As a Filipino it's kinda weird to think of people eating rice with chopsticks or fork as it could easily fall off. Thus we use spoon to get more rice at once and it doesn't fall off.
You missed the whole point of the video. "Eating with chopsticks" isn't a weird action, you feel weird about it just because in your culture, people eat rice with spoons.
maybe the problem is that different types of rice are used in different regions since some rice are stickier and hold form better than others, it kind of depends culturally which rice they rely on the most. so both are correct, its just the type of rice which we need more context on before judging.
Yeah in Brazil we eat lots of rice but eating this type of it is impossible with chopsticks, I used either spoon or fork+knife. But now living in Japan, I also can't imagine eating japanese rice with spoons. Really interesting to notice those differences.
Not only are eating utensils shaped by our food, but our food is probably also shaped by our eating utensils. So many dishes in one culture would be really hard to eat with another tool than the one that culture uses to eat. So the food and the eating utensils seem to adapt to each other over time and not just one to the other. Which would make the introduction of a new way to eat even harder since the food being eaten is already designed to be consumed with another tool in mind.
Based on my own observation, in culture where people commonly eat with their bare hands, their food usually have bigger chunks compared to the ones with chopsticks, as the latter will made their food already at bite sizes so its easier to be picked with chopsticks. But in fork&knife culture, its also big chunks except its usually being made so the harder parts like bones were already removed before serving, making it easier to cut. Meanwhile spoon is everywhere since every culture has their own version of soup and porridge.
Exactly. I think that some foods just require the use of a knife, like a steak or schnitzel etc, and cultures that use chopsticks simply dont eat this kind of foods at all.
As a Malaysian person growing up a culture that’s a blend of Malay, Chinese, Indian and western, i am adept at using hands, chopsticks and fork+knife! It’s cool to be able to use all of them and enjoy different cuisines, and eating them the way it was intended adds to the experience
You rule, Utensil Avatar! Eating foods with their culturally appropriate tools add so much to both the experience and the respect we give for each other's cultures
It depends. As another Malaysian, I only use my fingers at fast food. I like food wetter. For indian food, eating with a spoon and fork makes scooping those curry easier compared to using a hand, which I gave up using after I turned 13. For Chinese food, most Malaysian Chinese use chopsticks only for noodles. For rice based cuisine and communal family dinner, a fork and spoon is the way to go. It reflects more western influence among Malaysian Chinese, who move from eating from a bowl to eating from a plate, in which the presence of a spoon helps A LOT on wetter food and a western spoon that is flatter will control the amount of food you put in your mouth compare to a Chinese style spoon which is only good for spoon (does not fit your mouth well). And for using hands, it depends on the settings. You look very very very uncivilized if you use hand in a Western or Chinese setting. People will look at you weird. By will not bat an eye if you do it in Indian cuisine only setting.
@@arthurlau98 of course la, it's common sense to choose what to use depending on the situation. It would be silly to use chopsticks to eat nasi lemak or my hands to eat curry laksa.
Very Interesting! In India, we believe that eating with your hand (most of us use only one hand) allows us to experience the food through the sense of touch before we consume it. It prepares your system for the food that is about to enter your mouth. It also helps you judge if the food is too hot or cold and avoid burning your tongue. The practice also ensures we wash our hands more often and before and after every meal which promotes hygiene. And of course, it is the most sustainable way to eat.
@hit_alive because noodles and spaghetti arent really a staple nor traditional cuisine in India. Of course they eat with appropriate utensils depending on cuisines. Just generally, their Everyday foods are eaten with hands.
"promotes good hygiene"..... With the Indian tourist I've smelled a mile away, lack of water with 70 percent of the population, and everyone bathing and pooping in the holy river....... I think that ship has sailed long ago ........
@@jek__The spork already exist happy to say. Imagine a spoon where the scoop is split into 3 wide-based tines instead of the usual 4 long pointy tines of a typical fork. I use it for a meal of fried rice with cubes of meat and tofu. Scoop and/or stab. Smaller scoop capacity than a spoon but why hurry...
I think in your comparison you didn't really acknowledge that one can use a fork without using a knife with many dishes. When you pick up fries they may give you a tiny fork but no knife. And many other classic italian or european dishes, such as pasta, do not requite a knife at all
@@krombopulos_michael it is multi factoral. In western culture lifting the plate off the table is improper etiquette and so is slurping in a noodle. It also has to deal with how the sauce and food in with noodles. Again culture informs which is "better".
I think one thing people often overlook with chopsticks is the bowl that it is paired with. Often, when we eat rice, it's just plain white rice, which is sticky enough to be picked up with chopsticks; we pick up the bowl closer to our face so the chopsticks don't change their angle or lift the rice as far. When there's not enough rice in the bowl to easily pick up, or with non-sticky rice like fried rice, we just put the bowl of rice to our face and shovel it in with the chopsticks. In those instances, the bowl is also a utensil. It's more often seen in Chinese communal meals where the bowls are small enough to be easily held, and the chopsticks serve a dual purpose of grabbing meats and veggies from the plates into your own bowl as well. For myself, I often find myself resorting to the spoon when it comes to Japanese dons, as those bowls are a bit too big and unwieldy to hold with one hand. Sometimes, if rice dishes are served on a plate like with Thai rice or Japanese curry rice, or if it's fried rice, I also use a spoon. On the other hand, I like eating spaghetti with chopsticks, just to piss off the Italians. Use chopsticks to avoid Cheeto fingers. In fact, you can use chopsticks for all sorts of chips. You're welcome.
@@HatchetHaro 中华文化不懂的话，就不要做个白痴。宋朝的时候就开始， 在重要场合或者是有背景和文化的家族，一般不会把碗端到脸前， 而是把碗稍微提高离桌面一点，再用筷子夹米饭上来。夹食物也会用分别的碗盘来装。他们用的筷子也比较长。 所以这要看怎么吃。建议你好好读一下有关中华饮食文化的书。还有，we do not shove it in our mouth. 请你自重。
The feedback loop between utensiles evolving to suit popular dishes and dishes being crafted to be eaten with the culture's standard utensiles is fascinating. While this isn't really a problem in the case of food, I imagine there must be situations where someone has come up with a new, more optimal solution for a problem, but there are too many tools and systems built to work with the old, clunky solution for anyone to change it.
That's B2B Software in a nutshell. Not only does the more "optimal" option require everyone to relearn already acquired skills but the amount of effort you'd have to put in to replace the old software with the newer one will take a ridiculous amount of time and resources which in most cases hurt the company more than it would benefit it in almost all aspects even if the new tech is genuinely better.
The QWERTY keyboard is a great example. It was created to SLOW DOWN the typist to avoid jamming keys together. Now that there are no keys to jam, other keyboards could make more sense. But none have ever taken off, because of everything associated with the current layout.
My go-to example of a food that's easier to eat with chopsticks is sushi. A fork would destroy the roll, but just picking it up with chopsticks is perfect. Although personally, my favorite utensil is the spoon. Simple, intuitive, and as far as I know, universal.
It is more or less universal. Every single culture that I researched had invented the spoon in some form or another. I'm sure there are a few cultures that don't use it though
You can eat sushi with your hands, and thats part of edomae sushi tradition. The better example I think is hot pot. Theres no way you eat that with anything other than chopsticks.
Traditionally, back when sushi was bigger, eating it with your hands was the norm with sushi and even today it's still valid to eat sushi while using your hands.
In Zulu culture (I'm from South Africa). When eating with people in the same bowl we use two hands, however they serve two different functions. Say you are eating baked beans for example, one hand will be used to pickup food from the bowl then you'll pour your food to the other hand, which will be used to take food to the mouth. The hand that takes food to the mouth doesn't come in contact with the bowl and the hand that takes food from the bowl doesn't come in contact with the mouth. This rarely happens now because spoons are popular and everyone uses their own bowl.
Woah. That's a new style. I have never heard about anything like that before. And it sounds fun. As an Indian, touching food with my left hand kinda feels a little weird but if there are people who do this traditionally, it has to be good
I don't think their is a single hand-eating culture which dosn't make similar 'right hand touches only X, left hand touches only Y' sanitary rules, X is generally the food going into your mouth, but Y could be different things which need to not get cross contaminated with X. Generally such rules assume right-hand dominance and for conformity will suppress left handed people from simply swapping the setup.
Another aspect of the forks vs. chopsticks debate is the typical application of both utensils. Forks puncture the piece of food while chopsticks simply pick it up. Forks can interfere with the structural integrity of the item (e.g. sushi, layered foods, etc) or cause some loss of moisture (losing the soup inside a soup dumpling, applying pressure on pieces of meat, letting the juice dribble out, etc.) while chopsticks don't run into these issues because the user only applies pressure to the sides of the item.
You can also make the argument in the other direction, as slipping the tines of a fork under an item to lift it can be easier than catching it between two chopsticks. I'm reminded of rice noodle dim sum I've had at Chinese restaurants, which both violate the common 'small pieces' theme of Chinese dishes (being too large to eat gracefully as a single bite) and being slick enough that they're difficult to hold with chopsticks (then, too, so are ice cubes when I fish them out of a glass of water). On the other hand, it's easier to lose pieces of food into something like a hot pot by slipping off a fork, or being harder to fish back out afterward if it doesn't want to be lifted by the fork and has to be impaled.
@@greenmachine5600 some foods are easier to "hunt" trough the plate with forks vs spoons, and also the amount of sauce you catch is different. Besides, with a fork you can both stab and lift with a single utensil
I agree with juicy dumplings, but I've crush way too many sushi roll segments in my chopsticks when they feel slippery to agree on that one. I've also cut up stromboli and would not want to try to pick that up with chopsticks as I can already see the bread, slick meat, and veggies fall apart while they can be speared together with a fork like a shishkabob.
Indeed the chopstick is generally intended to do zero breaking down of the food pieces, all that responsibility is transfered to the kitchen where all food must be broken down into bite size or at minimm bite-able pieces. A Fork on the otherhand still retains a minimal role in the final breaking down of food between the plate and the mouth. When paired with a knife this role is obvious, BUT many people do not realize how much knife like action a basic fork is capable of and how much western cuisine relies on the fork to chop with it's side, fluff, stir or in other ways breakup food prior to actions of stabbing-lift or scoop-lift to actually put it in ones mouth. Soft meats like a filet of fish is one of the areas where you see forks behaving as psudo-knives a lot. Western cuisine has a lot of foods which fall in this grey zone, not tough enough to require a knife, but too large and tough for a chopstick to be able to be effective.
I've lived in both the American and the Asian continents, so all I can say, having studied different cultures, is: specific utensils are meant for specific types of food, so there's no universal "the fork is better" or "chopsticks are better". Burritos are meant to be eaten with your hands, so trying to use either forks or chopsticks wouldn't be as practical as just grabbing the burrito with your hand. If you get a Western steak, of course using fork and knife would work better, but East Asian food, as mentioned in the video, usually comes already cut in small pieces, so using chopsticks is usually easier. Moreover, utensils are adapted to specific tasks and cultures. For example, chopsticks are different in China, Japan and Korea. Chinese people many times put a big plate in the center of the table and people serve themselves to their plates, so longer chopsticks are useful. Japanese people don't do that, so their chopsticks are shorter; they eat more fish, so their chopsticks taper and are more pointy so it's easier to grab raw fish with them. Korean chopsticks are flat and usually made of metal, because in ancient times they were believed to detect poison easier than wooden chopsticks. In many South East Asian countries, having their local cultures influenced by China and Western colonization, you'll se that, for example, rice usually comes with a spoon (not fork), while noodles are considered a Chinese thing, so they come with chopsticks. I currently live in Taiwan where, just like in China, if you order "noodles" they will give you chopsticks by default, but if you order "Italian noodles" (i.e. spaghetti) they'll give you a fork. Of course, you can actually use etiher utensil because it's basically the same food, but utensils are culturally asociated to either Asian or Western origin. Furthermore, combining utensils is becoming increasingly popular in Asia. For example, if you get let's say a curry rice with a pork cutlet, it may come with chopsticks AND a spoon, so you use one hand to grab the pork pieces with the chopsticks, while getting the rice with the spoon in your other hand. This is specially common with noodle soups, of course: one hand with the chopsticks for the noodles and the other hand with the spoon for the soup.
