September 22, 2021 • 43 mins
These utensils come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and materials specialized to the type of eating, cooking, and serving they’re intended for. Anney and Lauren dig into the history and cultures behind chopsticks.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, I'm welcome to Favor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Anny Reese and I'm Lauren vocal Baum, and today
we have an episode for you about chopsticks. Yes, it's
been a minute since we've done a utensil. It has been,
it has been. Yes, I will say this one was
inspired by um me finding an article on how stuff
(00:30):
works dot com about chopsticks and turning it into a
episode of brain stuff mm hmm. And then I was like, oh,
we haven't done chopsticks yet. Yeah. Yeah, Always curious where
your your inspiration comes from. You never can tell. You know,
(00:53):
something just catches your attention and you're like, oh, yes,
you must talk about definitely both of us, of course,
of course. Yes. Um, I will say I have a
lot of chopstick memories. Um, I love using them now,
I love it, um, but I was so bad with
them when I first went to China, and just in general,
(01:16):
like you know this, Lauren, I think I I have
like a shaky countenance. I'm just a shaky person and
it actually runs in my family. So it's just hard
with chopsticks where I would just shake. It's that precision
that you need to share. Yeah, Yes, precision. And so
when I went to China, which I was there for
about eight months, and I was in college, right, yes,
(01:38):
and losing in college, and I was not good at
them at this point. And I had learned some Mandarin
and I've been studying it. But I was foolishly I
had been told, but also foolishly anticipated their opinion everywhere
where not oh, not anywhere. And also just the way
(02:00):
the language works, is it even if to my untrained
ear it sounds like I am saying the same thing
with the tones, yeah, the inflictions right right right. So
I I go to China and I'm starting with chopsticks.
And I remember on one more than one occasion, I
(02:21):
was given like gloves um to reach into shared plots
for food by like the restauranteers. UM. I was given
rubber banded chopsticks, and once a very kind, worried group
of ladies that I was in some way affiliated with.
I just didn't know them very well, but they weren't
(02:42):
total strangers. They were yes. Um. After witnessing my terrible
chopstick skills, they took me to an American style bakery
and got me a lot of cake that I could
eat with my hands, which was very sweet, very sweet, yes, yeah, goodness.
(03:02):
And then one time I was at one of those
tables where you know, rotates, Um, so I had that
added challenge and then the chopsticks, and so I resorted
to stabbing something with my chopsticks, like like you would
have fish with the spears. Oh that's one of the
that's one of the things you're not supposed to do.
I know. But the man next to me, he laughed
(03:26):
because I was very sorry about the whole thing. But
I was just so desperate and said something like, however,
you can get the food into your mouth is the
right way? Yeah, um, And I will never forget, like
the first week I was living by myself and yeah,
there's everything was written in in Mandarin and there was
no opinion. And I was trying to eat a cup
(03:49):
of noodles with a toothbrush and a comb as my
chopsticks because I did not know how to ask for
chopsticks in a way where I was understood. Uh. But
that being said, nothing like this experienced to learn quickly,
and I did. Yeah, yeah, sure, like pretty good with them?
(04:13):
Yeah yeah, I I usually I usually feel pretty confident
with a pair of chopsticks. Um, I h there are
certain foods that I'm just like, this is so much
easier with chopsticks than it is with any other Like
like like, why do we eat any kind of pasta
with not chopsticks? It? It really only makes sense to me.
I'm just like, well, but then you just grab the
(04:34):
noodles and then they're easy to I don't know, right,
but yeah, I don't think gosh. I feel like I
feel like I didn't learn to use them until high
school mm hmm. And I feel like I lied to
my dining partner the first time that it was like
(04:54):
the only option. I was like at a sushi place
for the first time, and I was like, oh, yeah,
I know about sushi and I don't know how to
use chopsticks. And I felt like really like cool and
grown up and I was not, and um it was
probably very funny, so right, yeah, yeah, but but that's
(05:20):
but that's fine. The learning curves. Learning curves for everybody.
