How do you eat with chopsticks?

[sixdogs]

This is on my bucket list and something I've wanted to try for years. Some say you just scoop food out like a shovel but I've seen people pick food up with them. Anyone know?

 

[square1]

Once in my life I witnessed someone raised eating with chopsticks. He shoveled, he did not pick.

 

[Egon]

Oh yes, individual pieces can be picked up. Just takes practice.

There are different methods used for different foods.

 

[phiferpharm]

Here ya go, sorta like training wheels for chopsticks....

 

[Gary Fowler]

Only the Chinese would come up with that eating utensil. Of course at the time the Chinese were being sanitary with their chopsticks, everyone else was just using their hands and/or their dagger to eat with. In my youth, I tried to use them with limited success. My fingers are too stiff to even try now.

 

[jmc]

Around here, there are many Asian restaurants where even Caucasians have to ask for silverware. Recently, a young Asian woman at an adjacent table was amazingly deft with hers. I tried to discreetly watch to see how she was holding them but she may have interpreted my attention as impure.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

Are you sure you were staring at her chopsticks?

:laughing:

 

[jmc]

Are you sure you were staring at her chopsticks?

:laughing:

I was, but they were between the plate and her chin.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

It will be hard to explain holding them without pictures, I'll try to dig some up later (or I may just wing it with a pair of pencils)

The "lower" chopstick is cradled in your last thumb joint and rests near the tip of your curved middle finger. The lower chopstick doesn't move, or do any of the "picking", it just sits there. It also sticks out slightly farther than the upper chopstick.

The "upper" chopstick is held loosely between the thumb tip and index finger tip. This is the one that does all the work. Yes you can pick individual items off of a plate, or out of a bowl with chopsticks. The "shoveling" is done for more loose foods like rice, or noodles. Also, rice for chopstick eating (as in traditional rice) is cooked to be sticky and clump together in small balls of rice. Makes it easy to eat with chopsticks. It's us fork-using Americans that don't cook our rice "correctly" that make it hard to eat with chopsticks.

I'll try to dig up some pictures holding chopsticks off the interwebs.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

This is how I was taught to use chopsticks.

Stationed on Okinawa, about a million years ago...

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

You are only moving the upper stick, with your index finger and thumb tip

 

[CajunRider]

Once in my life I witnessed someone raised eating with chopsticks. He shoveled, he did not pick.

I eat with chopsticks practically every day. Chopsticks are used to pick food from the plate, to shovel/scoop rice, like a pair of scissors to shear soft food to smaller pieces, in short: anything you do with your forks.

BTW, Asian etiquette says do not use your chopsticks to get food from the serving plate, use the serving utensils. However, if the serving utensils are not available, turn the chopsticks around and use the blunt ends as the community ends to get your food. Do not put the community ends in your mouth, doing so will get you booted off my table.

 

[Wagtail]

This is how I was taught to use chopsticks.

Stationed on Okinawa, about a million years ago...

I learnt whilst visiting Japan too (Navy port visit). The only difference I learnt was to drop the 'bottom' one down one finger or on the pad of the middle finger. We'd then practice passing peanuts back & forth with the bar "hostesses".

 

[Dan Hunter]

Should you keep the angularity of the two sticks reduced, you'd achieve a greater uniformed clamping force. As you acquire skill, you'll achieve a greater level of precision and can angle the chops greater to grab less uniform objects. It's not unlike using a grapple on your FEL.

It'll be OK, Grasshopper.

 

[gwstang]

"Stationed on Okinawa, about a million years ago..."

I spent 18 months there, courtesy of the USN. Torii station in 1975-'77. Lots of typhoons in that time. Lots of protesting outside the gates. Watching SR71's take off at Kadena AFB...breathtaking to say the least. yes, I learned to use the chop sticks fairly well. Shrimp fried rice is still one of my favorites.

 

[check]

"Stationed on Okinawa, about a million years ago..." I spent 18 months there, courtesy of the USN. Torii station in 1975-'77. Lots of typhoons in that time. Lots of protesting outside the gates. Watching SR71's take off at Kadena AFB...breathtaking to say the least. yes, I learned to use the chop sticks fairly well. Shrimp fried rice is still one of my favorites.

I eat with chopsticks all the time, whenever I go to a Chinese or Thai restaurant, or if I make a stirfry at home. It has gotten to the point where I feel uncomfortable using other utensils with Chinese food. Try them out. It takes a little practice, but after a while you will enjoy using them, and you are less likely to over eat!

 

[sixdogs]

I eat with chopsticks all the time, whenever I go to a Chinese or Thai restaurant, or if I make a stirfry at home. It has gotten to the point where I feel uncomfortable using other utensils with Chinese food. Try them out. It takes a little practice, but after a while you will enjoy using them, and you are less likely to over eat!��

We're ordering out Thai this week from a wonderful place and I am getting chopsticks to use for the first time. The posts here have taught me a lot and I'm going to succeed at it. We should all learn to use them.

 

[Wagtail]

We're ordering out Thai this week from a wonderful place and I am getting chopsticks to use for the first time. The posts here have taught me a lot and I'm going to succeed at it. We should all learn to use them.

Well, in time honoured TBN tradition I say "Pictures or it didn't happen!" (Video for bonus points!!!)

 

[IslandTractor]

Chopsticks aren't hard to use. Just learn to use them with the right type off food. Key point: you don't try to "pick up" rice with chopsticks. You pick up the carefully bite size chopped bits of protein and veggies with the chopsticks but you "shovel" rice. That is why rice is typically served in small bowls rather than on a flat plate. You pick up the bowl to your mouth almost like a cup of coffee, tilt it and then shovel the rice into your mouth. Works very efficiently. Use the chopsticks as described here by others as pincers to grab the bits of veggie and protein but shovel rice.

 

[sixdogs]

Well, in time honoured TBN tradition I say "Pictures or it didn't happen!" (Video for bonus points!!!)

Ahh, come on. I'm learning chopsticks, not juggling. :laughing: How can I eat and photo same time? :licking: Is that a Navy thing?

Chopsticks aren't hard to use. Just learn to use them with the right type off food. Key point: you don't try to "pick up" rice with chopsticks. You pick up the carefully bite size chopped bits of protein and veggies with the chopsticks but you "shovel" rice. That is why rice is typically served in small bowls rather than on a flat plate. You pick up the bowl to your mouth almost like a cup of coffee, tilt it and then shovel the rice into your mouth. Works very efficiently. Use the chopsticks as described here by others as pincers to grab the bits of veggie and protein but shovel rice.

Good advice. I'm going with Schezwan chicken with broccoli so I can start with the easy approach first. I'll save the soup for when I know chopsticks better...