Why do Eastern peoples eat with chopsticks?
:- Why do the Chinese eat with chopsticks?
- They gnawed the spoons like that.
But seriously:
In China, since ancient times it was believed that the one who makes chopsticks, by definition, cannot be bad. Confucius taught this. His motto: murder tools have no place at the dinner table. Therefore, food should be cut into pieces before starting the meal. small pieces, and knives were not allowed at the table. At the emperor's court, preference was given to silver chopsticks. It was believed that they would turn black if they came into contact with poisoned food. Ordinary mortals, as a rule, ate with bamboo chopsticks. Wealthier people used appliances made from expensive types of wood - for example, mahogany. High-ranking officials were distinguished by ivory sticks.
At the same time, from time immemorial it was believed that every self-respecting Chinese should have his own personal chopsticks, which should always be with him, preferably throughout his life. The loss of sticks, like breakage, meant a bad omen. If during a feast a person drops disposable chopsticks, then he continues the meal only after the waiter replaces them with a new pair. It is not customary to tap the edge of the bowl with chopsticks, as this is associated with begging. Sticking chopsticks vertically into a bowl of rice is also prohibited, as this resembles smoking sticks in a temple and symbolizes death. It is not recommended to move the sticks to the side. The expression "move aside the chopsticks" also signifies death. After eating, the chopsticks must be placed on a special stand, which sometimes represents no less valuable work of art than custom-made personal chopsticks. In addition, you need to eat with your right hand, turning it palm up. If the palm is turned down, it means that this person does not value his wealth. The farther from the ends a girl holds her chopsticks, the farther from home she will find a husband. In general, it is customary to give newlyweds exactly these cutlery, since this gift is perceived as a wish to quickly produce a son.
All these traditions have not changed for almost 35 centuries, and maybe more. Who exactly and when invented the first Chinese chopsticks - "kuai tzu" (these two hieroglyphs sound like the hieroglyph "quickly", but there is another translation - "bamboo") - history is silent. There are several beautiful legends explaining how the mechanism of the sticks was invented. Two are considered the most plausible. The first tells about the stern Emperor Zhou Wang and his concubine Daji, who in reality lived about three thousand years ago. Knowing that the emperor was difficult to please at the table and was also afraid of poisoning, Daji was always the first to try the food. One day she did not have time to cool the hot dish - Zhou-wan was already preparing to eat it. At that moment, the quick-witted girl pulled out the jade hairpins from her hair, picked up a piece with them and began to blow strongly. When the dish cooled down a little, Daji treated it to the emperor. Zhou-wan liked the reception so much that he obliged Daji to always feed him only hairpins. Later, the concubine asked to make her a pair of longer jade hairpins - they are believed to have become the prototype for chopsticks.
A different version is common in northeast China. According to it, Emperor Shun, revered by the Chinese as one of the nation's major cultural heroes, ordered his dignitary Dayu (whose name translates to Great Yu and is credited with creating the first irrigation systems on the Yellow River) to quell the flood. For days on end, Yu fought against the natural disaster. Finally he decided to have a snack, boiling meat and rice. But I couldn’t taste the food right away because it was very hot. Not wanting to wait, Yu broke off a couple of thin branches. With their help, he removed a piece of meat from the vat, then blew on it and ate it.
For most Russians, Chinese cooking is strictly associated with wooden chopsticks. But if everything was so boring, we would not be writing this article. The Chinese cutlery range includes spoons and even scissors. And the sticks themselves are different. Interesting? Then read on, we will tell you everything in order.
Is it difficult to eat with chopsticks?
If you do this your entire adult life, like the Chinese, then it’s not at all difficult. It is more difficult for them to master a fork and knife than it is for us to master chopsticks. What surprises many Russians most is that the Chinese eat rice with chopsticks.
There are even opinions that the Chinese specially boil rice to make it more convenient. But that's not true. In love fluffy rice, and no one has any problems eating it with chopsticks.
If you are confident in using this cutlery, then simply take a handful of rice between the chopsticks (as shown in the photo on the right) and calmly put it into your mouth. Naturally, you need to hold them confidently, otherwise everything will fall apart.
