Some website called The Woks of Life, in an article on how to use a pair of chopsticks, makes this ambitious intro: “Chopsticks are probably the most versatile utensil ever. It’s a fork, knife, pair of tongs, a whisk, and a steamer stand (just place them in your wok and they’ll hold your bowl above water) all rolled into one.”
Let’s break it down:
- “most versatile utensil ever”: I’d say the bowl is a better tool. You can hold stuff in it, mix in it, heat it up, trap spiders in them, use them as a guide for cutting hair, or bash someone’s head in if they attempt to rob you
- “fork”: Okay, sort of. More of a two-pronged, badly put-together fork if there ever was one.
- “knife”: NO! Chopsticks are no basis for a knife. What’re you going to do, cut a serrated edge into a stick to make it a knife? And how are you going to add the edge anyway? You need a knife goddammit! And even if you achieved this, chopsticks cannot work as a knife under any circumstance
- “pair of tongs”: Well chopsticks are essentially tongs without a physical connection between the two constituent parts
- “whisk”: Anything can be a whisk. Duh.
- “steamer stand”: Now that’s stretching it.
- “all rolled into one”: Seriously, this is obvious As Seen on TV product material, though not as blatantly rubbish as Sham-Wow.
Why do I bring up chopsticks for no apparent reason? It’s not like it’s in the news. Not like Prince was found dead with a chopstick up his nose.
It’s because I want to talk about my long, long struggle with understanding the epitome of Asian cutlery technology: two sticks.
Asian food establishments are everywhere in the Western world nowadays. All the lame cooking shows need to feature some flamboyant Malaysian curry to wow a line of “judges” into dishing out high scores. I myself have grown up sampling Asian cuisine for goodness knows how long. Port Moresby is a hotbed for expats and foreigners either passing through or planting their feet in the soil to exploit the shambling ruins the locals of PNG call a government, and it seems various Asian ethnicities have holed up here and of course the restaurants had to follow. There weren’t a whole lot of safe places to go and eat on the street and it’s no different when I visit these days, but in the most reliable of places was always a Chinese or Japanese place, and they were some of the most frequented outlets. My family and I would eat out at these places often enough for the owners to know us by name. We’d walk in, the lady at the counter would see us and immediately pass word to the kitchen that the kid who likes the crispy fried chicken is here. Now in those days where I spent most of my life in Port Moresby, I never really bothered with chopsticks. You could ask for a knife and fork without feeling guilty given that the actual make-up of the staff was decidedly more local PNG folks than Asian. It didn’t feel like an insult to the culture. At some point though, I came across a scenario where there was no choice but to use the two pieces of wood that were meant to deal with an entire plate of sliced meat and noodles.
Also, my mother thought it would be a good idea to get me to learn chopsticks early.
I don’t remember when this was, but it was at a Chinese place in Australia. Mum showed me how to use the sticks and I attempted to follow suit. It wasn’t a great effort but mum said I’d get better with time.
My technique has not improved in the last several years of using chopsticks.
I don’t know why. My parents nowadays hold their chopsticks differently to each other and are still able to hold onto a stray noodle tighter than a dog chewing a mailman. Any point I mimic their methods, the whole bloody thing falls apart. Sticks fly. Chicken slips. I get infuriated. I return to the method that works for me. And I can only just grab a slice of seared beef. I dread the moment I dunk it in soy sauce because it’s a 50/50 chance whether the beef stays in the loose grip of the sticks or hightails it from me.
I actually bring up this topic in light of an increase in visits to Asian restaurants in Brisbane where in some cases, there is no standard cutlery on the premises.
You’d think after a very long time of experiencing chopsticks, I’d be quite adept at it. Well, fuck no. If I’m to achieve anything, I need a knife and fork. At least most places hand out a spoon when you order rice. But then people say chopsticks are great for picking up rice. How? Am I expected to eat one of my favourite foods one painstaking grain at a time? Are we just hoping that the rice is sticky enough to attach to my chopsticks? I mean, you can’t exactly scoop rice up very well with two damn sticks. As a fork, they work better. Poking at something and carefully getting the food into your mouth is fine enough. But suppose you get a piece of chicken karaage that’s too big or has a large amount of gristle on the end that you need to ditch in order to actually enjoy your meal. What’s chopsticks going to do? Do you simply squeeze the life out of the food, hoping it all works out?
Well, here’s my opinion on food and chopsticks interactions. Because there’s no way in hell two rounded sticks can chop anything, the food you get must be of appreciable size and trimmed nicely so as not to require further cutting. Simple. That’s how I see it. If you are given chopsticks, you must assume that the food you get can go straight down your gullet without any tampering expect a bit of soy sauce. Unfortunately, that’s never the case. You get a chunk of chicken that clearly needs to be rid of some excess size but you, armed with chopsticks, can only attempt to squish it into submission. That rice spoon you get does a better job at cutting than the two fucking sticks.
And there’s still the matter of how to use the sticks correctly.
But what is the correct way? I’ve searched online for handling techniques and have unsurprisingly discovered there is more than one way of doing it. However, are any of these ways the right way? I found an article by Kotaku on chopstick holding and incredibly, not a lot of people use the so-called “correct” method. In Japan, a country where the ultimate goal of robotic research is a Hello Kitty automatron that rides the bullet train and eats power cord soup with graphene enhanced chopsticks, it seems 70% of folks in their 40s and 50s don’t use the “correct” method. How do I describe the “correct” method? I don’t fucking know, and I don’t really care at all. I have a method that, while far from useful, works the best for me. I’ve been trying to get my head around chopsticks for years and I’m no better than when I first started using the damn sticks.
What’s even crazier is that I wrote a whole thing about chopsticks and why I kind of don’t like them.
Should they be banned? Nope. This isn’t some kind of PSA on the false hopes that the chopstick overlords have bestowed upon us. I’m just terrible with them and have yet to work it out. Sure, go ahead and tell me I’m doing it all wrong and that I’m offending Asia for criticising two pieces of wood. Of course, if you actually think this is an attack on Asia then I’m sorry but I think you’re too far down the drainpipe to be saved. If there is anything I really do want to push apart from my pointless chopstick skills, it’s this: chopsticks are not knives and never will be. Use a spoon instead.
Matters of Opinion 