Um yeah. Yeah. One of my best friends in high
school was from Taiwan and her family owned a Chinese
restaurant and I would go there pretty frequently and I
was determined to learn how to use the chopsticks, and
(05:41):
there was nothing like the burning embarrassment of you know, meal,
you're trying, you're hoping, no one's noticing that you're struggling
so much. And then eventually these chopsticks with the rubber
band and appeared and instructions and you're like, tell it again. Ah,
(06:04):
that that is the thing though, Like I mean, like
people just want you to eat. They want you to
enjoy the food. They know. No one wants you to
be struggling that right, well most people. Yeah. Um. I've
also heard a lot of superstitions around chopsticks, and I
read about some for this, but would love to hear
(06:26):
from anyone, um, from these places that you stop sticks
more regularly or might have these superstitions. I know we've
touched on some of them in past episodes before. Um,
but always love to hear from people that are on
the ground. Oh yeah, absolutely. Um. When I when I
think of chopsticks, the thing that I think of now is, um,
(06:47):
a superproducer Dylan eating cheetos, because this is the thing
I discovered when you know, back when we were in
the office. Um and uh Dylan, Dylan's desk got moved
to the staring mine right in the face, as is
so good with open office concepts where you're just you know,
like three ft away from someone and just looking at
(07:08):
them all day. Dylan is a delightful human to look at. Um.
That's you know, it's I felt bad because I feel
like a weird goblin all the time, and I was like, oh,
do not witness me. Um. But but I discovered through
this process of you know, staring him in the face
all day, that he loves cheetos. He loves hot cheetos,
(07:30):
and he only eats them with chopsticks so that he
keeps himself neat and clean. Yes, and this is so
genius that we even have a shirt we do. Yes. Gosh.
(07:51):
I gave him some engrave chopsticks for his birthday a
couple of years back, which was just recently. If you
want to wish him birthday. Oh right, yeah, yeah, oh yeah,
I've never seen it. I've never seen that before either,
and I was immediately like, of course, right, just makes sense.
(08:11):
You can also see our episodes on sports and forks
Um and I guess Rice Ramen and fuh we kind
of talk about chopsticks a little bit in those episodes. Um,
so you're always welcome to check those out if you
have not heard them already. But in the meantime, I
(08:31):
guess that brings us to our question. Chopsticks. What are they? Well,
chopsticks are a type of eating and cooking utensil. Uh.
They're a pair of usually identical or semi identical slender
sticks UM. Each one like a half ish or maybe
(08:54):
less than half of the width of a human finger,
anywhere from about six to twelve inches long that's about
fifth teen to thirty centimes, typically held in one hand,
um between the thumb and the first couple of fingers,
and used to manipulate food. They can be made of metal, plastic, wood, ceramic, stone,
I mean anything stiff enough to to to grip. Really.
(09:16):
Different materials lend themselves to different uses. UM. If you're
going to be interacting with food that is in the
process of cooking, say um on a tabletop grill UM
stainless steel chopsticks you know, like, won't melt or catch
on fire, convenient and will also stay cool enough in
your hands that you won't burn yourself further convenience. UM
Coated wood and plastic are popular for personal reusable table chopsticks.
(09:41):
Disposable chopsticks are strange category um and kind of separate.
But yeah. These are given out at restaurants or with
takeaway and are are meant to be used once and
then thrown away, and are typically made of lightweight wood um, bamboo, birch,
cotton wood, increasingly aspen. And on the other end of
the spectrum, chopsticks can get heck and fancy um and
(10:04):
especially historically they have um with all kinds of of
methods of carving and lacquering materials like ivory, silver, gold, gold,
gold is so soft, why would you use anyway? I
don't know, jade, coral, tortoiseshell, all kinds of inlays like
enamel or mother of pearl or shark skin. I almost
(10:29):
brought these lightsabers that looked like lightsabers, and lightsabers that
look lightsabers like that look light lightsabers, and I lit
up and everything, and I was like, do I need this?
Probably not? Do I want it? Yes. Back when the
prequels came out, um my, a friend of mine sent
(10:53):
me a spoon that a little plastic spoon that had
the spoon part was clear and had a little led
in the base in the handle that made it light
up like a little lightsaber. I think was from like
a Cereal box or something like that. Yep, yeah, but
not surprisingly it was pretty cool though. Yeah, I think
(11:17):
I broke it. I think I broke it immediate life.