In Chinese cuisine, there are several categories of dishes that cannot be eaten with chopsticks. Firstly, these are semi-liquid porridges. For example, traditional sweet rice porrige which is prepared on. Also, in some soups the ingredients are overcooked. Most often, such soups are prepared from tree mushrooms.
These dishes are eaten with Chinese spoons, which we will talk about on this page, but a little later. If the soup consists of solid ingredients, then they are simply eaten with chopsticks and the broth is drunk. And they drink straight from the plate. What is considered very uncivil behavior at the table in our country is absolutely normal in China. The majority of such soups are made on the basis of noodles, and they are called “noodle soups”.
The main rules for tourists in China
In large and expensive restaurants in China you will always be given a spoon, fork and knife. But in small cafes or national Chinese fast foods there are no European cutlery at all. It is unlikely that you will be able to buy disposable forks in a store. We have never seen them there.
Rule one. If you are going to China and are not good with chopsticks, then the usual cutlery is a must.
You, and like us, have probably always wondered why in Asia everyone eats with chopsticks and not with forks or spoons? Well, we have found the answer! But let's start from the very beginning...
Chopsticks and their history
Historians believe that chopsticks in China began to be used five thousand years ago. The most interesting thing is that at first they did not eat with them, but only cooked food - with thin long twigs it was quite convenient to turn over and lift pieces of meat or fish while they were in special pots on the fire.
As complete (and irreplaceable) cutlery Chinese chopsticks appear only closer to Our Era - in the 500s BC. The main reason, not surprisingly, is rapid population growth. There was very little food, it had to be cut into very small pieces, which in turn were much easier to manage with the help of thin twigs. Small pieces of dishes did not need to be cut after cooking or, in general, modified in any special way before lunch or dinner. Chopsticks turned out to be the ideal tool for taking food from a plate and putting it in your mouth. The second indisputable advantage chopsticks– they are cheap, which means everyone can use them.
Not with chopsticks alone
However, in China and Asia in general, knives were also quite common. At some point they simply disappeared. Historians believe the reason is the teachings of Kong Tzu (the great Chinese sage whom you know as Confucius). He believed that a knife should not be used for meals, saying that a cultured person only takes a knife to war, but in a house where there is peace and quiet, there should be no knives at all. It is worth noting that this “smacks” of truth. Firstly, the quote is clearly in the style of Confucius, and secondly, at one time he had enormous influence on the entire society, including the imperial families. So, if he didn’t like the knives on the tables, he could force the entire multimillion-dollar Ancient China to give them up.
Distribution of "Chinese" chopsticks
Literally for hundreds of years "Chinese" chopsticks spread throughout Asia, including the largest countries of that period - Japan, Vietnam and Korea. However, the Japanese did as always - they took interesting idea and redesigned it completely to suit us. Chopsticks in Japan made only from bamboo, but used exclusively in ceremonial rituals.
When the Chinese Empire began to flourish, Food sticks became one of its symbols. So, the emperor and his family ate with silver chopsticks. This was not only a sign of high position (the emperor was almost God), but also periodically saved the rulers of the empire from assassination attempts - silver reacts to most poisons, however, except for arsenic, cyanide and a few more, the most effective.
Chopsticks today
Many Europeans have no idea why They even eat rice with chopsticks? It would seem that a spoon would be more convenient. In fact, no. Rice in Asia is coarse-grained, which means that after cooking it easily sticks together into lumps, which in turn are more convenient to take with chopsticks.
It is also interesting how Chinese chopsticks entered the Asian technological sphere. For example, if a large company wants to hire a person to work with microcircuits or any other devices that require dexterity and precision, he must pass a special stick test, which will show how well his motor skills and hand coordination are developed.
Chinese cuisine is gaining popularity around the world, but what do we know about it? Chef Yu Qiang worked in Beijing at the State Department's Office of Affairs, at the Chinese Embassy in Berlin, and is now president of the Chinese Cultural Center, answers questions and debunks myths.
Myth #1: Food is very spicy. This is not entirely true. Since ancient times, Chinese cuisine has been divided into 8 regional trends, each with its own specific characteristics. Spices are a particularly revered part of the ki Thai cuisine. They significantly enrich the taste of food.
