How did Oriental people begin to use chopsticks??

Question

What is the history of how they came to be used? Also how are you supposed to eat big objects with them or cut anything with them?

Answer 1

First of all the correct term is Asian not Oriental. Second we eat food not objects. Asian food consists of stir-fry, noodles, rice..In other word no big pieces of food, nothing that needs to be cut.

Answer 2

Here is an interesting blurb I found on the internet...

"Some believe Confucius championed chopsticks over knives, which would remind people of slaughterhouses.

Confucius Promotes Non-Violence.

The Chinese have been using chopsticks for five thousand years. People probably cooked their food in large pots, using twigs to remove it. Overtime, as population grew, people began chopping food into small pieces so it would cook more quickly. Small morsels of food could be eaten without knifes and so the twigs gradually turned into chopsticks.

Some people think that the great scholar Confucius, who lived from roughly 551 to 479 B.C., influenced the development of chopsticks. A vegetarian, Confucius believed knives would remind people of slaughterhouses and were too violent for the tablesetting."

Another passage stated that "chopsticks probably came from the use of twigs & small spears to manipulate food in and around the fire." Others wrote that even when the Western style fork was introduced, the Asian population stayed with their use of chopsticks because a fork resembled a hand and it was merely an "extension" of the hand. They felt it was more civilized to eat with chopsticks.

Most all of Chinese cooking incorporates cutting the food into smaller pieces to make it easier to eat, you don't have to cut anything so you don't need a knife. Also, due to the lack of fuel (i.e. wood) pieces of food need to be cut up so it would cook faster in the "wok" (the Chinese invented this cooking vessel). The wok is very efficient. When you cook something like a stirfry, you only need to heat the small center at the bottom of the wok. This cooks everything very quickly and then you push the food up the sides to keep everything warm.

Most Asian families (old school) only have a wok and not much else in the way of cooking equipment. You can boil, steam, fry, braise & smoke food in the wok.

Answer 3

Oriental people dont....Asian people do

Answer 4

Chopsticks were developed about 5,000 years ago in China. It is likely that people cooked their food in large pots which retained heat well, and hasty eaters then broke twigs off trees to retrieve the food. By 400 BCE, a large population and dwindling resources forced people to conserve fuel. Food was chopped into small pieces so it could be cooked more rapidly, thus needing less fuel.  

The pieces of food were small enough that they negated the need for knives at the dinner table, and chopsticks became staple utensils. It is also thought that Confucius, a vegetarian, advised people not to use knives at the table because knives would remind them of the slaughterhouse.

Chinese chopsticks, called kuai-zi (quick little fellows), are usually 9 to 10 inches long and rectangular with a blunt end. By 500 CE, chopstick use had spread from China to present-day Vietnam, Korea, and Japan.

In Japan, chopsticks were originally considered precious and were used exclusively for religious ceremonies. The earliest chopsticks used for eating looked like tweezers; they were made from one piece of bamboo that was joined at the top. By the 10th Century, chopsticks were being produced in two separate pieces.

Japanese chopsticks differed in design from Chinese chopsticks in that they were rounded and came to a point; they were also shorter (7 inches long for females and 8 inches long for males).

Traditionally, chopsticks have been made from a variety of materials. Bamboo has been the most popular because it is inexpensive, readily available, easy to split, resistant to heat, and has no perceptible odor or taste. Cedar, sandalwood, teak, pine, and bone have also been used. The wealthy, however, often had chopsticks made from jade, gold, bronze, brass, agate, coral, ivory, and silver. In fact, during dynastic times it was thought that silver chopsticks would turn black if they came into contact with poisoned food. It is now known that silver has no reaction to arsenic or cyanide, but if rotten eggs, onion, or garlic are used, the hydrogen sulfide they release might cause these chopsticks to change color.

Answer 5

have you ever eaten chinese food?? The items are very small and already cut up. you don't go to a chinese restaurant and get a big steak to eat with chopsticks. You get a beef dish, where the beef is chopped up and served with noodles or rice, or vegetables already cut up into small pieces.

Answer 6

I am not sure how they can into common use; I know that there was a great Chinese queen approximately 3500-4000 years ago who was buried with a fork and spoon in her tomb. But why the chopstick became the common eating utensil in the Far East is beyond my understanding.

I do know that you shouldn't need to eat "big" objects when you are offered chopsticks because everything, from the standpoint of etiqutte, should be prepared and cooked in bite-sized morsels. This also means no cutting is necessary.

Answer 7

I'd heard somewhere (a cooking show maybe?) that chopsticks evolved out of using a  sharpened stick to stab at food and eat it that way.  However somethings don't stab very well - like rice, which led to using two sharpened sticks, and eventually chopsticks.  Chopsticks came about AFTER the invention of utensils.  The Chinese were already using spoons and knives at the table before chopsticks came into use.

Most food to be eaten with chopsticks is already cut into small portions that is easily picked up with chopsticks to begin with.

However it is possible to deal with larger items with chopsticks as well.  In some cases, you just have to pick the item up with the chopsticks, take a bite and then put it back down - usually in your rice bowl on top of your rice (although the Japanese generally don't put anything on their rice.)  Deboning a cooked fish with chopsticks is one thing I haven't mastered yet.  In the case of things like short ribs or chicken feet, it's considered acceptable to eat with your hands as there's really no other way to get all the meat from around the bones using chopsticks.

You can also use the chopsticks to cut items.  Usually you stab the item with both sticks, and then wiggle the chopsticks apart, ripping or tearing the item in half.  Or, you can take the kid approach.  Grab one stick in each hand, stab the item with both sticks, and violently pull them apart.  Don't try this in polite company unless you're 5, though...    Obviously you're only going to be cutting relatively soft or thin items this way.  For a big thick ribeye steak, you're still going to need a knife.

It's also considered poor form to stab your food with the chopsticks, although for some things, like certain dumplings, are just too slippery to pick up.  Also, when you need to put your chopsticks down, don't stick them into your rice bowl.  Instead, lay them on your plate or across bowl, or use a chopstick holder (you can make one by folding the chopstick wrapper into an upside down V shape.)  Sticking the chopsticks upright in your rice bowl is a sign of death, since this is traditionally how people would offer rice to their dead ancestors' grave, shrine, or during certain festivals.