Off the hooker’s rack or off the hooker’s buttocks?
Oh yeah, I forgot about cooking. I love using my really long and sturdy chopsticks for cooking. They are truly unique tools and perfect for so many things. I’d hate to cook without them, or chop vegetables without my ulu. I wholeheartedly embrace any tool that makes something easier.
Thanks for the replies - this turned in to a great discussion!
And you’re right, Siam Sam - I went to Japan in the late eighties and was very glad I had put in the time to learn beforehand.
The Japanese eat sushi with either chopsticks or their fingers, depending.
When I was living in Japan the very first time I went to a noodle shop the waitress brought me a fork with my udon without my saying anything about it. She was presumably trying to be helpful to the gaijin, but this fork (which must have been one of the only forks they even had in the place) was like a baby fork – very small with stubby little tines. It was very difficult and frustrating to eat my noodles with it. I kept wishing she’d just brought me chopsticks instead, because I actually could have managed with those, but I didn’t want to make a fuss so I laboriously chopped my large, slippery noodles into smaller pieces with the little bitty fork, stabbed a few pieces at a time with it, and ate them.
I don’t know why ulus are thought of as meat knives-- I use mine for veggies, too, and you’re right, it’s a great tool for that job.
And not only are chopsticks fun, but if you know how to use them properly, they’re a lot easier than a fork for most dishes they’re associated with.
It always freaks my students when they see me eat a salad with chopsticks. I keep a whole package of cheap sticks in my desk so I don’t have to use those cheap plastic forks Lunch Service give you.
I like eating with my chopsticks. I’m very dextrous with them, and it’s a skill like any other - it needs practice.
Practice in and of itself is a good reason to eat Chinese food with chopsticks. If you aren’t practicing by eating Chinese food, then when would you practice?
Plus, there are benefits to eating non-Chinese foods with chopsticks too. For example, I eat Cheetos with chopsticks – no orange fingers. A spoon or fork would not work well with Cheetos.
I don’t see how eating with chopsticks could possibly be easier than a fork (at least it’s not for me) but I do it anyway because it’s just kind of fun. I’ve never done it or seen it done in a Thai place. Also, it never occurred to me to use them for any other kind of food, but I like the Cheetos and salad idea and I just so happen to have a package of them so now I’m going to see what other food works with chopsticks.
Chinese food is properly eaten out of a bowl, not a plate. Chopsticks work much better in a bowl than a plate. They also work really well for shoveling/slurping that last bit of stuff in the bowl into your mouth!
Lots of foods are annoying to eat with a fork because they don’t “stab” well and/or are too slippery to ‘shovel’. It’s not that hard to think up stuff like this…
Eating cheetos with chopsticks is gauche. The consumer should have orange fingers and an orange ring around her mouth by the time the entire bag is consumed. The entire bag, regardless of size, must be consumed at a single sitting, too. This is pretty well known etiquette and it has been the case since 1948.
I’m impressed that you actually knew/looked up when Cheetos hit the market…
Cheetos? Brilliant! I have to try that.
I definitely was not taught to use chop sticks as a child. Chop sticks were considered to be exotic decorations, at least in my family. I taught myself as a near adult, just so I’d know how and would practice, like you say, when the opportunity was there. I told my children that they didn’t have to, but that it wouldn’t hurt to try and that to me it seemed respectful to learn how, even if you decided you preferred to use a fork instead.
So at home both were on the table and they all eventually developed the habit. I think it helped that they weren’t required to do more than try for a bit and that they were more than a bit competitive.
It’s fun, part of the experience. Not more of an explanation than that.
And if you are eating Chinese food “family style”, please, do NOT stick your chopsticks into the communal dishes. That wrong and gross. Each dish should have it’s own pair of chopsticks or a serving spoon.
Heh. We had a friend who was on a diet that involved her eating with chopsticks to slow her down. She soon was faster with them than with a fork. Just takes some practice.
Not just Japan. I’ve been to Chinese restaurants in Berkeley which don’t provide Western silverware either. I was glad I had learned before.
I love chopsticks . . . I hate round chopsticks. Way to take a fairly useful food delivery device and make it almost non-functional. Even worse are round plastic anti-friction chopsticks.
My first time using chopsticks was in a Japanese restaurant on a first date with a guy who had lived in Japan for a while. He offered to get me a fork but I decided I’d like to try to learn chopsticks. First thing I did was throw a shrimp halfway across the restaurant. All the waiters and waitresses were politely holding their hands up to their mouths to hide their giggles, but my date was not that polite! (I do better with the sticks now.)
Those are the worst! They don’t even do a good job at spearing things, which renders them completely useless.