PrintChopsticks vs Fork
I have to eat Chinese food with chop sticks. I just doesn't seem right to me to eat Chinese food with a fork. Does anyone else feel this way?
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26 Comments:
Chopsticks and a spoon for me. I also find that eating a green salad is much easier using chopsticks. I don't know abot you but I hate stabing/cutting/fighting with lettuce. Give me some sticks and it is a much cleaner/elegant affair.
coolname at 10:57PM on 09/20/07
I use chopsticks to eat anything...I agree that its easier to eat salad with chopsticks!
Although....today I taught a Korean cooking class and someone passing out the utensils asked me if we needed 1 or 2 sticks per person. I'm not kidding.
Steamy Kitchen at 11:21PM on 09/20/07
Oh, yes! I feel strange to eat Chinese food with a fork...
Sara - Piperita at 4:16AM on 09/21/07
Back in 1995 at a restaurant north of Detroit I thought I was doing pretty good with chopsticks ... when a Chinese waiter suddenly kinda slid by the table, silently and nonchalantly slid a fork in next to my plate, and kept going! That blew it for me ... I haven't touched a pair of those silly wooden things since. Mary's 17-year-old went to China this past summer and came back with some wonderful sets of chopsticks, which he uses regularly. I'll wash them, but that's as far as it goes.
LunaPierCook at 7:31AM on 09/21/07
LunaPier, i completely understand where you're coming from. i've tried chopsticks in the past and people always laugh because i'm not instantly proficient at it. i have bought some, though, hoping i can practice in the privacy of my own home and someday eat in a chinese restaurant with chopsticks. hmmm, does this make me weird?!
earlybirdkate at 8:28AM on 09/21/07
As a child, I ate Chinese food with a fork, so that's how I still do it. Japanese cuisine is another story. I have never eaten sushi, sashimi, teriyaki, etc., with anything other than chopsticks.
Mich23 at 10:40AM on 09/21/07
I always use chopsticks when I'm going out for Chinese/Thai, but I usually resort to a spoon when I can't get those last few bites of rice!
K at 10:52AM on 09/21/07
Being Chinese, I use chopsticks as much as possible, even when it's not Chinese food..
mrsbao at 11:16AM on 09/21/07
Me too, being Chinese I am just so used to using them that I pretty much use them to eat everything, my utensil drawer is overrun with them!
kitchenlove at 12:18PM on 09/21/07
Hmm, I have a hard time eating Chinese food with chopsticks! I guess this is mainly because I order dishes with rice on the bottom and I can't pick that up with the chopsticks! I do eat sushi with chopsticks though; I find that much easier.
Hillary
Chew on That
Chew on That at 12:40PM on 09/21/07
earlybirdkate-you made me think of a story of my mother-in-law with your comment. When my husband was a kid, his family went to Chinatown in Toronto for dinner. They couldn't use the chopsticks, and his mother was mortified to have to ask for cutlery. When they got home, she made my husband and his brothers practice with chopsticks by taking marbles from one bowl to another. Only when they could take all the marbles from one bowl into the other, and put them back in the first bowl (without dropping any!) were they allowed to return for dinner in Chinatown!
psychsarah at 12:53PM on 09/21/07
Although limited to the days when my mother would make her four "Chinese" dishes, we'd always use chopsticks. I remember it being a special occasion, so it's always been a thing to eat Chinese or Japanese food with chopsticks. But not Thai.
I sort of picked the skill up along the way, but I'd be really interested to hear how Chinese parents teach their kids.
jayfallon at 1:07PM on 09/21/07
I grew up in a Korean household, and I cannot recall how I learned to use chopsticks, in much the same way as I can't remember learning how to walk or talk. I would think this would be the same for nearly every Korean, as not being able to use chopsticks would be akin to having an aversion to KimChee and Red Pepper.
I do think it odd however that non-Asians feel obligated to always eat Asian cuisine with chopsticks. In Korea I've seen the inverse where people often make a point to eat Western food like Pizza with a fork and knife.
Young at 1:43PM on 09/21/07
Sometimes I like chopsticks, sometimes I don't - it depends on how I feel. My husband is Vietnamese and when I eat with his family they usually give me western utensils and I don't mind, because in their presence I feel silly with my not so good chopstick skills...