You stated nothing scholarly in spite the lenght of your text. I guess you never papers on Asian Studies arguing the sophistication of the chopsticks. Let that be something to contemplate on. The chopstick was used an arguement to prove the concept of the Superiority of the Chinese Civilization.
@@eduardochavacano I never intended to say anything scholarly in this simple comment on a TH-cam video; it's obvious that I was just giving my impressions on the topic. If you want to read something scholarly, I suggest you can consult an academic journal.
You're wrong. The way you put it is like China colonized South East Asia. Of course, China never colonized South East Asia. Also, Chinese chopsticks are not tapered or sharp not because of what you said but because the Chinese do not want to be reminded of the battlefield with daggers, arrows, etc. and according to John, Confucius said that knives belong to the slaughterhouse. For Japan, the Samurai probably prefer the sharp pointed chopsticks. There are different lengths of chopsticks to suit different occasions and usage in China. Chinese chopsticks are more varied and diverse because of the nature of the country. It is just a vast country with so many provinces and people in the north, south, east and west are different too. Japan or Korea is like a province of China only. Chopsticks are definitely the best. The food you eat comes in small bits and pieces, so it aids in the digestion. You don't see a large chunk of beef, like steak. So the Chinese and East Asians are not as fat as the Americans. And it is the healthier option. Chopsticks are also more hygienic and easier to produce, just two twigs will do or two bamboo sticks, cheap and almost instant. Just need a while to figure out how to use them only. It improves dexterity of the hands and fingers, and this is good for the brains. Moreover, the energy from the food works its way to the head and brains instead of down the stomach and so it makes one smarter too. This is no coincidence. It is deliberately designed that way. So, chopsticks are probably the cleverest invention ever.
As an Asian, it's really hard for me to imagine eating any food without chopsticks. Although my fingers do hurt when pinching some big food lol but chopsticks can prevent the food from escaping. I can't catch any food at all with just a spoon or a fork. I even use chopsticks when eating chips. Just the right amount of force to never ruin the food and at the same time your hands are still clean!
It's all a matter of practice and what you are used to. I am the opposite I eat all foods with a fork even other culture foods. When I try to use chopsticks it hurts my hands. It's all about what you are comfortable with.
I think I have to disagree that chopsticks forces you to eat slowly, to me at least it makes me eat faster. My family is japanese so we have a lot of small bowls, when eating with them we tend to pick up them with our left hand and use the chopsticks with the right, this way we can lift the bowl and basically eat faster. Also if take ramen for example, it meant to be eaten in around 10min max or the noodles will get soggy
Lol, it was the wives who insisted that thier husbands use the fork in the left hand and knife in the right and the act of changing hands slowed down the men so the wife could talk to her husband at meal time.
I would say chopsticks Encourages eating more slowly by taking smaller bites. That is if you don't bring up the bowl to the face and shovel it in. Despite being Western I generally prefer eating with sticks thanks to the better pace. And if eating soup, I like to pick ingredients and put on the spoon and then pill with bit of stock. That includes noodles that I ussually pick one or cpl at t atime and coil it up in the spoon. Makes for a more enjoyable way of eating in my opinion
@@PeaknikMicki That's an interesting perspective! I don't want to jump on stereotypes, but maybe this happens because people on the west usually don't grow eating with chopsticks, so maybe chopsticks don't first come into mind when thinking about a practical and easy to use tool, which creates this cycle (chopsticks are difficult to use and different, so maybe I should slow down when using it)
@@milady_kazuko I actually have a friend who don’t know how to use fork to eat noodles but he can do it pretty well using chopsticks. It turn out that he bring his own chopsticks everywhere including spaghetti store😂😂 It’s pretty unfair when people say that chopsticks aren’t easy to use when people in the west growing up using fork🫨🫨
I've seen many people including myself who are used to forks struggle with chopsticks. I've never seen someone used to chopsticks ever struggle with a fork. This could either be cause chopsticks are harder to use or forks are so much more widespread due to a factor other than ease that everyone couldn't avoid getting accustomed to it.
While it's not as common, I have seen Asians who say forks are harder to use for certain foods. And I can say the same after learning chopsticks properly. Example - dumplings.
@@hellowill hi yes thats me. I eat all kinds of noodles way faster than with forks. I even eat pasta with chopsticks in my own privacy lol. I think chopsticks are just way easier to pick up food with especially when dishes are shared. i only use forks when im eating steak or when chopsticks arent provided
Chopsticks are just harder to use. Once you have arthritis or any hand problems, you wont be able to use it anymore. While forks and spoons can be used... Toddler/caveman style.
Using chopsticks is something you need to learn. It is difficult in that regard, but once you have it down, it's actually easier to use than forks. It is quicker too. Sure, I can grab a fork and start eating, and it is not difficult to use. But once you know how to use chopsticks, eating with a fork feels like walking around without knee joints. It's not difficult, just very restricting. And slow. Paradoxically, I also need to use more mental effort with forks, because now I have to consider physics. With chopstick you just grab stuff. No food bouncing off the fork, or destroying the structural integrity, or stuff falling into pieces. Stuff like that is annoying.
@@GruntSquad92 Honestly the best utensil is your hands. Very versatile and easy to use. Been in India for a week and haven't used anything else the entire time.
As an Indian I've grown up using hands/fingers to eat. During my young adulthood I also have heavily used spoons while living away from home. After some time, what I discovered is that, if the food is not desirable to me and I just somehow have to eat it, I'll mostly pick a spoon to eat instead using hands. Using a spoon for me meant detachment to the food. I always wondered about an interesting research idea studying amount of food waste in places like Hostel Mess, while using hands vs spoons. (the detachment hypothesis)
I'm Trinidadian (mix of East Indian, West African, Native American, and Latin culture) and I've noticed that many roti shops in my country have the option of wrapping all the curry within the roti ( almost like a burrito) so it can be easily eaten with a knife and fork or they wrap a paper around it so you can eat it similarly to a burrito in public. I tend to not eat roti in public unless it's in this format to avoid using my hands while eating in public.
Another angle on hands vs spoons, that is related to that detachment idea, is it possible that its easier to eat a lot of food fast with a spoon and thus overeating is much more likely. That's been my experience, and I suppose that's just a different type of food waste.
Great solution thanks for sharing. I just bought some $200 A5 wagyu but I was afraid of having to stab it with a knife to cut it. But now there's a simple solution where I can just throw it in a blender. Thanks for the advice.
@@Design.Theorysporks are good on survival knifes or for camping were you want a utensil that has the functions of a spoon and a fork to save space. 5 people camping is 5 sporks or 5 forks and 5 spoons.
Idk, I must be a master at using a fork. It can shovel anything except for soup or cereal if I cared about having milk with every bite. Never once had a problem with rice, yogurt, grits/polenta, ice cream etc. Rice in a bowl with a fork is like shooting a fish barrel with a shotgun. Using the side of the fork and you can cut most things aside from tough beef and pork. It is 98% effective for most things.
@@aleisterlavey9716 Nope? If you’re a fully grown adult & you can’t put a utensil in your mouth (fork, spoon, chopsticks etc.) then you have a motor skills problem. If that actually happened then something was wrong with him🤕
@@Mr152008 talking to much while eating was wrong with him. I was just glad, I was outside his reach, otherwise I may got stabbed too. Some people have incredible bad motor skills.
Between forks and chop-sticks, it's 100% chop-sticks as the more versatile tool. They are eating utensils, serving utensils, cooking utensils, etc. Please remember that East-Asian cultures had invented forks thousands of years ago, it's just that they found chop-sticks more useful. The argument that chop-sticks is harder to learn doesn't hold much weight for me - that's a function of whether good instruction was available or not. If you can write using a western pen/pencil, you can use chop-sticks.
as a British person who grew up in both the UK and then Malaysia, I went from using a fork and knife to using a fork and spoon the malaysian way as it’s far better for almost all dishes (bar steak). My favourite combo now is a spoon and japanese-style pointed chopsticks even for foods like salads or pasta. Somehow it feels like the food is more aerated.
Chopsticks also work far better for foods originating in East Asia as its usually more broken down while forks for western food which are usually kept in bigger pieces. Try eating a sirloin with a side of asparagus using chopsticks
Or true to Asian aesthetics, the sirloin and asparagus would be sliced stacked and spread perfectly right upon serving so that the person eating it wouldn’t be required to be indelicately wrestling the meat to their mouths 😂😅
I’ll be honest, eating with hands feels great too. I taste the food better, the fingers feel more confortable than metal cutlery, and you sort of taste the saltiness of your skin as you eat, which in a way helps add to its flavor… I also agree with Nainesh. You’re prompted to wash hands more often.
Another good part eating with bare hands is you dont have to worry about your food being too hot. Since if your fingers were able to touch it, then its already safe enough to enter your mouth.
Ok. As an Indian I agree with that statement. But what is that salt taste man. Stop making shit. It doesn't give any salt taste. But eating with hands is way better in many ways in indian cuisine
As an Asian, the best thing about chopsticks is that it's all we need. We can eat anything with it, including the thinnest soup. At some point I stopped using spoon. As for forks... I only use them when it's situationally awkward to use chopsticks. Like when I eat noodle pasta, cake, fried chicken. Or when it's necessary to use knives like when eating steaks(most of the times when we eat meat, we chop it up while cooking so we don't have to do the process during the meal).
@@brandynamite3022 in this case I was asking about OP's strategy for using just chopsticks, but still thank you! .. maybe drinking it is the strategy for that since it doesn't involve anything but chopsticks?
@@brandynamite3022Using a spoon, so… Not just the “universal” chopsticks? Chopsticks are good at picking things up, and that’s it. Saying a thin soup can be eaten with chopsticks by drinking out of the bowl is like saying you can eat spaghetti with a knife by picking up the noodles with your hands. Like… No. You’re just wrong lol… I won’t debate whether chopsticks are the best or not but saying that they can be used on the thinnest soup by using another tool or not using it at all is literally just wrong lol…
I find chopsticks to be more convenient in the sense that I can do more with chopsticks like picking up small pieces of food or lifting food securely without having to pierce it. Also I have lost count of how many times I improvised using two skewers or small sticks as chopsticks to help me move food (and some other stuff).
I always had rice with a spoon because it was the most practical. I lived in Taiwan for a while and I still think the fork is a better option. I see how much easier chop sticks are but they can’t be used for all foods whereas forks can. They can also be used as a knife so they serve multiple purposes.
I'm from Moldova, and traditionally, you'd have mamaliga, which is a type of polenta that is really sticky, with every meal. You'd just use it as a grab and dip tool for all the side dishes. We eat it on occasion now, and it is the most fun you can have eating. It also tastes better because you have a more intimate connection with the food you're eating. So I agree with you that your hands are the best tool.
Damn now I know why the waiter in Dobrogea looked at me so weird when I had both bread and Mămăligă... It would be like having both bread and Crackers on a plate in England, they both serve the same purpose. 😅 I guess i need to get over the ick factor of using something sticky as a utensil the next time im in the region 🇲🇩 💛 🇷🇴
I saw a theory that chopsticks were preferred because Asian cultures didn't like the idea of putting metal implements in the mouth. I believed it until I visited S Korea, where metal chopsticks were the only type available in every restaurant I went to. The Japanese word for 'chopstick' looks identical to the word for 'bridge' in romanised Japanese, but it has a different kanji, and is pronounced slightly differently. Japanese isn't a tonal language, but there is a difference in where the stress comes in each word. It's hard for an English speaker to pin down the difference, but if you get it wrong, it sounds weird to Japanese ears.
Considering that earlier european utensils were made of wood, the idea of not liking metal implements in the mouth doesn't really hold up. Nothing stops you from making a spoon, fork and knife out of wood.
Forks are really old though so looking at modern South Korea wouldn't really be a fair way to analyze if that is true or not. Apparently Confucius thought it was weird so that's probably the way many thought
In korea, chopsticks were made of metal/silver initially to detect poison in food for royalty. However metal chopsticks are reusable so Koreans adapted to using metal chopsticks.