This is not to say that all Chinese food is spicy. For example, in the city of Hangzhou the food is sweet, but in the provinces of Xiuan the food is really very spicy,” he explains.
Myth No. 2: The Chinese combine incongruous things.
Only where it is justified from the point of view of taste and health benefits. For example, pork and pineapple are incompatible for a European, but we know that pineapple softens the meat, makes it juicier, and allows its taste, as well as the taste of pineapple, to be revealed richer.
Myth No. 3: they like to substitute tastes.
Yes, we have a tradition of using complex techniques to change the taste of foods. This is due to the climate, which varies greatly in different regions. It's hot in the south there good conditions for keeping livestock and people eat a lot of meat. To diversify the diet, various vegetables are added to the meat to make it look like fish or other meat. It is very cold in northern China and there is little choice of ingredients, so people also tend to change the taste of foods, which is good for digestion.
Myth No. 4: soy sauce - always and everywhere.
It is not true that the Chinese eat everything from soy sauce. There are many white dishes without sauce. The sauce is added to certain dishes according to the recipe.
Myth #5: Chinese food difficult to cook at home. The expert admits that Chinese cuisine and it's really complicated. Many dishes require an open fire, which is not easy to provide in a city apartment.
But Chinese cooking courses usually teach how to prepare dishes that can be repeated in electric stove. For example, these are mushrooms in butter, fried crispy lamb, onion pie, rack of pork ribs in sweet and sour sauce.
Myth No. 6: Products that the Chinese traditionally use are completely unsuitable for European understanding.
Each of the many peoples of our planet has its own dish, which differs both in the method of preparation and in the characteristics of its consumption. Different nationalities prefer different cutlery: some like to eat with kuaizi, others with spoons and forks, and others with their hands.
Chinese medicine believes that consuming a particular product can affect the well-being of the body as a whole. Therefore, the Chinese eat in such a way as to have a beneficial effect on the respiratory system, digestive tract and slow down the aging of the body. In China, it is believed that if a person has pain in some organ, then when you eat the same animal organ, it is restored, and food becomes medicine. That's why we eat the eyes and other parts of the pig. Although, of course, food itself cannot be considered a panacea for illness, this is wrong.
In the south, in Guangdong, they can eat snake meat. There is an opinion that the Chinese eat insects. Few people know, but such components - distinguishing feature Thai cuisine. And in China, insects are a delicacy. The Chinese do not eat cats, and the tradition of eating dog meat remains only in some northern provinces, because their meat takes a long time to cool down and warms the body. These traditions were born when the country's economy was weak and people ate whatever they could find in the wild. But now a lot has changed in China.
Why do the Chinese eat with chopsticks? This question has plagued more than one generation of peoples of the Old World. A long time ago, at the dawn of civilization, the ancient inhabitants of the Celestial Empire ate with their hands, which was completely inconvenient: it was hot and their hands were constantly dirty. And then they took the sticks in their hands, which became, as it were, an extension of their fingers. Knives and forks are considered weapons - eating with weapons is unacceptable.
Alcohol is drunk in China mainly by men - beer and baiju rice vodka with herbs at 60% strength, as well as red wines from Shaoxing County.
It was very convenient and very interesting to get food with such cutlery. When the cook prepared a dish, he caught pieces of food with these “tongs” and tasted them, thereby saving himself from burns.
The first sizes of chopsticks were 38 cm long, then the Chinese reduced them to 25 cm. After some time, other nations picked up the tradition of eating, including the Japanese. They called them "Khasi"
But not only the Chinese and Japanese eat with chopsticks, but also the Vietnamese and Koreans. It seems that everything is clear and understandable, but what about liquid dishes, because these people also eat them. The whole secret is that soups and others from the liquid family are served in special bowls with a large height. The idea is that solid food is caught first, and then the liquid is simply drunk.
Another interesting fact is that these peoples boldly assure others that even in the future they will not change the principles and features of their diet. Beautifully designed and crafted sticks can be used as gifts for various celebrations.
It is believed that preschool children who eat food with chopsticks develop slightly mentally, but faster than those who use the usual spoons and forks. Although this has not been proven scientifically.