Chau at 1:59PM on 09/21/07
I'm not particularly picky about what utensil to use when eating (provided its not soup or something...).
Japanese food, I use chopsticks or my hands in the case of sushi.
With Chinese or Korean food, either chopsticks or a spoon or fork are fine.
However, I prefer to cook with chopsticks. I don't know what it is, but I feel more secure at the stove with a pair of those in hand than anything else. I even make eggs for breakfast with chopsticks.
fuuchan at 9:58PM on 09/21/07
jayfallon: I remember learning to use chopsticks as a child - I had a trainer version with loops along the chopstick that you could slip your fingers through. It makes managing them a lot easier when you aren't a super motor-coordinated child (mine were blue with little birds on the top!) But after I outgrew that, it was just practice and eventually your hands remember how to use them.
The Japanese are like that too Young! I've seen Japanese people eat western spaghetti with chopsticks.
abstract_duck at 10:36PM on 09/21/07
I feel the same. When I eat Asian foods that are typically eaten with chopsticks I use them too, in restaurants and at home. It is not a difficult skill to learn and it makes the experience more enjoyable. I don't exactly know why but I am annoyed when I see people using Western utensils to eat Asian foods. I feel that they should at least attempt to use the chopsticks.
izzy's mama at 10:47AM on 09/22/07
It's really simple, people.
If the food is cut into pieces when prepared, use chopsticks.
If the food is cut into pieces when eaten, use a fork and knife.
The reason Asians use chopsticks is because they consider cutting to be the cook's work. Whites think it's fine to have the diner finish preparing the meal.
mfhughes at 5:12PM on 09/22/07
i am fairly incompetent with chopsticks. i can use them to get food to my mouth but it is a painstaking labourious process that results in cramped fingers and impatient dinner companions. so, i use a fork.
lexophile at 7:54PM on 09/22/07
I not only eat Asian foods with chopsticks but also stir fry with them too.
Susiebee at 9:26PM on 09/22/07
We discuss this all the time in my multicultural circle of friends. When I was hip and stylin and profilin in the 80's would use chopsticks whenever I could. I also had fabulous (enhanced) fingernails and was always looking to show off my claws. Being a Jerzee girl some of you will understand this.
After I turned 35 (UGH) I no longer felt the need to show off my claws or pick grains of rice out of my clevage. What once was stylish was now not so much so. I know that most of you do not get all the rice in your mouth without having the bowl in a short proximity to your mouth. My asian friends back me up on this. The rice has to be fairly sticky and your hand action has to be fairly adept.
Interesting enough recently when I went to some teppanyaki place with my parents my father who is 69 was using chopsticks. He never did this when I was a child or ever in front of me. He was not so good at it and was wearing his rice.
I do not begrudge those who use chopsticks but if your going to use them use them well or just to quote Luna slide that fork on over. My chopstick days are over I think.
What I really want to talk about (Looking for Adam) is people who eat pizza with their hands.......huge pause and people who use a spoon to twirl pasta.
Bracing myself for debate.
JerzeeTomato at 2:51AM on 09/23/07
mfhughes: Really? That's news to me...
fuuchan at 3:02AM on 09/23/07
spaghetti with chopsticks sounds like a great idea. Noodles are so much easier to eat with chopsticks.
coolname at 1:06PM on 09/23/07
Flying back from that first trip to China, I sat next to a hapless engineer from Texas. For the first couple of weeks, he had been in Shanghai -- and he couldn't stop bitching about the lousy room-service cheeseburgers. But for a month he had been out in the provinces, where there just aren't any forks to be had. Completely unable to manage chopsticks, he had starved for a couple of days and then -- he was, after all, an engineer -- he came up with a solution: He WHITTLED chopsticks into little wooden spears, and jabbed at his food that way. I think somebody probably wound up taking pity on him and giving him a spoon.
maggiesara at 5:07PM on 09/23/07
That's a hilarious story, maggiesara! Wow, way to stick to your guns.
Christina at 2:39AM on 09/24/07
Having always been a pretty coordinated individual the, one of the few things that I have tried, but have never been able to master are chop sticks. I have, however, mastered fork, knives, spoons and fingers.
Dughis at 12:46PM on 09/24/07