I agree eating with your hands is the best. Feels weird at first because you feel like your hand is dirty during the whole meal but after you get over that feeling the food does taste better
As someone who lives in a major cosmopolitan city, my philosophy is "do as the Romans", chopsticks at East Asian restaurants, hands at South Asian restaurants, fork and knife at Western restaurants. However, I do prefer eating rice at home with a spoon, even though I'm Chinese.
10 หลายเดือนก่อน
yeah but chopsticks are shit and i just want to eat.
The best utensil really depends on the food and the situation, but I’d say both forks and chopsticks can be often be substituted for one another. I’ve lived in Thailand and Korea. My preferred method for eating rice dishes is actually a fork and a spoon, pushing the rice onto my spoon using my fork. My preferred method for noodle dishes is chopsticks. I actually have no idea how people eat ramen without chopsticks. Watching Korean kids, it’s easier for them to master using a fork first and then graduate to chopsticks. I’ve seen Korean adults use chopsticks for Western foods at times, I think it depends on what you’re used to and what’s available also.
"I actually have no idea how people eat ramen without chopsticks." From my usage, and from seeing others (admittedly with 'instant' bowl ramen, not a proper ramen bowl), it's usually the way we eat other pasta dishes -- rolling up the noodles on a fork, and drinking the broth when we've finished the noodles. With a proper ramen bowl, having other ingredients than finely-shredded freeze-dried bits, you're right.
On the topic of using the right utensil for the right cuisine, I once watched a table of Asian tourists in Italy slurp their way through a plate of pasta with chopsticks they had brought with them. The huge sauce donuts around their mouths almost had me choking.
As westernized and easternized person I eat with fork for western food, with chopstick for oriental asian food, and with bare hand for middle eastern food.
10 หลายเดือนก่อน
as a sensible person i use fork for western and Asian food. much easier.
@@Eza_yutai just eaten a stir fry using a fork, yum yum so much easier, can put more in my mouth each time never drop anything all goes in belly in one go. you should try, much better.
in italy we actually use forks to eat risotto or rice unless we are 3 years old, and we are not chasing any grain, we just crush them when they are few and they stick to the fork. easy peasy
I mean, the Rice with Fork thing really depends on the type of Rice. I'm personally used to eating rice with fork and knife, but I also usually eat the long-grain variant. Though maybe I should start trolling in eating habits and eat western food with chopsticks and eastern food with knife and fork.
Very good point. Different kinds of rice lend themselves to different utensils. Probably not surprisingly, the rice that is grown in East Asia is a little bit easier to eat with chopsticks than with a fork imo.
@@Design.Theory In what way would it be easier to chase those grains of rice with two sticks and try to conduct a pincer maneuver on individual grains rather than scooping them up with a fork? plus that sticky rice that works well with chopsticks kinda tend to stick well on a fork aswell?
I only found your channel a few weeks ago, but it‘s already one of my absolute favorites! Keep it up! Product Design is everywhere and this video shows that in a creative way!
In Peru, half of our dishes include rice, we use forks, it is the normal thing, opposite of what you say, we don't imagine chasing rice grains with two thin sticks. Nice video, cheers
A lot of the food culture in the Americas was influenced by the European settlers who brought forks with them. Forks weren't designed for rice, chopsticks were made by rice eating cultures specifically for that purpose. But the converse is also true. Rice dishes that come from non-asian cultures weren't made to be eaten with chopsticks. It's harder to eat rice with chopsticks when it isn't sticky like in Asia. The context of how and where a food evolves is just as important when looking at why people eat what they eat and the ways they prefer to eat it.
@@REDnBLACKnRED I'm a peruvian as well, and yes, In asia the rice is much more sticky and starchy than our rice, while in here "the perfect rice" is that one that crumbles nicely. Dishes like Arroz con Pollo and Arroz con mariscos are usually served with big meat piece rather than bite sizes, making forks and knives the go tool to eat them. so yeah, the dishes are very different because of the way they are prepared.
@@yohanesbobbysanjaya3541 we won't use spoons for rice as it sits perfectly in place with ordinary forks, they simply do not fall, and some peruvians such as myself usually eat the rice in their sticky form of cooking. Spoons are for soups and spoorks are not popular here although we know about them
honestly, it feels like forks are way more intuitive to use (as in, you dont see people googling how to use a fork) but chopsticks are SUPER versitile (can be used as a bunch of other utensils)
An underappreciated contender to the utensil game is the straw. Rigid enough straws can be used as chopsticks while also being able to bring liquids to your mouth without needing to rely on moving the bowl or a side spoon I have a soft spot for the spork as well, beautiful little misfit
Once again, great video! I understand and agree with the idea that designing for the way people actually think is better if you want to sell a product but i think there is a lot more nuance in this case - design and culture work together in my opinion. People dictate what products sell by buying them but the designs we put out also dictate what people buy and therefore would change their behavior. A very well known example is smartphones. 10 years ago we might have thought people would not adopt this type of device but in 2022 it is part of everything we do !
The early smart phones didn't require new behaviour from their users tho, they still carried a portable cell phone in their pocket before it just had a physical keyboard and you could only text or phone call. The smartphone was designed for where society IS circa 2007, using cellphones in this way the smartphone was a direct evolution of a product and behaviour users had been experiencing for decades. The new smart phones kept the same layout and "added" functionality without departing drastically. (Still used your thumbs, same button layout, still a physical device you were pressing on as-opposed-to a wonky stylus input, or bulky non pocketable device, or hand wavy input method.) As an aside, 12 years ago was 2012. smartphone sales had grown to 50% of the 1.6 billion unit phone market. (iPhone launched in 2007, (2007 cell phone sales number 1.15billion)) so in 5 years they had a steep adoption curve, most would have assumed that growth to continue.
Hands master race 😤 Actually, I'm used to using all three. If I'm eating rice, paratha, idiyappam, bread, macaroni, tortillas obviously hands (and for most other things), but if I'm eating noodles, dumplings, momos, sushi or anything small enough to be eaten without cutting it first (i.e. bite-sized) I use chopsticks (which is what they're meant to be used for). If I'm eating anything large that needs cutting like steak or omelette or waffles etc I use a knife and fork.
@@Design.Theory Ironic, since it's hard to get a utensil simpler than _a stick_ and a use for a utensil simpler than _stab it._ A spoon seems like it would take more precise craftsmanship to make out of nothing but wood. You could argue though that just picking up a stick or two and using those doesn't really count as a "utensil."
I eat nearly everything with chopsticks and a bowl-even fried chicken, pasta, pizza, and chips. I have a strong aversion to getting my hands dirty while eating, though, and I find that chopsticks give me the most dexterity when handling food, making it easy to rotate food as I need to (as with fried chicken or peeling shrimp with my mouth).
@@akashnba03 For something like a stew or a pie, being able to separate a small portion so that it cools down faster is pretty useful. Wait until the entire meal is warm and you may end up with a cold dinner towards the end
"Putting a spiky metal instrument in your mouth is pretty weird when you start thinking about it." Putting two dead tree branches in your mouth is pretty weird too.
learning how to use chopsticks was great for me both to connect with my heritage and also to be able to eat noodles when my college's fork dispenser ran out
In Chinese restaurants there is no serving spoon. Guests will have 2 pairs of chopsticks. One pair is to grab food from the dishes to your “plate” and the white one to eat the food. Even with one pair, you are supposed to reverse your chopsticks when grabbing the food so you keep the end with your saliva off the dishes.
Well i use my hand to eat rice and chapati , spoons and fork for different food items, and also chopsticks 🥢 as well for ramen 🍜 but never used knife because i rather use my hand 😅 i believe it doesn't matter what you use to pick your food. Tools are made to make things easy, not to confuse. So eat your food with your hand, spoons, 🍽 fork or chopsticks or whatever you find easy or like. Thanks & Love from India 🇮🇳
Out of curiosity, how did comparing the sponser to toilet workout for you? Also, as an Indian, I appreciate you talking about my culture and the way I eat my food. Loving your channel 😍
Spoon for cereal, fork and knife for steak, hands for cawfish boils, spoon and chopsticks for pho, fork for pasta, etc. Sometimes things are more practical but certain dishes are better with certain utensils. When you try different eating etiquette you get to really enjoy the food and taste it as it is supposed to be.
I saw a documentary about Victorian customs and how they helped popularize the modern fork. They wanted to feel civilized and remove any trace of our “animal roots”. They thought biting directly into food, leaving teeth marks, was too animalistic so they used forks and knives instead to cut pieces off and then have all the dirty work done behind closed mouths.
Interestingly, the Chinese aristocrats moved away from fork and knife 2500yrs ago for similar reasons - that it's violent to bring stabbing and cutting into dining experience. 😅
@@xtaylorxboyx probably cooking with mrs. somethinr or other, I cant remeber her name, byt she( her Character) was a cook at Victorian manor house. It is a BBC show on youtube. sorry best I can do.
Fantastic video! You always bring so many great points to an, in this case, very ordinary thing! One quick and friendly tip for editing would be to change the sequence settings to the same fps as your main sequence before doing the scene edit detection, that way you eliminate those single frames that sometimes shows up of the next scene before the cut. Love your videos so this is coming from nothing but love:)
As an European, one of my favourite uses of chopsticks is when earing potato chips or some other greasy snack when I'm at my comouter or something. It's super practical!
Eating with forks, chopsticks, and hands are all good. But the one not mentioned on the video is the most superior, the spoon. A good metal spoon works with everything from soups, to pies, sauces, rice, meat, everything. When I eat out I'll use a fork. When I went I used chopsticks. 98% of the time I eat at home, I go with the spoon. It's just better.
I grew up in the US hand after spending 18 months in Korea I have very little use for either small spoons or forks. Unless I’m eating a steak or pasta a big spoon or chopsticks works best for most foods.
Growing up, we had a rice and meat dish we would serve in a bread bowl. The extra bread removed to make the bowl got roasted for croutons another day. We would cut a couple onions into 4, soak them in water, then use those wedges as our spoons. In the end, no dishes to wash, and everything added flavor to the meal. It was a great experience.
I know it may sound rediculous but I don't skip ads while watching the videos on this channel as the content is so well worked through that it's my way of showing respect to the dedication of the author (I know that ads mean a lot in terms developing of the channel). Thank you for analyzing so much information and presenting it in such a pleasant way, Design Theory.
It is related more to the food and habit than anything else. There are certain cultures that eat almost everything with their hands. Try eating a steak with bare hands or chopsticks. Try eating sushi with a fork. Dips and curries sometimes have to be eaten with bread and no other utensil.
Disney has been making movies that look like as if they have been based nowhere with their diversity quota. Seriously, which country on earth will you see all races in equal amount. Like seriously, it is so jarring. Take a look at the recent Percy Jackson remake to see what I mean. (The diversity later on makes so much more sense in the books than whatever bullshit they force on the original trio.) And their race swapping and force diversity is so bullshit. They are time and places for diversity. Like Mulan is has a all Chinese cast, and Wakandan are all Black in. It really breaks the immersion in western european historical movies when black or colored characters show up out of nowhere and nobody bats an eye. Like seriously???? Some or 1 or 2 is still acceptable (barely on a case by case) but the recent all colourful historical drama is shit (Snow White.........) And don't get me started on race swapping.
Gotta say that chopstick is also a cooking utensil. Use it to stir noodles around while cooking and you will have one less thing to wash. Forks might scratch the non-stick layer.
As a Chinese who can use chopsticks with either of my hands (BTW, not every Chinese can do this). I choose spoon, because spoon is the best. But if we are allowed to pick SPOCK... Then spork is the best of the best, the most universal, "do it all" utensil today.
ปีที่แล้ว +6
As a single Viet (look at my last name löl), I can use 1 pair of chopstick to stir my rice pot, make scramble eggs, mix stuffs in a bowl or a pot & then eat with that same pair of chopstick. It‘s so quick, versatile & practical.
