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Old 06-24-2019, 06:43 PM
 
Location: North West Arkansas (zone 6b)
2,776 posts, read 3,230,782 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kokonutty View Post
Does anyone else here think it's odd that Americans eat almost everything with knives, forks and spoons daily but if their menu choice changes to Asian food many will eat those items with chopsticks instead of what they customarily use? If you like using chopsticks why not use them for steak and fries or fried chicken and mashed potatoes or spaghetti and meatballs?

If eating foods derived from European cuisine do any people use the two-handed knife and fork technique instead of the American method of changing hands?
one of my biggest pet peeves. I never use chopsticks anymore and I grew up using them. Chopsticks were a handy implement for my grandfather because he could eat with them, cook with them and if I wasn't behaving, turn them around and hit me with them with a very smooth back handed motion that barely broke his stride in reaching for another morsel of food.

My other pet peeve is people who make the effort to go and eat asian food and just get fried rice.. C'mon folks, that's not asian food, that's the equivalent of eating mac and cheese.

 
Old 06-24-2019, 07:09 PM
 
Location: Central IL
20,726 posts, read 16,283,321 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RamenAddict View Post
Chopsticks aren’t inefficient if you know how to use them. I find that they pick up small items better than an a fork, to be honest. Sometimes with salads there are items I cannot get with a fork but are easy to pick up with chopsticks.
As a child I would often pick out individual ingredients in dishes such as salads...once my palate matured I realized ingredients are (often) combined with the idea that they come together and meld in a unique way and it's frequently better to get as many of the ingredients on your fork or spoon as possible. Indeed, connoisseurs/chefs very deliberately attempt to taste as many components of a dish as possible in one bite.
 
Old 06-24-2019, 07:30 PM
 
Location: Raleigh
13,661 posts, read 12,338,208 times
Reputation: 20109
Quote:
Originally Posted by saibot View Post
Huh? I don't agree with any of this. Chopsticks work perfectly for Asian food which was prepared with chopstick use in mind. I've never had any problem with American currency either, and I pay with cash all the time. Would much rather have ten $1 bills that fold up neatly than ten heavy $1 coins rattling around.
Chopsticks work fine; 1 billion + Asians prove it. Fork and spoon work better, every time. I’ve never had any trouble with our currency either.. That doesn’t mean it’s the best or most efficient way of doing it.
 
Old 06-24-2019, 07:38 PM
 
6,421 posts, read 3,918,078 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ABQConvict View Post
Would you expect a French or Italian restaurant in Beijing to not provide their patrons with knife and fork?

The cuisine dictates the utensils, partly due to the way the food is prepared, and partly due to the customs that surround the cuisine.

Apparently in Vietnam, due to years of French influence, the native cuisine is mostly eaten with knife and fork, and chopstick have never been in common use there, but since Americans associate east Asian food with chopsticks, Vietnamese restaurants in the US (and maybe elsewhere in the West?) tend to provide chopsticks just to meet the expectations of their patrons. That is kind of odd to me.
It's the same with Thai food. In Thailand, you use a spoon and fork-- that is, you use the fork to push the food onto the spoon (it's fabulously efficient; try it). You only use chopsticks for Chinese/Japanese food, or noodle soup.


Quote:
Originally Posted by TabulaRasa View Post
Nah.

Asian family still living in country of origin. They don't skimp on the rice they eat or how fast they eat it, their technique is just different than what you see when you are at a Chinese buffet. It's more that the chopsticks are employed as scoop, with the bowl picked up and held close to the mouth, and the sticks being used more to rake and push the rice in, which makes for pretty fast eating.
Yup. Though in the U.S., this would be considered rude, so Americans wouldn't naturally think of it (nor employ it in public). I'd happily do it in Asia, but not here.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Debsi View Post
I like chopsticks for food designed to be eaten with them. I don’t know why anybody switches hands with the fork and knife, and I wouldn’t say “most” Americans do this.

Fork left, knife right. I am left handed, yet it is not at all difficult to use the knife with my right hand!
This is often how I do it, as well. Or, I cut it all up before eating and never need to touch the knife again. I'm aware some people would find this "rude." I haven't a clue what might be offensive about it except that someone must have once decided it wasn't "genteel."


Quote:
Originally Posted by reneeh63 View Post
I think it's hilarious for Americans to show off their chopstick skills but when they eat Indian food (or Ethiopian, for that matter) they seldom discard their silverware and use roti or bhatura to eat their chickpeas and lentils!
It really depends on how many napkins I have and how clean my hands are (and whether I feel the bathroom at the restaurant is clean enough that I'll want to use my hands to eat after touching things in there when washing).


Quote:
Originally Posted by shadowfax View Post
Sticky rice is best for using chopsticks.
With sticky rice you'll often use your hands... and often use the sticky rice as the utensil.


Quote:
Originally Posted by harry chickpea View Post
There is a story that when forks were first introduced in western culture, some considered them "ungodly" because it was a change from eating with the hands that were given by the creator.

