How far outside of China/Japan/Korea/Thailand/Vietnam do you have to go before people stop using chopsticks at the dinner table?
Indonesian-American restaurants provide forks and knives, as do East Indian and other non-Occidental establishments. What’s the demarcation line? Burma? Malaysia?
I ask because I’m making a Filipino pancit for dinner tonight…stir-fried rice noodles with pork and cabbage and onions and soy, garnished with scallions and hard-cooked eggs. It seems a natural dish for chopsticks, but it occurs to me I have no idea what people eat with in the Philippines.
I was in a Thai restaurant recently that claimed forks are actually the traditional eating utensil there (Thailand, that is, not the restaurant0, with chopsticks used by the ethnic Chinese, so who knows.
I’ve got a book on chopsticks at home, if I can find it. It might have some answers for this.
Pepper Mill claims that Thai food is eaten with utensils, too, rather than chopsticks. Of course, our local Thai place gives you 'sticks if you ask for them, and we always do.
I have been to Thailand a few times and I observed Thais eat most dishes with fork and spoon except for noodles for which chopsticks are used. The fork is used to push food on to the spoon and then you eat from the spoon. The fork does not go to the mouth.
I’d like to claim that chopsticks are utensils too!
I eat potato chips with chopsticks. Most of my friends
look at me weird … but then they have to wipe their
oily, scummy, potato-chip-greasy hands on their pants.
So there.
I’ve been scolded by friends for using chopsticks in a Thai restaurant, so I’m glad to hear sailor’s observation that Thais themselves use them for at least some dishes. Chopsticks just seem better suited to Thai food.
Odd that the food they do eat with chopsticks is noodles! Maybe I should try eating spaghetti that way . . .
Filipinos eat pancit with a fork. (And rice with a spoon.) Of course, since pancit is generally acknowledged to be a Chinese import anyway, eating it with chopsticks is OK, too.
I’ve eaten a lot with Philipinos, and never once seen chopsticks anywhere near the table. Not even when eating Chinese food.
Usually in the home it’s been a fork and a spoon, the larger ‘soup’ spoon. Sometimes a sharp knife, if needed.
You use the fork to moosh some rice together with whatever else you’ve got onto the spoon, and lift the spoon to your mouth.
Oh yeah, you get to slurp the broth. Mmmm.
There you have it.
BTW; Hold the Dinuguan. Look here;
Never mind. The pancit was edible, but not memorable, and will not enter into the regular rotation in my kitchen.
This leaves Chicken Adobo as the only Filipino dish I make on a semi-regular basis. Not something one would use chopsticks on.
Another guy ringing in for forks and spoons in Thailand. I lived there for six weeks, and that’s what they always give you and use themselves - except for noodles, so I was happy most of the time (can you tell I don’t like chopsticks?).
No no, Ike. Don’t give up. Try some lumpia. There are many varieties.
Smear your favorite (while hot) with some sweet and sour sauce (the pale brown kind), wrap in a lettuce leaf, and enjoy. Good with beer.
And there’s always baloot (sp?) for the real man.
Peace,
mangeorge
When eating with friends in the Philippines, and also with Filipino friends living in Tokyo, at home said Filipinos used their fingers to eat pancit, rice, etc. Why not? Folks in the US eat lots of food with their fingers: sandwiches, etc.
If you can use chopsticks, you’ll find they are perfect for noodles. One of my favourite foods is pho, which is probably Vietnam’s signature dish. It’s a clear beef stock soup with lots of goodies in it, the main one being thin, and very slippery, rice noodles. These are basically impossible to pick up with a fork or spoon. The chopsticks provide a better grip.
My girlfriend is from Vietnam, and she’s got me into the habit of using chopsticks for cooking (not eating) a whole range of non-Asian food. She’s got a huge pair [sub]tee hee[/sub] designed for cooking. I use them in place of a spoon for stirring things on the stove top, and they have the added advantage of being able to grip things to turn them over, etc. They also leave my teflon pans without scratches.
I think you nailed the countries in the OP. The exception being the overseas ethnic chinese from Burma to Indonesia may use chopsticks. Tibetans use chopsticks some, but I’m not sure if that isn’t a relatively new import. You can buy really cool Tibetan knives with a built in chopstick holder in the sheath. I personally haven’t been to either inner or outer Mongolia, so am not sure if they use chopsticks or not.
I use chopsticks for a wide variety of food where they seem easier to use. However, I personally don’t go so far as to use chopsticks when eating french fries, but some people do.
They don’t use chopsticks, but will always have them available for local Chinese and misguided white tourists. Fork and spoon, as Colibri and sailor have pointed out, are de rigeur. Same goes for Laos, Cambodia, and as far as I know, Burma. The chopstick thing is really a fairly recent cultural import, just as chopsticks in the US.
Oh, and Ike, I’ll agree that Phat Thai and chopsticks go well together–but you should know that Phat Thai in Thailand resembles its California cousin about as much as, say, Pizza Hut resembles Sicilian pizza.
Anyway I still always ask for chopsticks, being the stubborn Yank that I am. But you’ll never see them on a table in a true Thai restaurant, and the street stalls and noodle shops don’t even have them at all.
So in response to the OP, I’d say that that the Chopstick Empire goes little beyond China/Korea/Japan, with colonies in Vancouver and San Francisco.
And just to be pedantic, my family used chopsticks daily at our dinner table in Naperville, Illinois. Does that count?
Thais started using spoons and forks during the reign of King Chulalongkorn (Rama V):
King Chulalongkorn, one of the most beloved of Thai Kings, was educated in Europe and brought back the practice of using cutlery. Thais use the fork and spoon differently than most westerners; the fork is used to push food onto the spoon. Knives are generally not necessary as Thai cuisine is pre-cut into smaller pieces in a similar fashion to Chinese cuisine.
As others have pointed out here, chopsticks are used in Thailand in the many Chinese restaurants and homes, and sometimes for noodle dishes. Most pad thai or other rice dishes sold by street vendors will be served with a small metal spoon. Chopsticks may be available. Some dishes are eaten with the hand, i.e., som dtum.
Is anyone here familiar with whether Burmese, Laotian or Cambodian cuisine is eaten with chopsticks? Burmese would be influenced by Indian, Chinese and Thai culture. My guess on Laos would be fingers and chopsticks more than forks and spoons. No idea for Cambodia.