Hello from Vietnam. Tbh this debate around the utilities of chopsticks and folks in terms of eating rice feels kinda weird, because ever since the spoons are popularized the kids here just hate using chopsticks, and a lot would stick with spoons all the way till their teenage. The spoons are great for scooping rice as well things that go well with rice, like sauces. Funny thing is the way chopsticks are used to eat rice in Vietnam is kinda similar to how you use a spoon. You hold the chopsticks close together, cut the chopsticks through the rice and press the tips of the chopstick against the bowl and form a concave between the chopsticks and side of the bowl (which is, essentially, a spoon), and then you scoop a chunk of rice out along the side of the bowl, and bring the bowl close to your mouth to eat. And when you eat rice that way, I don't think it makes any different if you use chopsticks or use a fol, especially when the rice typically sticks and clumps up in large chunk.
If you wanna eat the most efficiently: forks. If that is not your goal (e.g. like you can't stuff your face as much with chopsticks meaning you don't over-eat): chopsticks. 7:17 I don't think I use knifes often at home unless I'm serving uncut meat, especially if I'm cooking a traditionally Asian dish. Things are more prepared in Asian dishes to accommodate for chopstick use: meat and some veggies are more cut so you can pick them up. Edit: Ok, after watching the video, it was a trick question: Eating with hands is of course the most efficient and the most fun. I guess the only real downside to eating with your hands is that you have to wash them twice instead of once, which I think is a bigger deal than most think.
I think sometimes it depends on the cook style of the food even if it’s the same staples. Like for example, I prefer to eat long noodles that can be slurped with chopsticks. But for cut-up noodles, (gaps!) I rather use a fork since picking the short noodles is just more convenient. Spoons also matter on this as I prefer to use Chinese spoons for soups, but western spoons for flat dishes like fried rice It’s gotten to the point that I frustrate my dad on my preferred cutlery since I’m very picky in this sort of thing. But I don’t want to hear that from him since he eats spaghetti with chopsticks
I absolutely hate eating with chinese spoon. It's too thick and bulky. I can't get every last drop of the soup when I'm eating a dish with thin watery soup. There's this local ramen place in my city that serve ramen with that bulky af chinese soup spoon and whenever I almost finish the soup, I need to pour the soup by lifting the big ass bowl and then pour the soup into that big ass spoon.
" Try eating rice with a fork" still easier with a fork, and with the added bonus that your rice doesn't have to be clumped together for it to work. Many cultures around outside of east asia eat plenty of rice with forks and it works perfectly, not awkward at all.
Never understand why you guy don't use a spoon, like doesn't that way easier than both chopsticks and fork since you can just scoop your rice. In South east asia we use fork with spoon never use knife and chopsticks are only for noodles. I saw a lot of foreigners even if they have fork and spoon in their hand, they still try to pick up rice with fork even though it keep falling out of it.😅
@@ahttun200yearsago6 Sorry i have to say that if u eat rice using fork or spoon. it will create a mess. The rice will stick on it and it will be really difficult to wash. The rice can be really sticky here. Also, chopstick have some religious meaning and it have different meaning as u place it in different place.
@@zongzi_1715 ohh i get it, I forget that we have different types of rice spoon would work with South, South east asia or Africa rice but but not so much for some rice that sticky😂
I use spoons the most because I have soup for every meal 😅 Porridge, dumpling soup, spaghetti with veggie chicken soup (ok I eat spaghetti with a fork but I still use a spoon for the soup I eat with it) I also eat yogurt very often too, which a spoon is best for! 😋
As an American who uses chopsticks on a very regular basis, I find forks to be more versatile for eating, but chopsticks to be more versatile for cooking, and *much* easier to clean. They both have their uses.
This was a cool lens as a designer myself. Personally I think chopsticks are the best tool. I really dislike the grating sound of metal on plates, and chopsticks are so unobtrusive and elegant and easy to clean. With chopsticks you can eat just about anything and it's super handy for standing in for other cooking utensils like whisks or wooden spoons. I wish more than just Asian restaurants offered chopsticks
Coming from Indonesia (South East Asia), we actually normally use all of them (Spoon+Fork, Chopsticks, and Hands) Normally, we eat rice with Spoon+fork But when eating Mie Ayam (chicken noodles) street food, we use chopstick (Except for when eating instant noodles that cooked at home, usually use fork because chopstick rarely found in middle-poor people house) Then when eating rice with curry like food (Rendang, Kare etc) especially food from Sumatra island We usually eat with hands --- If traced from history, Indonesia was a place where people from east meet the west for trading by sea, India and China And Indonesia (before indonesia independence) got colonized by the Dutch, mainly in Java island for 350 years And because of this, all the culture can be found here Rendang is long siblings of curry, and curry is originates from India... We usually eat those with hands Mie Ayam, literally chicken noodles which is originates from China... we usually eat those with chopsticks (Theres actually many food that originates from India and China, but i only focus on these two) While the soto any many others are originates from Indonesia.... But the way and how we eat using Spoon and Fork culture are from the Dutch
My favorite thing about this entire conversation is that even before any of this, pasta was invented by Arabs after being introduced to noodles by the Chinese. They didn't have all the ingredients to make noodles so they made a variation and in turn they introduced that variation to the Italians as they interacted for commerce just as Arabs had interacted with the Chinese first. Then the Italians ran with it and turned it into something else entirely with cheese and meats and other things in their culture that we all know and love today. That's just one example of many of how cultural interactions drive innovations and ingenuity and as a result, we all benefit.
Personally, I think a spoon is the best way to eat rice (if you can properly use chopsticks then use them obviously, but I struggle). But honestly its just great being able to have forks, spoons, knives and chopsticks to choose from, depending on what you're eating
That may depend on the kind of rice. I've found that with sticky rice, using a spoon is a bit of a pain, since you actually have to cut through the rice to scoop anything. And because the spoon has so much more surface area, there's a lot more friction, the rice tries to stay on the spoon when you take a bite, and the cleanup afterward is more annoying. For loose rice that doesn't stick at all though, I definitely find the spoon to be the most effective.
Here in Hong Kong, we are very versatile in picking and combining different eating utensils to suit how the food is presented. In Cha Chaan Teng (a unique Hong Kong style eateries which provide localized foreign cusines). Dinners can pick any combination of knife, fork, spoon and chopsticks.
11:18 Since it is mentioned, there is a fun tradition about using chopsticks when it comes to family dinner. Usually, chopsticks are easier to pick out some food (e.g. a meat ball), then pass to someone else. It might be not polite to decline food from elderly, or supervisors when eating with colleagues, when they pass to you. Additionally, to be hygienic, some tables might serve dishes with extra chopsticks, so the personal ones that are used could be separated from public ones, like the spoon here (11:36). Not quite sure about how forks would be used in such family dinner scenario. Though is is fun to know using our own hands to eat could be more efficient, since we are okay eating sandwiches, or apples, with bare hands without concerning hygiene issues or proper table manners.
As korean, depends on food, but in most cases chopsticks are more convenient. For example, you can cut a bowl of noodles (usually jjajangmyeon) in half really easily with chopsticks.
I've learned both. Forks are definitely easier over all. But I think it can depend on the food. I just had ramen and I had to drop the chopsticks for the fork to get the veggies to stay with the noodles near the bottom. But I would use chopsticks over a fork for sushi. Rice is 1000x easier with a fork I don't know what in the world your talking about saying chopsticks with rice are easier. I've had all sorts of rice. Forks are better for that. Doesn't mean I won't use chopsticks for rice.
It is motally correct to actively judge people that dont wash hands before eat and after toilet. ESPESHILLY if they going from toilet to eat. (sorry for bad English)
anyone with an understanding of privacy in society could tell you google glass was DOA. its the same reason red light cameras got banned in many cities. we dont like being hyper aware of being recorded. thats why good videographers are invisible to the crowd
🌎Get Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➡ nordvpn.com/designtheory It's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee!☝
Don't you love when TH-cam selects the perfect clip for the thumbnail video preview? Great video, presentation, and content per usual 🤘
Knife gang
I find it funny how this comment has only 22 likes, despite being immediately pinned
If there was a row of 20 dislikes, I'd click each one of them.
The only time I use fork is for pasta noodles and others spoon or chopsticks.
As a Filipino it's kinda weird to think of people eating rice with chopsticks or fork as it could easily fall off. Thus we use spoon to get more rice at once and it doesn't fall off.
You missed the whole point of the video. "Eating with chopsticks" isn't a weird action, you feel weird about it just because in your culture, people eat rice with spoons.
If you’re eating loose rice, yeah. If it’s sticky east asian rice then it’s very doable.
maybe the problem is that different types of rice are used in different regions since some rice are stickier and hold form better than others, it kind of depends culturally which rice they rely on the most. so both are correct, its just the type of rice which we need more context on before judging.
Yeah in Brazil we eat lots of rice but eating this type of it is impossible with chopsticks, I used either spoon or fork+knife. But now living in Japan, I also can't imagine eating japanese rice with spoons. Really interesting to notice those differences.
@@PequenaNoobAmaPudim That's what you think. I eat noodles with a spoon. Spoons for everything. It's the best utensil of them all.
Not only are eating utensils shaped by our food, but our food is probably also shaped by our eating utensils. So many dishes in one culture would be really hard to eat with another tool than the one that culture uses to eat. So the food and the eating utensils seem to adapt to each other over time and not just one to the other. Which would make the introduction of a new way to eat even harder since the food being eaten is already designed to be consumed with another tool in mind.
I love precut food. So I go for spoon and chopstick.
Based on my own observation, in culture where people commonly eat with their bare hands, their food usually have bigger chunks compared to the ones with chopsticks, as the latter will made their food already at bite sizes so its easier to be picked with chopsticks.
But in fork&knife culture, its also big chunks except its usually being made so the harder parts like bones were already removed before serving, making it easier to cut.
Meanwhile spoon is everywhere since every culture has their own version of soup and porridge.
@@CordeliaWagner
Nah, its probably because you never washed your hands. You're so dirty you dont even dare to touch your food.
Exactly. I think that some foods just require the use of a knife, like a steak or schnitzel etc, and cultures that use chopsticks simply dont eat this kind of foods at all.
@@katm342890% of the Japanese cooking videos I see they precut the steak for the customers so they don't have to worry about handling a knife
Using 2 forks as chopsticks is ultimate power flex
please send vid of this
how about using one chopstick like a fork
I flex by twirling pasta/noodles with fingers
no holding to people who don't want to be there still with only your finger and using there hands as chopsticks
No! Shut up!
"Don't skip! Don't skip! Don't skip! Don't skip!"
*Proceeds to skip entire advert.*
Use sponsorblock
TH-cam premium
Revanced app has Sponsorblock aswell
Dont give yt money
his overall video is good but I think the ad read is bland, the only youtuber who I don't skip the ads is Map Men
Always skip the AD.
As a Malaysian person growing up a culture that’s a blend of Malay, Chinese, Indian and western, i am adept at using hands, chopsticks and fork+knife! It’s cool to be able to use all of them and enjoy different cuisines, and eating them the way it was intended adds to the experience
BTW, in Texas, I eat burritos with my chopsticks, tearing the tortilla with my fingers chapati style.
You rule, Utensil Avatar! Eating foods with their culturally appropriate tools add so much to both the experience and the respect we give for each other's cultures
@@Ashgrey0 All right I'm stealing Utensil Avatar for my next username just fyi
It depends. As another Malaysian, I only use my fingers at fast food. I like food wetter. For indian food, eating with a spoon and fork makes scooping those curry easier compared to using a hand, which I gave up using after I turned 13.
For Chinese food, most Malaysian Chinese use chopsticks only for noodles. For rice based cuisine and communal family dinner, a fork and spoon is the way to go.
It reflects more western influence among Malaysian Chinese, who move from eating from a bowl to eating from a plate, in which the presence of a spoon helps A LOT on wetter food and a western spoon that is flatter will control the amount of food you put in your mouth compare to a Chinese style spoon which is only good for spoon (does not fit your mouth well).
And for using hands, it depends on the settings. You look very very very uncivilized if you use hand in a Western or Chinese setting. People will look at you weird. By will not bat an eye if you do it in Indian cuisine only setting.
@@arthurlau98 of course la, it's common sense to choose what to use depending on the situation. It would be silly to use chopsticks to eat nasi lemak or my hands to eat curry laksa.
