Monday, December 26, 2005

Chopsticks

At restaurants, you often get chopsticks that come with one end fused together. You're supposed to snap them apart and eat with the pointy ends. But when you break them, the back ends have these nice squarish blocks on them that are much better than the pointy ends for gripping and lifting food. So I've started eating with the back ends rather than the front.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

One use of the two-ended nature of chopsticks is as a sanitary way of sharing food. For example, if someone else wants to sample your dish, you could use whichever side you aren't using for eating to put some on her plate, so that you don't put traces of your saliva in her food or have to use some other piece of tableware.

I prefer the un-fused sort of chopstick, ideally the round ones: the fused-at-the-back ones have a tendency to break improperly, with one chopstick taking a chunk out of the other, at least for me. It doesn't impair functionality, but it annoys me nonetheless.

Bora Zivkovic said...

I believe (I may be wrong) that Chinese chopsticks are pointed, while Japanese chopsticks are square on both ends.