat far too quickly. For that reason I enjoy eating with chopsticks. They allow me to eat more slowly and enjoy my food a whole lot better. At home I'll often eat even western type foods with chopsticks to enhance the eating experience. Obviously that's not an option available at non Asian type restaurants.

Porkpa

[PCL]

Bring your own in a lacquered case complete with Eazy-Wipe towellete.