Very Interesting! In India, we believe that eating with your hand (most of us use only one hand) allows us to experience the food through the sense of touch before we consume it. It prepares your system for the food that is about to enter your mouth. It also helps you judge if the food is too hot or cold and avoid burning your tongue. The practice also ensures we wash our hands more often and before and after every meal which promotes hygiene. And of course, it is the most sustainable way to eat.
@hit_alive because noodles and spaghetti arent really a staple nor traditional cuisine in India. Of course they eat with appropriate utensils depending on cuisines. Just generally, their Everyday foods are eaten with hands.
"promotes good hygiene"..... With the Indian tourist I've smelled a mile away, lack of water with 70 percent of the population, and everyone bathing and pooping in the holy river....... I think that ship has sailed long ago ........
that is so disgusting.
@@woahthere541Do you eat your chips with a fork and knife?
@@woahthere541 you sound ignorant, please get rid of this elitist mentality
Let’s be honest. The most versatile utensil, is the spoon. It’s that support item you always get no matter what build you go for.
versatility improves with added utility. A challenger approaches: the spork
@@jek__The spork already exist happy to say. Imagine a spoon where the scoop is split into 3 wide-based tines instead of the usual 4 long pointy tines of a typical fork. I use it for a meal of fried rice with cubes of meat and tofu. Scoop and/or stab. Smaller scoop capacity than a spoon but why hurry...
until you eat spaghetti
Try having any noodles with a spoon?
@@iamsohandsomeindeedjust cut the noodles with the spoon first
I think in your comparison you didn't really acknowledge that one can use a fork without using a knife with many dishes. When you pick up fries they may give you a tiny fork but no knife. And many other classic italian or european dishes, such as pasta, do not requite a knife at all
sorry who's eating fries with a fork
@@Crokto american spotted
Nathan’s moment
Or why spaghetti is impossible to eat with chopsticks while noodles are easier
@@krombopulos_michael it is multi factoral. In western culture lifting the plate off the table is improper etiquette and so is slurping in a noodle. It also has to deal with how the sauce and food in with noodles. Again culture informs which is "better".
I think one thing people often overlook with chopsticks is the bowl that it is paired with. Often, when we eat rice, it's just plain white rice, which is sticky enough to be picked up with chopsticks; we pick up the bowl closer to our face so the chopsticks don't change their angle or lift the rice as far. When there's not enough rice in the bowl to easily pick up, or with non-sticky rice like fried rice, we just put the bowl of rice to our face and shovel it in with the chopsticks. In those instances, the bowl is also a utensil. It's more often seen in Chinese communal meals where the bowls are small enough to be easily held, and the chopsticks serve a dual purpose of grabbing meats and veggies from the plates into your own bowl as well.
For myself, I often find myself resorting to the spoon when it comes to Japanese dons, as those bowls are a bit too big and unwieldy to hold with one hand. Sometimes, if rice dishes are served on a plate like with Thai rice or Japanese curry rice, or if it's fried rice, I also use a spoon. On the other hand, I like eating spaghetti with chopsticks, just to piss off the Italians.
Use chopsticks to avoid Cheeto fingers. In fact, you can use chopsticks for all sorts of chips. You're welcome.
Also popcorn. Avoid butter on controller.
Or, ya know, snack and wash before TV or games.
Kinda takes time though.😗
...seeya.👍
這也要看你怎麼吃。
@@dutchmilk 用口吃
@@HatchetHaro 中华文化不懂的话，就不要做个白痴。宋朝的时候就开始， 在重要场合或者是有背景和文化的家族，一般不会把碗端到脸前， 而是把碗稍微提高离桌面一点，再用筷子夹米饭上来。夹食物也会用分别的碗盘来装。他们用的筷子也比较长。
所以这要看怎么吃。建议你好好读一下有关中华饮食文化的书。还有，we do not shove it in our mouth. 请你自重。
@@dutchmilk lol 你呢個戇鳩仔唔識食飯唔好講嘢啦
5:45
Love that this was missed in your proofreading and that you actually said it out loud without skipping a beat.
The feedback loop between utensiles evolving to suit popular dishes and dishes being crafted to be eaten with the culture's standard utensiles is fascinating. While this isn't really a problem in the case of food, I imagine there must be situations where someone has come up with a new, more optimal solution for a problem, but there are too many tools and systems built to work with the old, clunky solution for anyone to change it.
Metric in the US.
That's B2B Software in a nutshell. Not only does the more "optimal" option require everyone to relearn already acquired skills but the amount of effort you'd have to put in to replace the old software with the newer one will take a ridiculous amount of time and resources which in most cases hurt the company more than it would benefit it in almost all aspects even if the new tech is genuinely better.
@@WinstonSmithGPTgasoline engines
The QWERTY keyboard is a great example. It was created to SLOW DOWN the typist to avoid jamming keys together. Now that there are no keys to jam, other keyboards could make more sense. But none have ever taken off, because of everything associated with the current layout.
@@DawnDavidson I think the time it'd take to get as proficient on a different layout would be counterproductive
My go-to example of a food that's easier to eat with chopsticks is sushi. A fork would destroy the roll, but just picking it up with chopsticks is perfect. Although personally, my favorite utensil is the spoon. Simple, intuitive, and as far as I know, universal.
It is more or less universal. Every single culture that I researched had invented the spoon in some form or another. I'm sure there are a few cultures that don't use it though
You can eat sushi with your hands, and thats part of edomae sushi tradition.
The better example I think is hot pot. Theres no way you eat that with anything other than chopsticks.
Skill issue. I can eat them with a fork perfectly fine.
It might surprise you to learn this, but sushi is NOT meant to be eaten with chopsticks. You are supposed to eat it with your hands.
Traditionally, back when sushi was bigger, eating it with your hands was the norm with sushi and even today it's still valid to eat sushi while using your hands.
In Zulu culture (I'm from South Africa). When eating with people in the same bowl we use two hands, however they serve two different functions. Say you are eating baked beans for example, one hand will be used to pickup food from the bowl then you'll pour your food to the other hand, which will be used to take food to the mouth. The hand that takes food to the mouth doesn't come in contact with the bowl and the hand that takes food from the bowl doesn't come in contact with the mouth. This rarely happens now because spoons are popular and everyone uses their own bowl.
Woah. That's a new style. I have never heard about anything like that before. And it sounds fun. As an Indian, touching food with my left hand kinda feels a little weird but if there are people who do this traditionally, it has to be good
I like this system a lot
So people can eat from the same bowl without stained by others saliva?
I don't think their is a single hand-eating culture which dosn't make similar 'right hand touches only X, left hand touches only Y' sanitary rules, X is generally the food going into your mouth, but Y could be different things which need to not get cross contaminated with X. Generally such rules assume right-hand dominance and for conformity will suppress left handed people from simply swapping the setup.
Another aspect of the forks vs. chopsticks debate is the typical application of both utensils. Forks puncture the piece of food while chopsticks simply pick it up. Forks can interfere with the structural integrity of the item (e.g. sushi, layered foods, etc) or cause some loss of moisture (losing the soup inside a soup dumpling, applying pressure on pieces of meat, letting the juice dribble out, etc.) while chopsticks don't run into these issues because the user only applies pressure to the sides of the item.
You can also make the argument in the other direction, as slipping the tines of a fork under an item to lift it can be easier than catching it between two chopsticks. I'm reminded of rice noodle dim sum I've had at Chinese restaurants, which both violate the common 'small pieces' theme of Chinese dishes (being too large to eat gracefully as a single bite) and being slick enough that they're difficult to hold with chopsticks (then, too, so are ice cubes when I fish them out of a glass of water). On the other hand, it's easier to lose pieces of food into something like a hot pot by slipping off a fork, or being harder to fish back out afterward if it doesn't want to be lifted by the fork and has to be impaled.
@@seanmalloy7249 lifting the item up that way with a fork is not smart, a spoon would serve better there
@@greenmachine5600 some foods are easier to "hunt" trough the plate with forks vs spoons, and also the amount of sauce you catch is different. Besides, with a fork you can both stab and lift with a single utensil
I agree with juicy dumplings, but I've crush way too many sushi roll segments in my chopsticks when they feel slippery to agree on that one. I've also cut up stromboli and would not want to try to pick that up with chopsticks as I can already see the bread, slick meat, and veggies fall apart while they can be speared together with a fork like a shishkabob.
Indeed the chopstick is generally intended to do zero breaking down of the food pieces, all that responsibility is transfered to the kitchen where all food must be broken down into bite size or at minimm bite-able pieces. A Fork on the otherhand still retains a minimal role in the final breaking down of food between the plate and the mouth. When paired with a knife this role is obvious, BUT many people do not realize how much knife like action a basic fork is capable of and how much western cuisine relies on the fork to chop with it's side, fluff, stir or in other ways breakup food prior to actions of stabbing-lift or scoop-lift to actually put it in ones mouth. Soft meats like a filet of fish is one of the areas where you see forks behaving as psudo-knives a lot. Western cuisine has a lot of foods which fall in this grey zone, not tough enough to require a knife, but too large and tough for a chopstick to be able to be effective.
I've lived in both the American and the Asian continents, so all I can say, having studied different cultures, is: specific utensils are meant for specific types of food, so there's no universal "the fork is better" or "chopsticks are better". Burritos are meant to be eaten with your hands, so trying to use either forks or chopsticks wouldn't be as practical as just grabbing the burrito with your hand. If you get a Western steak, of course using fork and knife would work better, but East Asian food, as mentioned in the video, usually comes already cut in small pieces, so using chopsticks is usually easier.
Moreover, utensils are adapted to specific tasks and cultures. For example, chopsticks are different in China, Japan and Korea. Chinese people many times put a big plate in the center of the table and people serve themselves to their plates, so longer chopsticks are useful. Japanese people don't do that, so their chopsticks are shorter; they eat more fish, so their chopsticks taper and are more pointy so it's easier to grab raw fish with them. Korean chopsticks are flat and usually made of metal, because in ancient times they were believed to detect poison easier than wooden chopsticks.
In many South East Asian countries, having their local cultures influenced by China and Western colonization, you'll se that, for example, rice usually comes with a spoon (not fork), while noodles are considered a Chinese thing, so they come with chopsticks.
I currently live in Taiwan where, just like in China, if you order "noodles" they will give you chopsticks by default, but if you order "Italian noodles" (i.e. spaghetti) they'll give you a fork. Of course, you can actually use etiher utensil because it's basically the same food, but utensils are culturally asociated to either Asian or Western origin.
Furthermore, combining utensils is becoming increasingly popular in Asia. For example, if you get let's say a curry rice with a pork cutlet, it may come with chopsticks AND a spoon, so you use one hand to grab the pork pieces with the chopsticks, while getting the rice with the spoon in your other hand. This is specially common with noodle soups, of course: one hand with the chopsticks for the noodles and the other hand with the spoon for the soup.
You stated nothing scholarly in spite the lenght of your text. I guess you never papers on Asian Studies arguing the sophistication of the chopsticks. Let that be something to contemplate on. The chopstick was used an arguement to prove the concept of the Superiority of the Chinese Civilization.
@@eduardochavacano I never intended to say anything scholarly in this simple comment on a TH-cam video; it's obvious that I was just giving my impressions on the topic. If you want to read something scholarly, I suggest you can consult an academic journal.
@@eduardochavacano one of the most pretentious comments I’ve read in a while. Stfu
You're wrong. The way you put it is like China colonized South East Asia. Of course, China never colonized South East Asia. Also, Chinese chopsticks are not tapered or sharp not because of what you said but because the Chinese do not want to be reminded of the battlefield with daggers, arrows, etc. and according to John, Confucius said that knives belong to the slaughterhouse. For Japan, the Samurai probably prefer the sharp pointed chopsticks. There are different lengths of chopsticks to suit different occasions and usage in China. Chinese chopsticks are more varied and diverse because of the nature of the country. It is just a vast country with so many provinces and people in the north, south, east and west are different too. Japan or Korea is like a province of China only. Chopsticks are definitely the best. The food you eat comes in small bits and pieces, so it aids in the digestion. You don't see a large chunk of beef, like steak. So the Chinese and East Asians are not as fat as the Americans. And it is the healthier option. Chopsticks are also more hygienic and easier to produce, just two twigs will do or two bamboo sticks, cheap and almost instant. Just need a while to figure out how to use them only. It improves dexterity of the hands and fingers, and this is good for the brains. Moreover, the energy from the food works its way to the head and brains instead of down the stomach and so it makes one smarter too. This is no coincidence. It is deliberately designed that way. So, chopsticks are probably the cleverest invention ever.
