Eating rice with chop-sticks - CONTRIBUTED
A CHINESE styled ceramic spoon is sometimes used to eat soups. However chopsticks are like knife and fork to Western food. Asian foods seem to taste better when eaten with chopsticks.
Chopsticks were developed about 5,000 years ago in China. It is likely that people cooked their food in large pots that retained heat well, and hasty eaters then broke twigs off trees to retrieve the food.
Chinese chopsticks, "kuai-zi", are usually nine to 10 inches long and rectangular with a blunt end. By 500 CE, the use of chopsticks spread from China to Vietnam, Korea and Japan. In Japan, chopsticks "hashi" were originally considered precious and were used mostly for religious ceremonies. Japanese chopsticks differed in design from Chinese chopsticks in that they were rounded and came to a point; they were also shorter - seven inches long for females and eight inches long for males.
Traditionally, chopsticks have been made from a variety of materials. Bamboo has been the most popular because it is inexpensive, readily available, easy to split, resistant to heat, and has no perceptible odour or taste. Cedar, sandalwood, teak, pine, and bone have also been used. The wealthy, however, often had chopsticks made from jade, gold, bronze, brass, agate, coral, ivory and silver.
EATING RICE WITH CHOPSTICKS
1. First, holding the chopsticks: Place one chopstick in your eating hand, as you would hold a pencil. Hold it with your thumb between the index and middle finger. The tip or thinner part of the chopstick should be pointed at the food.
Then, place the second chopstick in the crook between the thumb and index finer, resting on the inside tip of the ring finger.
2. How the chopsticks are controlled:
The top stick is controlled by the thumb and the two first fingers independent from the other stick. Use the two first fingers to move the top stick. The middle finger acts as a pivot and to keep the two sticks apart.
3. Picking up rice (soft or loose foods): For secure grip, the chopsticks are held at around the mid point or higher.
Hold the chopsticks in place and press the tip against the plate to make it even (at all time). Keep the lower chopstick motionless. Move the tip of the top stick against the tip of the lower one. Do not hold or squeeze too tightly.
For rice, hold chopsticks slant not straight. If held straight, sticks can only pick up one or two pieces. Holding slant, bring the tips of the chopsticks together over the preferred amount of rice and scoop up.
Do not stick chopsticks into your food, especially not into rice. Only at funerals are chopsticks stuck into rice that is put onto the altar.
When finished eating, or when not using chopsticks, lay them in front of you with the tip to the left. Do not point, play or wave with chopsticks.
- Sources: David Chang of Sugar and Spice Limited in Kingston; http://www. calacademy.org/research/anthropology/utensil/chpstck.htm; and http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2039.html.
- Shelly-Ann Thompson
