Are you non-Asian, eat western food with western utensils (fork & knife), and eat Asian food (chinese, japanese, thai, etc), with chopsticks?
If yes, why do you do it?
It has always puzzled me. It seems that the food need not be eaten with the same utensils that the locals eat it with (e.g. not everyone is as into eating Indian food with their hands). It tastes the same either way, so why change the utensils you normally use for some particular foreign food?
If offered the chopsticks at a restaurant, I can see why one may want to “go along” and use them, but would you go out of the way to get them, if they were not offered?
What prompted this was that recently we were with some friends at a Thai restaurant, and we were given forks. A couple minutes into eating, one of my friends looked at us and said something like “I’m going to ask for chopsticks”, got up and got some chopsticks before continuing to eat. They way it was done, it was as if something was missing, or something was wrong with eating Thai food with a fork.
I learned to use chopsticks as a child. I use them with almost as much ease as knife, fork, and spoon. Much Asian food is suited to eating with chopsticks. So why not use chopsticks?
Thai food is traditionally eaten with the fingers, although the fork got popularized quickly after contact with Europeans (according to my dad, who lived there for the first 16 years of his life, but he’s been wrong before).
I like to eat Asian food with chopsticks because I get better control. If I had my way, I’d get chopsticks when eating spaghetti or at an Indian restaurant. About the only place I want a knife and fork is with steak.
Because I like eating with chopsticks. I eat a reasonable number of U.S./Euro/other foods with them as well if I’m packing my own lunch. They’re easy to carry and clean. I’d be happy to eat Thai food with my hands, but that is not much done here. As to your friend, s/he may prefer to use chopsticks, or may have thought that the restaurant was giving the* farangs * forks by default.
I used to find eating with chopsticks to be uber pretentious, but I’ve relented a bit. If I’m given chopsticks, I use them and we actually have some at home that we use from time to time, it’s part of the fun of eating out. I pretty much eat with what I’m given though and wouldn’t ask for them if I was given a fork.
I do use chopsticks a lot, often in a way (and for food) that it wasn’t intended to. They are fun.
Also, using different utensils result in different eating experience. And some dishes are better suited for some tools. For steak it would be knife and fork, but chopsticks do the trick for salads (even totally western ones).
[ol][]It’s part of the eating experience. I wish I got more chances to participate in really authentic “table” settings, but most of the time, using the cuisine-appropriate utensils has to do.[]It’s actually easier. Chinese food is designed to be eaten with chopsticks.Nope, it’s an old joke and I’m not going there.[/ol]
Sheesh, eating with chopsticks is extremely natural for North Asian food. The locals use chopsticks because it’s the most efficient easiest may to eat their food the way it’s served. Emperor Hirohito on a pojo stick, I can’t imagine trying to eat sushi with a knife a fork. Gah, bleech that image out of my brain. Sushi is eaten with chopsticks or fingers.
To the OP, I can’t imagine going to a Chinese restaurant (or Korean, Singaporean, Japanese or Viet Namese) that doesn’t offer chopsticks. Chances are if its a silverware only joint, that they also offer the doo doo plate and not much else.
Now, Thai cuisine is a grey zone. There are a lot of ethnic Chinese in Thailand, and a lot of ethnic Chinese cooking. That said, from my limited experience in Thailand, and fork and a spoon seems to be it, rather a case of the “Thai way or the highway” :d&r:
Besides most of the food lends itself well to chopsticks: rice, mixed meat and vegetables cut into small pieces, thin soups with large-ish veggies in them. They’re also good for picking up and grasping things up that would require two hands if you were using a fork or spoon.
It goes the other way, too. People here almost always use western utensils when eating western food, generally because western foods (steak, pasta, thick soups, etc) are much easier to eat that way.
I eat Cheetos this way. You know the puffier kind. I pour some Cheetos into a bowl, use chopsticks and in that way I don’t get that orange, powdery residue on my fingers.
Actually, anyone who prefers the puffy kind is already pretty suspect. The dense crinkly kind are the only true Cheetos. But the chopsticks are a good idea; I’ll have to try that for my next Cheetos binge. You know, the convenient 16 oz single-serving package.
Back to the OP … Eating Asian food with a fork is just wrong. It feels disrespectful. It feels like eating off styrofoam: OK for camping, but certainly not for dining.
Despite many years of trying and having had hints from fellow dopers on how to use chopsticks I remain chopstickless, I just cannot get to grips (no pun intended) with the buggers
I use chopsticks at the local Japanese restaurant and have no problem using them. They are the only utensils provided unless you ask for a fork. I have a difficult time with them at Chinese and Mongolian bbq places, mostly because the rice is not sticky. I start with chopsticks and finish up with a fork.
I wouldn’t ask for them if they were not already provided.
I learned as a child and used to be adequately competent with them, but I eat Asian food so seldom any more that they’re awkward and annoying for me – so, no, I ask for a fork.
I didn’t have Asian food until I was a teenager, and I never have eaten it often, so I never learned how to use chopsticks. I always use a fork and I would have to request one if it wasn’t provided, otherwise I’d starve. For those of you that say it’s easy and natural, um, no, it’s not for me.