@@eduardochavacanoyou stated nothing scholarly despite your arrogance.
As an Asian, it's really hard for me to imagine eating any food without chopsticks. Although my fingers do hurt when pinching some big food lol but chopsticks can prevent the food from escaping. I can't catch any food at all with just a spoon or a fork.
I even use chopsticks when eating chips. Just the right amount of force to never ruin the food and at the same time your hands are still clean!
As an Asian, I only use spoon when dining. Saying that being unable to catch food with spoon make me doubtful
Spoon is the best
It's all a matter of practice and what you are used to. I am the opposite I eat all foods with a fork even other culture foods. When I try to use chopsticks it hurts my hands. It's all about what you are comfortable with.
@@duitk Some may even call it skill issue.
@@Jacob.D.nah you’re just a noob lol, in my country kid stop eating with spoon by 10.
as an "Asian", it's really easy for me to imagine eating a food without or with any utensil.
I think I have to disagree that chopsticks forces you to eat slowly, to me at least it makes me eat faster. My family is japanese so we have a lot of small bowls, when eating with them we tend to pick up them with our left hand and use the chopsticks with the right, this way we can lift the bowl and basically eat faster. Also if take ramen for example, it meant to be eaten in around 10min max or the noodles will get soggy
That's true. Chopstick force u to eat slower only works when u r not really good at using it.
Lol, it was the wives who insisted that thier husbands use the fork in the left hand and knife in the right and the act of changing hands slowed down the men so the wife could talk to her husband at meal time.
I would say chopsticks Encourages eating more slowly by taking smaller bites. That is if you don't bring up the bowl to the face and shovel it in. Despite being Western I generally prefer eating with sticks thanks to the better pace. And if eating soup, I like to pick ingredients and put on the spoon and then pill with bit of stock. That includes noodles that I ussually pick one or cpl at t atime and coil it up in the spoon. Makes for a more enjoyable way of eating in my opinion
@@PeaknikMicki That's an interesting perspective! I don't want to jump on stereotypes, but maybe this happens because people on the west usually don't grow eating with chopsticks, so maybe chopsticks don't first come into mind when thinking about a practical and easy to use tool, which creates this cycle (chopsticks are difficult to use and different, so maybe I should slow down when using it)
@@milady_kazuko I actually have a friend who don’t know how to use fork to eat noodles but he can do it pretty well using chopsticks. It turn out that he bring his own chopsticks everywhere including spaghetti store😂😂
It’s pretty unfair when people say that chopsticks aren’t easy to use when people in the west growing up using fork🫨🫨
I've seen many people including myself who are used to forks struggle with chopsticks. I've never seen someone used to chopsticks ever struggle with a fork. This could either be cause chopsticks are harder to use or forks are so much more widespread due to a factor other than ease that everyone couldn't avoid getting accustomed to it.
While it's not as common, I have seen Asians who say forks are harder to use for certain foods. And I can say the same after learning chopsticks properly. Example - dumplings.
@@hellowill hi yes thats me. I eat all kinds of noodles way faster than with forks. I even eat pasta with chopsticks in my own privacy lol. I think chopsticks are just way easier to pick up food with especially when dishes are shared. i only use forks when im eating steak or when chopsticks arent provided
Chopsticks are just harder to use. Once you have arthritis or any hand problems, you wont be able to use it anymore.
While forks and spoons can be used... Toddler/caveman style.
Using chopsticks is something you need to learn. It is difficult in that regard, but once you have it down, it's actually easier to use than forks. It is quicker too.
Sure, I can grab a fork and start eating, and it is not difficult to use. But once you know how to use chopsticks, eating with a fork feels like walking around without knee joints. It's not difficult, just very restricting. And slow.
Paradoxically, I also need to use more mental effort with forks, because now I have to consider physics. With chopstick you just grab stuff. No food bouncing off the fork, or destroying the structural integrity, or stuff falling into pieces. Stuff like that is annoying.
@@GruntSquad92 Honestly the best utensil is your hands. Very versatile and easy to use. Been in India for a week and haven't used anything else the entire time.
As an Indian I've grown up using hands/fingers to eat. During my young adulthood I also have heavily used spoons while living away from home. After some time, what I discovered is that, if the food is not desirable to me and I just somehow have to eat it, I'll mostly pick a spoon to eat instead using hands. Using a spoon for me meant detachment to the food. I always wondered about an interesting research idea studying amount of food waste in places like Hostel Mess, while using hands vs spoons. (the detachment hypothesis)
I'm Trinidadian (mix of East Indian, West African, Native American, and Latin culture) and I've noticed that many roti shops in my country have the option of wrapping all the curry within the roti ( almost like a burrito) so it can be easily eaten with a knife and fork or they wrap a paper around it so you can eat it similarly to a burrito in public. I tend to not eat roti in public unless it's in this format to avoid using my hands while eating in public.
Some asian foods are too hot to use hands. We dont have nang to insulate.
Another angle on hands vs spoons, that is related to that detachment idea, is it possible that its easier to eat a lot of food fast with a spoon and thus overeating is much more likely. That's been my experience, and I suppose that's just a different type of food waste.
I've always felt stabbing food was overly aggressive too so I blend all my steaks and drink them through a straw so I don't have to bite them
Great solution thanks for sharing. I just bought some $200 A5 wagyu but I was afraid of having to stab it with a knife to cut it. But now there's a simple solution where I can just throw it in a blender. Thanks for the advice.
I'm not a designer but I love watching these design videos!
Thanks for checking it out :)
We're all designers at heart :)
I am also the content amazing
Spork all the way
fork you
Sporks are kinda like the worst of both worlds imo
@@Design.TheoryDepends on a spork
@@Design.Theorysporks are good on survival knifes or for camping were you want a utensil that has the functions of a spoon and a fork to save space. 5 people camping is 5 sporks or 5 forks and 5 spoons.
@@Design.TheoryA well enough designed spork is the ultimate utensil, it covers for what forks can't do well, which is dealing with thin liquids.
Idk, I must be a master at using a fork. It can shovel anything except for soup or cereal if I cared about having milk with every bite. Never once had a problem with rice, yogurt, grits/polenta, ice cream etc. Rice in a bowl with a fork is like shooting a fish barrel with a shotgun. Using the side of the fork and you can cut most things aside from tough beef and pork.
It is 98% effective for most things.
I don’t think you’re necessarily a master at using a fork, I think the fork itself is just an OP eating utensil 😂 🍴>🥢
No, man. These people just have skill issues.
@@Mr152008using a fork is indeed a skill. I saw a grown man stab his face while eating. 😂
@@aleisterlavey9716 Nope? If you’re a fully grown adult & you can’t put a utensil in your mouth (fork, spoon, chopsticks etc.) then you have a motor skills problem. If that actually happened then something was wrong with him🤕
@@Mr152008 talking to much while eating was wrong with him. I was just glad, I was outside his reach, otherwise I may got stabbed too. Some people have incredible bad motor skills.
Between forks and chop-sticks, it's 100% chop-sticks as the more versatile tool. They are eating utensils, serving utensils, cooking utensils, etc. Please remember that East-Asian cultures had invented forks thousands of years ago, it's just that they found chop-sticks more useful. The argument that chop-sticks is harder to learn doesn't hold much weight for me - that's a function of whether good instruction was available or not. If you can write using a western pen/pencil, you can use chop-sticks.
Chopsticks are also easier to mass produce than metal forks
as a British person who grew up in both the UK and then Malaysia, I went from using a fork and knife to using a fork and spoon the malaysian way as it’s far better for almost all dishes (bar steak).
My favourite combo now is a spoon and japanese-style pointed chopsticks even for foods like salads or pasta. Somehow it feels like the food is more aerated.
Chopsticks also work far better for foods originating in East Asia as its usually more broken down while forks for western food which are usually kept in bigger pieces. Try eating a sirloin with a side of asparagus using chopsticks
not really. as an Asian i would just pick up my home cooked sirloin with chopsticks and give it a bite😂
Or true to Asian aesthetics, the sirloin and asparagus would be sliced stacked and spread perfectly right upon serving so that the person eating it wouldn’t be required to be indelicately wrestling the meat to their mouths 😂😅
Spoon is the best
The shape of foods are also influenced by the culture's prevalent choice of utensils.
@@Jacob.D.yeah... Spoon can work for asian and western food.
I’ll be honest, eating with hands feels great too. I taste the food better, the fingers feel more confortable than metal cutlery, and you sort of taste the saltiness of your skin as you eat, which in a way helps add to its flavor… I also agree with Nainesh. You’re prompted to wash hands more often.
Another good part eating with bare hands is you dont have to worry about your food being too hot.
Since if your fingers were able to touch it, then its already safe enough to enter your mouth.
Ok. As an Indian I agree with that statement. But what is that salt taste man. Stop making shit. It doesn't give any salt taste. But eating with hands is way better in many ways in indian cuisine
As an Asian, the best thing about chopsticks is that it's all we need. We can eat anything with it, including the thinnest soup. At some point I stopped using spoon. As for forks... I only use them when it's situationally awkward to use chopsticks. Like when I eat noodle pasta, cake, fried chicken. Or when it's necessary to use knives like when eating steaks(most of the times when we eat meat, we chop it up while cooking so we don't have to do the process during the meal).
How do you do the thin soups? (with chopsticks)
@@wednes3day usually we would use a spoon or just drink straight from the bowl
@@brandynamite3022 in this case I was asking about OP's strategy for using just chopsticks, but still thank you! .. maybe drinking it is the strategy for that since it doesn't involve anything but chopsticks?
@@wednes3day You eat the chunks with chopsticks, and drink the broth straight from the bowl
@@brandynamite3022Using a spoon, so… Not just the “universal” chopsticks? Chopsticks are good at picking things up, and that’s it. Saying a thin soup can be eaten with chopsticks by drinking out of the bowl is like saying you can eat spaghetti with a knife by picking up the noodles with your hands. Like… No. You’re just wrong lol… I won’t debate whether chopsticks are the best or not but saying that they can be used on the thinnest soup by using another tool or not using it at all is literally just wrong lol…
This whole video was made to say the burrito is a perfect food, and I can't help but respect that.
I find chopsticks to be more convenient in the sense that I can do more with chopsticks like picking up small pieces of food or lifting food securely without having to pierce it. Also I have lost count of how many times I improvised using two skewers or small sticks as chopsticks to help me move food (and some other stuff).
I always had rice with a spoon because it was the most practical. I lived in Taiwan for a while and I still think the fork is a better option. I see how much easier chop sticks are but they can’t be used for all foods whereas forks can. They can also be used as a knife so they serve multiple purposes.
I'm from Moldova, and traditionally, you'd have mamaliga, which is a type of polenta that is really sticky, with every meal. You'd just use it as a grab and dip tool for all the side dishes. We eat it on occasion now, and it is the most fun you can have eating. It also tastes better because you have a more intimate connection with the food you're eating. So I agree with you that your hands are the best tool.
Damn now I know why the waiter in Dobrogea looked at me so weird when I had both bread and Mămăligă... It would be like having both bread and Crackers on a plate in England, they both serve the same purpose. 😅 I guess i need to get over the ick factor of using something sticky as a utensil the next time im in the region 🇲🇩 💛 🇷🇴
@Squaretable22 nah, my dad still ate bread with it as well. That was his Ukrainian side coming out.
moldova is discount romania
I saw a theory that chopsticks were preferred because Asian cultures didn't like the idea of putting metal implements in the mouth. I believed it until I visited S Korea, where metal chopsticks were the only type available in every restaurant I went to.
The Japanese word for 'chopstick' looks identical to the word for 'bridge' in romanised Japanese, but it has a different kanji, and is pronounced slightly differently. Japanese isn't a tonal language, but there is a difference in where the stress comes in each word. It's hard for an English speaker to pin down the difference, but if you get it wrong, it sounds weird to Japanese ears.
