I used chopsticks pretty much exclusively in childhood. Knives and forks were a novelty.
Yet, I've become incompetent with chopsticks when faced with anything that’s even a little challenging, like a slippery piece of meat covered in sauce, fish, and pretty much anything that’s ball-shaped. Even at the peak of my chopstick prowess, I never got the hang of using them to divide soft foods, such as tofu, braised meat, fish, dumplings or omelette.
My mother drilled chopstick etiquette into me. I still remember some of it.
Don’t play with chopsticks. That includes drumming with them. A major sin: dropping them on the floor. And how could this happen? Playing with them.
Don’t stab food with chopsticks.
Don’t root around a communal plate of food with chopsticks, trying to find a choice morsel. Pick up food from your side of the communal plate; don’t reach to someone else’s side.
Don’t take food from a communal plate and put it directly in your mouth; put it on your own plate first.
Don’t wave chopsticks around, and don’t point them at people — though I’ve seen this several times during heated discussions.
Never plunge a pair of chopsticks upright into a bowl of rice, because it resembles a death ritual.
Because we are from peasant stock, some things were OK if it was just family at the table. We didn’t have to go to the rigmarole of having separate sets of chopsticks for shared plates, nor use the wide ends (which don’t go into our mouths) for picking food from shared plates. We could just dive in with our own chopsticks, tips down.
We could lift bowls to our lips and use chopsticks to flick rice into our mouths (maybe even make a little noise), instead of using chopsticks to form and lift little mounds of rice.
I am making an effort to refine my chopstick skills by practising at home, to prevent mishaps at dim sum outings. Most of the time, if a little inelegantly, I’m able to get through an entire meal without dropping anything onto the table, floor or lap.
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Chopstick advice at justhungry.com and albertacanada.com (a PDF).
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