Yes, or anything that basically falls apart or totally leaks away its flavor when stabbed through (like many dumplings).
I’ve never done this, so here goes…Cite?
Triumph of the will! Liberty! Freedom of the individual!
Seriously, though, if you only had a fork you’d have to get someone else to cut your 60oz steak, so you’d have to surrender to the choice of the chef anyway.
Although I am comfortable using a fork, chopsticks, or my fingers, I really prefer chopsticks.
I think a fork is more efficient. Especially if you have one arm.
I agree. But I happen to be left handed.
I use my fingers.
Marc
I really hope that’s true. I usually eat my sushi by hand and have always thought I was being tacky.
Not much of a cite I guess, but according to the wikipedia article about sushi you can eat either with chopsticks or your fingers.
Marc
The only cite I have would be from the (japanese) sushi chef of a local japanese restaurant, so you would have to take my word for it, but the chef said it was acceptable to eat sushi with either chopsticks or with your hand. However sashimi should be eaten with chopsticks.
If you can’t make up your mind between the fork or the chopsticks, get the best of both worlds! Behold … the chork!
My anecdote - in a Chinese or Japanese restaurant I always eat with the chopsticks out of habit. Many years ago, going to a group lunch at work, the only person who didn’t use the chopsticks was our bookkeeper, born and raised in mainland China! I asked her “you’re not going to use the chopsticks?!?” and she said “for this, the fork is easier!” I forget what she had ordered though.
You’re just a closet European.
I seem to be attacking American traditions a lot tonight which isn’t usually my style. However, you are absolutely right. The knife lay down seems forced, artificial, idiotic, and imbecilic. I almost crawled through the newspaper to kill Ms. Manners over her column on this topic. I find it uncomfortable to see other people eating that way as well. It looks like they are a fucked up robot with discount coding in the chip. There is nothing wrong with a fork in the left hand (are left handed people offensive?). It is much more graceful, efficient, and natural that way.
Europe - 100 America - 0
Chopsticks are great if fuel for cooking is expensive or hard to come by, in food prep. you will cut the food into small pieces so you don’t use much fuel to cook it.
If fuel for cooking is not a issue and you can cook whole slabs of meat then forks are great as you can use them with knifes to cut your own meat to the size you want bite after bite.
Say you are on a transpacific flight and your plane unexpectedly blows up. You miraculously survive and find yourself a castaway on a lush tropical isle. The other miracle is that all the female survivors are hot! All the cutlery from the plane has burned up and all you have is a big frggen’ survival knife that you found in some luggage. There happens to be wild onions and galanga growing about. This is where chopsticks are much superior. Cut a couple of branches off a tree and fashion some chopsticks. Catch a couple of lobster and a bunch of scallops, some sea salt, galanga and wild onions and stirfry in the wok shaped piece of fuselage that you found. Before you know it, Evangeline Lilly is jumping your bones where as if you insisted on forks, you’d still be carving them.
Most Japanese and Chinese cuisine depends on chopping up the ingredients beforehand which you can do with the big knife. Thus you can eat everything with only chopsticks. It’s OK to drink the soup straight out of the bowl. For this reason, and Evangeline Lilly, chopsticks are superior.
Depends on how you view shoveling food.
:dubious: OK, fine. I believe you. But the option here was fork or chopsticks not fork or chopsticks or fingers. Between fork & chopstick only I prefer chopsticks to eat sushi.
Look guys, forks and chopsticks are fine, but if the entree is soup what can you do?
The spork is the hands down winner in this game. 
Right you are… Which is why what we need is a “chopspoon”, or “spoonsticks”, a pair of chopsticks with spoon ladles at the ends!
…actually somebody has already patented some kind of combination fork, spoon and chopsticks… No pics though. Didn’t know you could patent text descriptions of something magical without at least a schematic diagram, if not a demo model!
I find that chopsticks are better than forks for eating salads, especially the greens that are too thin to be stuck through on the tines and too awkwardly shaped to be shoveled up.
Depends on the situation. I actually prefer chopsticks for salads. Forks are terrible for salads. It’s hard to stab lettuce and the pieces have a tendency to slide off if you scoop. Chopsticks are the clear winner here. On at least one trip back to the US I wished I could ask for a pair of chopsticks for my salad.
With large or uncut pieces of meat, like steaks, fork and knife is the only way to go. Ditto for baked potatoes. I eat European-style with fork and knife, even though I grew up in California. The American “manners” way is dumb.
I’ve very rarely seen anyone eating sushi with their hands. It’s apparently okay, but I’ve seen about two people in my seven years here actually doing it. It’s unusual enough that I would notice if someone was eating that way.
Chicken is almost impossible to eat with utensils unless everything is cut up and deboned. You’ve got to get your hands involved at some point if you’re eating wings or legs, or you’re going to be leaving huge chunks of meat on the bone.
If I had to pick three universal utensils, I’d say chopsticks, a cutting knife, and a spoon would allow you to eat pretty much any dish from any culture with minimal use of bare hands.
Bring the bowl up to your mouth. If there are any solids in the soup, use chopsticks to pick them out or slosh them into your mouth.