Considering that earlier european utensils were made of wood, the idea of not liking metal implements in the mouth doesn't really hold up. Nothing stops you from making a spoon, fork and knife out of wood.
@@OzixiThrill
Yup - it was a pretty dumb theory in the first place, but after what you say, it is even dumber!
Indians are asian. They dont use chopsticks.
Forks are really old though so looking at modern South Korea wouldn't really be a fair way to analyze if that is true or not. Apparently Confucius thought it was weird so that's probably the way many thought
In korea, chopsticks were made of metal/silver initially to detect poison in food for royalty. However metal chopsticks are reusable so Koreans adapted to using metal chopsticks.
I agree eating with your hands is the best. Feels weird at first because you feel like your hand is dirty during the whole meal but after you get over that feeling the food does taste better
love that conclusion.. the burrito is best food ever invented ❤
As someone who lives in a major cosmopolitan city, my philosophy is "do as the Romans", chopsticks at East Asian restaurants, hands at South Asian restaurants, fork and knife at Western restaurants. However, I do prefer eating rice at home with a spoon, even though I'm Chinese.
yeah but chopsticks are shit and i just want to eat.
Gitgud
The best utensil really depends on the food and the situation, but I’d say both forks and chopsticks can be often be substituted for one another. I’ve lived in Thailand and Korea. My preferred method for eating rice dishes is actually a fork and a spoon, pushing the rice onto my spoon using my fork. My preferred method for noodle dishes is chopsticks. I actually have no idea how people eat ramen without chopsticks.
Watching Korean kids, it’s easier for them to master using a fork first and then graduate to chopsticks. I’ve seen Korean adults use chopsticks for Western foods at times, I think it depends on what you’re used to and what’s available also.
"I actually have no idea how people eat ramen without chopsticks."
From my usage, and from seeing others (admittedly with 'instant' bowl ramen, not a proper ramen bowl), it's usually the way we eat other pasta dishes -- rolling up the noodles on a fork, and drinking the broth when we've finished the noodles. With a proper ramen bowl, having other ingredients than finely-shredded freeze-dried bits, you're right.
"I push rice onto a spoon using a fork"
Filipino detected
@@McCaroni_SupIt's a habit I picked up in Thailand but yeah it might more of an SEA thing.
On the topic of using the right utensil for the right cuisine, I once watched a table of Asian tourists in Italy slurp their way through a plate of pasta with chopsticks they had brought with them. The huge sauce donuts around their mouths almost had me choking.
As westernized and easternized person I eat with fork for western food, with chopstick for oriental asian food, and with bare hand for middle eastern food.
as a sensible person i use fork for western and Asian food. much easier.
It's not sensible. Just lazy.
@@Eza_yuta you could say that about flying/driving why not walk? it is becuse it is better in everyway.
That's a stupid comparison. But ok.
@@Eza_yutai just eaten a stir fry using a fork, yum yum so much easier, can put more in my mouth each time never drop anything all goes in belly in one go. you should try, much better.
in italy we actually use forks to eat risotto or rice unless we are 3 years old, and we are not chasing any grain, we just crush them when they are few and they stick to the fork. easy peasy
I mean, the Rice with Fork thing really depends on the type of Rice. I'm personally used to eating rice with fork and knife, but I also usually eat the long-grain variant.
Though maybe I should start trolling in eating habits and eat western food with chopsticks and eastern food with knife and fork.
Very good point. Different kinds of rice lend themselves to different utensils. Probably not surprisingly, the rice that is grown in East Asia is a little bit easier to eat with chopsticks than with a fork imo.
@@Design.Theory In what way would it be easier to chase those grains of rice with two sticks and try to conduct a pincer maneuver on individual grains rather than scooping them up with a fork? plus that sticky rice that works well with chopsticks kinda tend to stick well on a fork aswell?
@@davidjohansson8563 You scoop rice directly into your mouth by raising the bowl towards your face.
@@tonyzhu1687ok fido
@@davidjohansson8563 there are spoons you know, the ladle like chinese ones in my opinion are superior to 'normal' ones
I only found your channel a few weeks ago, but it‘s already one of my absolute favorites! Keep it up!
Product Design is everywhere and this video shows that in a creative way!
Welcome aboard! I'm so happy that you like the content
In Peru, half of our dishes include rice, we use forks, it is the normal thing, opposite of what you say, we don't imagine chasing rice grains with two thin sticks. Nice video, cheers
A lot of the food culture in the Americas was influenced by the European settlers who brought forks with them. Forks weren't designed for rice, chopsticks were made by rice eating cultures specifically for that purpose. But the converse is also true. Rice dishes that come from non-asian cultures weren't made to be eaten with chopsticks. It's harder to eat rice with chopsticks when it isn't sticky like in Asia. The context of how and where a food evolves is just as important when looking at why people eat what they eat and the ways they prefer to eat it.
@@REDnBLACKnRED I'm a peruvian as well, and yes, In asia the rice is much more sticky and starchy than our rice, while in here "the perfect rice" is that one that crumbles nicely. Dishes like Arroz con Pollo and Arroz con mariscos are usually served with big meat piece rather than bite sizes, making forks and knives the go tool to eat them. so yeah, the dishes are very different because of the way they are prepared.
why not using.... spoon ? its clearly the best tool for rice, or any type of grains in general lmao
@@yohanesbobbysanjaya3541 we won't use spoons for rice as it sits perfectly in place with ordinary forks, they simply do not fall, and some peruvians such as myself usually eat the rice in their sticky form of cooking. Spoons are for soups and spoorks are not popular here although we know about them
@@goatontheroad7692the arroz con mariscos tend to be pretty sticky and I like it that way
I skipped the moment you said "don't skip" and I rewind just to see what's up.
I think you cracked it mate.
honestly, it feels like forks are way more intuitive to use (as in, you dont see people googling how to use a fork) but chopsticks are SUPER versitile (can be used as a bunch of other utensils)
Obviously the most civilized way to eat is to vacuum the food into your mouth like a cartoon character.
An underappreciated contender to the utensil game is the straw. Rigid enough straws can be used as chopsticks while also being able to bring liquids to your mouth without needing to rely on moving the bowl or a side spoon
I have a soft spot for the spork as well, beautiful little misfit
Once again, great video!
I understand and agree with the idea that designing for the way people actually think is better if you want to sell a product but i think there is a lot more nuance in this case - design and culture work together in my opinion. People dictate what products sell by buying them but the designs we put out also dictate what people buy and therefore would change their behavior.
A very well known example is smartphones. 10 years ago we might have thought people would not adopt this type of device but in 2022 it is part of everything we do !
The early smart phones didn't require new behaviour from their users tho, they still carried a portable cell phone in their pocket before it just had a physical keyboard and you could only text or phone call. The smartphone was designed for where society IS circa 2007, using cellphones in this way the smartphone was a direct evolution of a product and behaviour users had been experiencing for decades. The new smart phones kept the same layout and "added" functionality without departing drastically. (Still used your thumbs, same button layout, still a physical device you were pressing on as-opposed-to a wonky stylus input, or bulky non pocketable device, or hand wavy input method.)
As an aside, 12 years ago was 2012. smartphone sales had grown to 50% of the 1.6 billion unit phone market. (iPhone launched in 2007, (2007 cell phone sales number 1.15billion)) so in 5 years they had a steep adoption curve, most would have assumed that growth to continue.
Hands master race 😤
Actually, I'm used to using all three.
If I'm eating rice, paratha, idiyappam, bread, macaroni, tortillas obviously hands (and for most other things), but if I'm eating noodles, dumplings, momos, sushi or anything small enough to be eaten without cutting it first (i.e. bite-sized) I use chopsticks (which is what they're meant to be used for). If I'm eating anything large that needs cutting like steak or omelette or waffles etc I use a knife and fork.
I chose not to skip the ad because I genuinely laughed out loud at that transition, keep up the good work
Halfway through the video and all I can think is that the spoon is the superior utensil.
The spoon is also the oldest utensil and it is used in almost every culture ever.
@@Design.Theory Ironic, since it's hard to get a utensil simpler than _a stick_ and a use for a utensil simpler than _stab it._ A spoon seems like it would take more precise craftsmanship to make out of nothing but wood. You could argue though that just picking up a stick or two and using those doesn't really count as a "utensil."
I eat nearly everything with chopsticks and a bowl-even fried chicken, pasta, pizza, and chips. I have a strong aversion to getting my hands dirty while eating, though, and I find that chopsticks give me the most dexterity when handling food, making it easy to rotate food as I need to (as with fried chicken or peeling shrimp with my mouth).
I think hands are more limited than something like a fork since you can’t really eat hot food. Although I guess you can build up a resistance
in most cultures where people eat with their fingers, the food is usually served warm, but not hot.
well if its too hot to touch, it shouldnt be going into your mouth
@@Design.Theory Sure but I feel like a good eating tool is one that allows for any kind of cuisine
@@akashnba03 For something like a stew or a pie, being able to separate a small portion so that it cools down faster is pretty useful. Wait until the entire meal is warm and you may end up with a cold dinner towards the end
@@Design.Theory you've never eaten ugali.
"Putting a spiky metal instrument in your mouth is pretty weird when you start thinking about it."
Putting two dead tree branches in your mouth is pretty weird too.
learning how to use chopsticks was great for me both to connect with my heritage and also to be able to eat noodles when my college's fork dispenser ran out
In Chinese restaurants there is no serving spoon. Guests will have 2 pairs of chopsticks. One pair is to grab food from the dishes to your “plate” and the white one to eat the food. Even with one pair, you are supposed to reverse your chopsticks when grabbing the food so you keep the end with your saliva off the dishes.
Nah usually there's a place where they'll put all eating utensils in one place at your table, including fork and spoon, plus some spare chopsticks.
Based.
That isn't a thing.
Uhhh thats wierd cause we have things called soup.. and they use big spoons called ladles lol
Well i use my hand to eat rice and chapati , spoons and fork for different food items, and also chopsticks 🥢 as well for ramen 🍜 but never used knife because i rather use my hand 😅 i believe it doesn't matter what you use to pick your food. Tools are made to make things easy, not to confuse. So eat your food with your hand, spoons, 🍽 fork or chopsticks or whatever you find easy or like. Thanks & Love from India 🇮🇳
Out of curiosity, how did comparing the sponser to toilet workout for you? Also, as an Indian, I appreciate you talking about my culture and the way I eat my food. Loving your channel 😍
Toilet is not part of your culture
0:26 Several cultures still eat with hands.
Spoon for cereal, fork and knife for steak, hands for cawfish boils, spoon and chopsticks for pho, fork for pasta, etc. Sometimes things are more practical but certain dishes are better with certain utensils. When you try different eating etiquette you get to really enjoy the food and taste it as it is supposed to be.
The Spoon handles most stuff, a metal spoon can also cut (like a piece of cake).
I saw a documentary about Victorian customs and how they helped popularize the modern fork. They wanted to feel civilized and remove any trace of our “animal roots”. They thought biting directly into food, leaving teeth marks, was too animalistic so they used forks and knives instead to cut pieces off and then have all the dirty work done behind closed mouths.
What’s the name of the documentary? Is it on TH-cam?
Interestingly, the Chinese aristocrats moved away from fork and knife 2500yrs ago for similar reasons - that it's violent to bring stabbing and cutting into dining experience. 😅
@@xtaylorxboyx probably cooking with mrs. somethinr or other, I cant remeber her name, byt she( her Character) was a cook at Victorian manor house. It is a BBC show on youtube. sorry best I can do.
@@Delgen1951 do you mean Mrs Crocombe from English Heritage channel? I didn't hear what you mention, but admittedly I didn't watch all their videos.
@@vanillablossom still barberic though.
Fantastic video! You always bring so many great points to an, in this case, very ordinary thing! One quick and friendly tip for editing would be to change the sequence settings to the same fps as your main sequence before doing the scene edit detection, that way you eliminate those single frames that sometimes shows up of the next scene before the cut. Love your videos so this is coming from nothing but love:)
As an European, one of my favourite uses of chopsticks is when earing potato chips or some other greasy snack when I'm at my comouter or something. It's super practical!