Stop and consider the issues that the blind have at meals. How does one know if food is actually on a spoon or fork? What is where on a plate?
Because you can feel if something is on your utensil. And often someone will tell them what is on the plate, if they've not loaded it themselves-- "Bob, your fries are at 1:00, your peas are at 4:00, and your burger is at 9:00."
 
Old 06-24-2019, 09:33 PM
 
11,025 posts, read 7,795,456 times
Reputation: 23702
Quote:
Originally Posted by gunslinger256 View Post
one of my biggest pet peeves. I never use chopsticks anymore and I grew up using them. Chopsticks were a handy implement for my grandfather because he could eat with them, cook with them and if I wasn't behaving, turn them around and hit me with them with a very smooth back handed motion that barely broke his stride in reaching for another morsel of food.

My other pet peeve is people who make the effort to go and eat asian food and just get fried rice.. C'mon folks, that's not asian food, that's the equivalent of eating mac and cheese.
Take it a step farther, just look at eating at home. Twenty nine days a month a family eats whatever they are having for dinner with a knife, fork and spoon; one day a month they bring home a different kind of takeout food so they change their eating implements? How many of them use the chopsticks while sitting cross-legged on the floor?
 
Old 06-25-2019, 01:30 AM
 
Location: The place where the road & the sky collide
23,809 posts, read 34,540,581 times
Reputation: 10256
Quote:
Originally Posted by kokonutty View Post
Does anyone else here think it's odd that Americans eat almost everything with knives, forks and spoons daily but if their menu choice changes to Asian food many will eat those items with chopsticks instead of what they customarily use? If you like using chopsticks why not use them for steak and fries or fried chicken and mashed potatoes or spaghetti and meatballs?

If eating foods derived from European cuisine do any people use the two-handed knife and fork technique instead of the American method of changing hands?
While traveling in western Europe, I saw people employing various methods of eating with silverware. There were two English people who stood out. They chased peas around their plates and smashed them with the fork tines then used knives to build a hill of mashed potatoes on the back of the tines, over the smashed peas. Then they crammed it into their mouths, tines down, talking the whole time. The forks were in the left hands and knives in the right, with death-grips. Everyone else in the restaurant within my sight was putting the knife down on the rim of the plate if it wasn't in use.
 
Old 06-25-2019, 02:38 AM
 
Location: Dessert
10,863 posts, read 7,289,546 times
Reputation: 27969
I can use chopsticks but prefer a fork, and ask for one in Asian restaurants if it isn't on the table.

It cracks me up when some hipster asks for chopsticks at a Thai restaurant.
 
Old 06-25-2019, 03:57 AM
 
Location: Mid-Atlantic
32,846 posts, read 36,153,303 times
Reputation: 43630
Quote:
Originally Posted by kokonutty View Post
Take it a step farther, just look at eating at home. Twenty nine days a month a family eats whatever they are having for dinner with a knife, fork and spoon; one day a month they bring home a different kind of takeout food so they change their eating implements? How many of them use the chopsticks while sitting cross-legged on the floor?
We've done that!
 
Old 06-25-2019, 04:05 AM
 
Location: Mid-Atlantic
32,846 posts, read 36,153,303 times
Reputation: 43630
Quote:
Originally Posted by southbound_295 View Post
While traveling in western Europe, I saw people employing various methods of eating with silverware. There were two English people who stood out. They chased peas around their plates and smashed them with the fork tines then used knives to build a hill of mashed potatoes on the back of the tines, over the smashed peas. Then they crammed it into their mouths, tines down, talking the whole time. The forks were in the left hands and knives in the right, with death-grips. Everyone else in the restaurant within my sight was putting the knife down on the rim of the plate if it wasn't in use.
That's why they used to always serve mushy, overcooked peas. It can be difficult to get young, lightly cooked peas onto the back of a fork. Only the hoi polloi eat peas from the cradle of an upturned fork.
 
Old 06-25-2019, 05:03 AM
 
Location: Spain
12,722 posts, read 7,532,049 times
Reputation: 22633
Quote:
Originally Posted by gunslinger256 View Post
My other pet peeve is people who make the effort to go and eat asian food and just get fried rice.. C'mon folks, that's not asian food, that's the equivalent of eating mac and cheese.
Why on earth isn't fried rice Asian food? It's commonly served in local restaurants in Asia, what better definition of Asian food is there than something often served and eaten in Asia.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JONOV View Post
Chopsticks work fine; 1 billion + Asians prove it. Fork and spoon work better, every time. I’ve never had any trouble with our currency either.. That doesn’t mean it’s the best or most efficient way of doing it.
For me chopsticks work better with noodles, fork works better with most other things. I can pick up a reasonable bite of noodles with chopsticks much easier than I can with a fork.

Chopsticks are also advantageous in the style of eating common in some Asian countries since you can put thing back down easier than with a fork. For example when you've got a shared dish with meat/veggies and are selecting pieces to put in the rice in your bowl, or with hot pot can pick your stuff out of the broth to put on your plate.
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