All about chopsticks

CUISINE CULTURE

Chopsticks are pairs of 15–25-cm (6–10 )-long, about-5-mm (1/5 ) – thin sticks, usually tapered at one end. The materials used vary differently. Bamboo has been the most popular material used for chopsticks because it is inexpensive, readily available, easy-to-split, resistant to heat, and has no perceptible odor or taste. Cedar, sandalwood, teak, and pine have also been used. The wealthy, however, often had chopsticks made from jade, gold, bronze, brass, agate, coral, ivory, and silver. Porcelain and plastic are used in modern times due to the development of technology.

It is believed that chopsticks were developed about 3000 to 5000 years ago in China, although the exact date of their creation is uncertain. It is also thought that the Chinese philosopher Confucius had a major influence on their development with his nonviolent teachings. His philosophy was that instruments such as knives, with the connection people make with them for war and violence, were not to be used at the dinner table.

Chopsticks have become such an instrumental part of cooking vocabulary, in terms of the utensils, that it’s difficult to imagine there are people who live without chopsticks. Holding chopsticks is like a little bit like holding a pencil, except that you have two of them and you move them together in a pincer movement. They are really well-designed for eating small bits of food, and are good for picking up noodles. If you’re skilled, you can eat rice, pick up dumplings, little pieces of meat. There are definitely some no-nos with chopsticks. You should not use the chopsticks like drumsticks. You definitely don’t want to stick chopsticks into a bowl of rice face-up. And the reason for that is it actually looks like a bowl of incense, so it sort of echoes death.

Chopsticks are used in a huge portion of the world, across much of Asia, and about 1.5 billion people are covered in the chopsticks sphere. Different cultures have slightly different variations of chopsticks. Chinese chopsticks will tend to be long and round; Korean chopsticks are flatter; and Japanese chopsticks tend to be round and extremely pointy.

What’s been really interesting to see is that as Asian cuisine has moved from the East to the West, chopsticks have become a part of the experience. There’s evidence of chopsticks as long ago as the Shang dynasty, which is about 3000 years ago, and they loved tripods during the Shang dynasty. So when you cook with these big tripods, chopsticks were actually really useful, because it was a way for you to stir and to reach without getting burned as the water was boiling in these really big pots. Chinese culture has knives and has forks. It uses them in many cases for cooking. But in terms of what moved into the dining room, it was the chopsticks.

One of the things about Asian cooking is that it often comes in very small pieces. It’s actually a lot more energy-efficient to cook little pieces quickly. And you don’t have to cut them also. So you have a circular influence, where the type of food that is cooked allows people to use chopsticks, and then the fact that you have chopsticks influences the food that you can cook. At the same time, chopsticks reflect the communal nature of eating food. You’ll have these dishes that you put in the middle, it’s very family style. You go in with your chopsticks, and then you put it on your rice, and then you eat individually.

Sticky rice bites with salmon

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked brown rice
• 2 ounces smoked fish, cut into sixteen 2-inch pieces
• 1 teaspoon black sesame seeds
• 1 scallion, thinly sliced
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon grated peeled fresh ginger

Directions

Using damp hands, roll rice by the tablespoon into 16 balls. Drape each with fish; sprinkle with sesame seeds and scallion.

In small bowl, mix remaining ingredients for dipping sauce.

Chopstick Fun Facts

• Using chopsticks involves over 30 joints and 50 muscles in the fingers, wrist, arm, shoulder as well as thousands of nerves.
• The Chinese use 45 billion chopsticks annually.
• February 6th is National Chopstick Day.
• Almost one third of the world uses chopsticks every day, about as many as use a knife and fork.
• Silver chopsticks were used to test toxicity in food in ancient China. Poison will make silver chopsticks turn black so the royal family used silver chopsticks to tip them off on the plans of assassins and prevent assassination.
• 80 percent of chopsticks made in Japan are made in the little city of Obama, named like President Obama, population about 32,000.
• The fear of chopsticks is called “Consecotaleophobia.”
• There are four main styles:
• The Chinese use a longer style than other countries, wood sets that come to a rounded or blunt end.
• The Japanese use short, wooden sticks that come to a sharper pointy end. The Koreans use shorter, metallic, wood or plastic sticks that are often blunt at the end.
• The Vietnamese also use longer sticks that also come to a blunted end as in China; often wooden, but can be made of plastic as well.
• Chopsticks unsurprisingly have different names in different languages. For example, in Ancient Chinese, they are known as ‘zhu’, in modern day Chinese, they are known as ‘kuaizi’ and in Japanese, they are named ‘hashi’.