I didn’t know how fascinating eating utensils could be. Excellent video, I feel refreshed.
Chopsticks are easier to cook with as well as a general great tool for food prep.
Eating with forks, chopsticks, and hands are all good. But the one not mentioned on the video is the most superior, the spoon. A good metal spoon works with everything from soups, to pies, sauces, rice, meat, everything. When I eat out I'll use a fork. When I went I used chopsticks. 98% of the time I eat at home, I go with the spoon. It's just better.
Spoon it's Al little shovel, and shovel is ultimate instrument.
I grew up in the US hand after spending 18 months in Korea I have very little use for either small spoons or forks. Unless I’m eating a steak or pasta a big spoon or chopsticks works best for most foods.
Growing up, we had a rice and meat dish we would serve in a bread bowl. The extra bread removed to make the bowl got roasted for croutons another day. We would cut a couple onions into 4, soak them in water, then use those wedges as our spoons. In the end, no dishes to wash, and everything added flavor to the meal. It was a great experience.
I know it may sound rediculous but I don't skip ads while watching the videos on this channel as the content is so well worked through that it's my way of showing respect to the dedication of the author (I know that ads mean a lot in terms developing of the channel). Thank you for analyzing so much information and presenting it in such a pleasant way, Design Theory.
It is related more to the food and habit than anything else. There are certain cultures that eat almost everything with their hands.
Try eating a steak with bare hands or chopsticks. Try eating sushi with a fork. Dips and curries sometimes have to be eaten with bread and no other utensil.
Designs for the culture as it is, not what you wish it is.
This quote really need to knock into the brains of current Disney
Disney has been making movies that look like as if they have been based nowhere with their diversity quota. Seriously, which country on earth will you see all races in equal amount. Like seriously, it is so jarring. Take a look at the recent Percy Jackson remake to see what I mean. (The diversity later on makes so much more sense in the books than whatever bullshit they force on the original trio.)
And their race swapping and force diversity is so bullshit.
They are time and places for diversity. Like Mulan is has a all Chinese cast, and Wakandan are all Black in. It really breaks the immersion in western european historical movies when black or colored characters show up out of nowhere and nobody bats an eye. Like seriously???? Some or 1 or 2 is still acceptable (barely on a case by case) but the recent all colourful historical drama is shit (Snow White.........) And don't get me started on race swapping.
Gotta say that chopstick is also a cooking utensil. Use it to stir noodles around while cooking and you will have one less thing to wash. Forks might scratch the non-stick layer.
Good job! I ALMOST didn't skip the sponsor ad
As a Chinese who can use chopsticks with either of my hands (BTW, not every Chinese can do this).
I choose spoon, because spoon is the best. But if we are allowed to pick SPOCK...
Then spork is the best of the best, the most universal, "do it all" utensil today.
As a single Viet (look at my last name löl), I can use 1 pair of chopstick to stir my rice pot, make scramble eggs, mix stuffs in a bowl or a pot & then eat with that same pair of chopstick. It‘s so quick, versatile & practical.
this is one of the reasons I love chopsticks, I can use the same pair of chopsticks to cook and eat my food so there's a lot less washing up to do.
idk, chopstick not so good at mixing powder or liquid
3:15
"Alright, don't skip, Don't skip, th- DON'T SKIP!! "
me : Okay, okayyy... Jeez, I wouldn't skip 😂
A hand is just a 3 pronged fork with chopsticks on either end, if you think about it.
This could be a future video if it isn't one already designs from nature.
Hello from Vietnam. Tbh this debate around the utilities of chopsticks and folks in terms of eating rice feels kinda weird, because ever since the spoons are popularized the kids here just hate using chopsticks, and a lot would stick with spoons all the way till their teenage. The spoons are great for scooping rice as well things that go well with rice, like sauces.
Funny thing is the way chopsticks are used to eat rice in Vietnam is kinda similar to how you use a spoon. You hold the chopsticks close together, cut the chopsticks through the rice and press the tips of the chopstick against the bowl and form a concave between the chopsticks and side of the bowl (which is, essentially, a spoon), and then you scoop a chunk of rice out along the side of the bowl, and bring the bowl close to your mouth to eat. And when you eat rice that way, I don't think it makes any different if you use chopsticks or use a fol, especially when the rice typically sticks and clumps up in large chunk.
I do Skip the ad 'cuz I do not care
If you wanna eat the most efficiently: forks.
If that is not your goal (e.g. like you can't stuff your face as much with chopsticks meaning you don't over-eat): chopsticks.
7:17 I don't think I use knifes often at home unless I'm serving uncut meat, especially if I'm cooking a traditionally Asian dish.
Things are more prepared in Asian dishes to accommodate for chopstick use: meat and some veggies are more cut so you can pick them up.
Edit: Ok, after watching the video, it was a trick question: Eating with hands is of course the most efficient and the most fun.
I guess the only real downside to eating with your hands is that you have to wash them twice instead of once, which I think is a bigger deal than most think.
hahaha I watched the first half of your ad, just because of your plea xD
I think sometimes it depends on the cook style of the food even if it’s the same staples.
Like for example, I prefer to eat long noodles that can be slurped with chopsticks. But for cut-up noodles, (gaps!) I rather use a fork since picking the short noodles is just more convenient.
Spoons also matter on this as I prefer to use Chinese spoons for soups, but western spoons for flat dishes like fried rice
It’s gotten to the point that I frustrate my dad on my preferred cutlery since I’m very picky in this sort of thing. But I don’t want to hear that from him since he eats spaghetti with chopsticks
I absolutely hate eating with chinese spoon. It's too thick and bulky. I can't get every last drop of the soup when I'm eating a dish with thin watery soup. There's this local ramen place in my city that serve ramen with that bulky af chinese soup spoon and whenever I almost finish the soup, I need to pour the soup by lifting the big ass bowl and then pour the soup into that big ass spoon.
" Try eating rice with a fork" still easier with a fork, and with the added bonus that your rice doesn't have to be clumped together for it to work. Many cultures around outside of east asia eat plenty of rice with forks and it works perfectly, not awkward at all.
Never understand why you guy don't use a spoon, like doesn't that way easier than both chopsticks and fork since you can just scoop your rice.
In South east asia we use fork with spoon never use knife and chopsticks are only for noodles. I saw a lot of foreigners even if they have fork and spoon in their hand, they still try to pick up rice with fork even though it keep falling out of it.😅
@@ahttun200yearsago6 Sorry i have to say that if u eat rice using fork or spoon. it will create a mess. The rice will stick on it and it will be really difficult to wash. The rice can be really sticky here. Also, chopstick have some religious meaning and it have different meaning as u place it in different place.
@@zongzi_1715 ohh i get it, I forget that we have different types of rice spoon would work with South, South east asia or Africa rice but but not so much for some rice that sticky😂
@@ahttun200yearsago6 Tradition. Using a spoon has a juvenile image in some places.
I use spoons the most because I have soup for every meal 😅
Porridge, dumpling soup, spaghetti with veggie chicken soup (ok I eat spaghetti with a fork but I still use a spoon for the soup I eat with it) I also eat yogurt very often too, which a spoon is best for! 😋
As an American who uses chopsticks on a very regular basis, I find forks to be more versatile for eating, but chopsticks to be more versatile for cooking, and *much* easier to clean. They both have their uses.
Honestly, just use any utensils that makes you happy. Be glad that we are open for choices without any stigma. 😉
there is a lot of stigma around using forks in Asian restaurants.
This was a cool lens as a designer myself. Personally I think chopsticks are the best tool. I really dislike the grating sound of metal on plates, and chopsticks are so unobtrusive and elegant and easy to clean. With chopsticks you can eat just about anything and it's super handy for standing in for other cooking utensils like whisks or wooden spoons. I wish more than just Asian restaurants offered chopsticks
Coming from Indonesia (South East Asia), we actually normally use all of them (Spoon+Fork, Chopsticks, and Hands)
Normally, we eat rice with Spoon+fork
But when eating Mie Ayam (chicken noodles) street food, we use chopstick
(Except for when eating instant noodles that cooked at home, usually use fork because chopstick rarely found in middle-poor people house)
Then when eating rice with curry like food (Rendang, Kare etc) especially food from Sumatra island
We usually eat with hands
---
If traced from history, Indonesia was a place where people from east meet the west for trading by sea, India and China
And Indonesia (before indonesia independence) got colonized by the Dutch, mainly in Java island for 350 years
And because of this, all the culture can be found here
Rendang is long siblings of curry, and curry is originates from India... We usually eat those with hands
Mie Ayam, literally chicken noodles which is originates from China... we usually eat those with chopsticks
(Theres actually many food that originates from India and China, but i only focus on these two)
While the soto any many others are originates from Indonesia.... But the way and how we eat using Spoon and Fork culture are from the Dutch
And here's me, an abomination that always eat nasi padang with spoon🤣🤣
My favorite thing about this entire conversation is that even before any of this, pasta was invented by Arabs after being introduced to noodles by the Chinese. They didn't have all the ingredients to make noodles so they made a variation and in turn they introduced that variation to the Italians as they interacted for commerce just as Arabs had interacted with the Chinese first. Then the Italians ran with it and turned it into something else entirely with cheese and meats and other things in their culture that we all know and love today. That's just one example of many of how cultural interactions drive innovations and ingenuity and as a result, we all benefit.
I don't think it's unsanitary, but depending on the food, I don't like eating with my hands simply because my fingers get messy and sticky.
Personally, I think a spoon is the best way to eat rice (if you can properly use chopsticks then use them obviously, but I struggle). But honestly its just great being able to have forks, spoons, knives and chopsticks to choose from, depending on what you're eating
That may depend on the kind of rice. I've found that with sticky rice, using a spoon is a bit of a pain, since you actually have to cut through the rice to scoop anything. And because the spoon has so much more surface area, there's a lot more friction, the rice tries to stay on the spoon when you take a bite, and the cleanup afterward is more annoying. For loose rice that doesn't stick at all though, I definitely find the spoon to be the most effective.
Here in Hong Kong, we are very versatile in picking and combining different eating utensils to suit how the food is presented. In Cha Chaan Teng (a unique Hong Kong style eateries which provide localized foreign cusines). Dinners can pick any combination of knife, fork, spoon and chopsticks.
11:18 Since it is mentioned, there is a fun tradition about using chopsticks when it comes to family dinner.
Usually, chopsticks are easier to pick out some food (e.g. a meat ball), then pass to someone else. It might be not polite to decline food from elderly, or supervisors when eating with colleagues, when they pass to you. Additionally, to be hygienic, some tables might serve dishes with extra chopsticks, so the personal ones that are used could be separated from public ones, like the spoon here (11:36). Not quite sure about how forks would be used in such family dinner scenario.
Though is is fun to know using our own hands to eat could be more efficient, since we are okay eating sandwiches, or apples, with bare hands without concerning hygiene issues or proper table manners.
Thank you for recognizing the tortilla as the superior design for eating utensils. Couldn't agree more.
As korean, depends on food, but in most cases chopsticks are more convenient. For example, you can cut a bowl of noodles (usually jjajangmyeon) in half really easily with chopsticks.
I've learned both.
Forks are definitely easier over all. But I think it can depend on the food.
I just had ramen and I had to drop the chopsticks for the fork to get the veggies to stay with the noodles near the bottom.
But I would use chopsticks over a fork for sushi.
Rice is 1000x easier with a fork I don't know what in the world your talking about saying chopsticks with rice are easier. I've had all sorts of rice. Forks are better for that. Doesn't mean I won't use chopsticks for rice.
@@cokecan6169forks can do all of that and are still better.
It is motally correct to actively judge people that dont wash hands before eat and after toilet. ESPESHILLY if they going from toilet to eat.
(sorry for bad English)
I felt guilty trying to skip when you repeated not to skip. So I didn’t. But I should’ve.
It's okay, you can skip next time
anyone with an understanding of privacy in society could tell you google glass was DOA. its the same reason red light cameras got banned in many cities. we dont like being hyper aware of being recorded. thats why good videographers are invisible to the crowd