But yeah, that sounds right as well. I was like, oh,
this can get wet, right No. No, UM, chopsticks, yes,
the the length and shape of the sticks in question
will vary based on a personal preference in the types
of cooking and eating that you're doing. A shared dishes
(11:39):
at a family style table may involve serving chopsticks that
are longer and uh and don't have much of a
taper to them for better balance and reach. Chopsticks that
you would use to eat an individual plate of food,
especially individual plates of food that are served in UM
larger than bite sized pieces might be Those chopsticks might
(11:59):
be shorter and come to like a fairly fine tapered
point at the tips, not like sharp, but tapered so
that you can pinch off bite sized pieces of the food,
or maybe like pick bones out of a piece of
fish something like that. And there are also more specialized
chopsticks shapes for different situations. UM. There are chopsticks not
even with a rubber band, but but that are naturally
(12:21):
joined at the handle with a spring for people who
are first learning to use them, or or chopsticks that
are curved to be more easily grippable, if that's a
thing that would be useful to you. Chopsticks that fold
for travel us or that have like a tiny fork
or a dull knife or a spoon on the handling
so that they're multi purpose. Uh. I read about chopsticks
that you can put sauce into. What I still don't
(12:45):
understand how this works, Like you unscrew the chopstick and
you pour sauce into the into the tapered end, and
somehow it spills sauce onto your food as you I'm
not sure, Wow, technologically advanced, I don't know, Uh, etiquette
(13:10):
as far as I can tell. How you hold chopsticks
in your hand doesn't really matter the way that it
would with a with a fork. But yeah, everyone just
kind of uses a grip that works best for them.
Let me know if I'm steering folks wrong. If this
is a thing, uh in your family or in your area,
or that you've heard of, please let us know. Um.
(13:31):
But yeah, As with any dining situation, there are different
rules of etiquette that are going to vary from place
to place, even table table. Uh. Very basically, I would say,
I would say that you should avoid stabbing food with
your chopsticks if you can. Other social faux pie made
(13:55):
keep racking them up on this show, I would I
would say that generally the like like using your hands
is preferable to to to doing a stabby stab, except
when you're dealing with shared dishes, So I don't know.
I mean, you know, always always go with what people
are telling you to do around you, Like that's that
is the best rule of etiquette. Watch and learn, ask
(14:18):
if you can um. But also yeah, avoid sticking chopsticks
into things or at odd angles and like leaving them.
They're like, if you're if you're gonna um, put chopsticks down,
rest them on top of your dish or on a
on a dedicated holder parallel to the table. Um is
the preferred position because when you stick chopsticks or other
(14:40):
sticks into a bowl, um, it's reminiscent of funerary practices
in a lot of areas. So that's weird for a
dining table situation. Mm hmmm. Yes, and yes, chopsticks are
also used in religious practices um and some cultures are
important gifts around weddings and births stuff like that. Yes, Um,
(15:03):
well how about the nutrition. You know, I didn't look
into edible chopsticks. I'm sure these exist. Oh I bet
they do. Sure they exist. Listeners, you gotta let us know,
but generally don't eat you're eating utensils. Yeah, yeah, um.
(15:29):
I will say that there has been some research into into, um,
how the use of chopsticks encourages UM smaller, more mindful
bites in many situations, and that that can lead to
UM to slower chewing and to better digestion. Mm hmm.
(15:53):
So that's nutrition related. Yeah yeah, um I I I
was reading about that, And this is totally anecdotal experience,
so it is not a even a generalization make but
it reminded me of when I was in college and
my roommates, Um one of them, he was from Korea,
(16:17):
and he challenged my other roommates Trevor it was from Georgia,
to like, who could eat a bowl of ramen the quickest?
And Sean was going to do it with the chopsticks,
and Trevor was going to do it with the fork,
and Sean blew him out of water shop even close.
But that kind of goes back to like what you
were saying about certain foods just seem like, oh yeah better, which, um,
(16:42):
but it was no competition and I blew out. I
think I think the specific the specific study that I
was looking at that that had found this was about
eating rice, and it was about chopsticks versus a spoon
versus is um using using your hands. Huh and and
(17:04):
and of those three, the chopsticks were like, slow down
a little bit, right, although yeah, no, I mean I
have certainly inhaled food using chopsticks. That's just nonsen like
a character in an in an in an anime, just
like just like Naruto, just like drawn. And then you're like,
(17:26):
how did that happen? There's no one left more noodles? Yes, um,
we do have some numbers for you. Over one point
five billion people use chopsticks daily. China is the number
one producer of disposable chopsticks. However, in a small factory
in Georgia, the country was producing ten million sets a
(17:48):
week for export, but that business is now closed. Uh yeah, yeah.
China in the in the early twenty teens, China was producing,
depending on who you ask, some fifty seven to eighty
billion pairs of disposable wooden chopsticks every year. Wow. As
(18:08):
of the largest Chinese food delivery company UM in that country,
responsible for like forty six percent of the food delivery
market share was going through UM some twenty million pairs
a day. Wow. Yeah, uh yeah, disposable chopsticks are a
(18:30):
huge business, just massive UM. As of twenty the industry
was estimated to be worth UM twenty three point three
billion dollars a year and was projected to not quite
double but hit forty five point three billion, with with
the largest percentage of growth in China, but the US,
(18:53):
Canada and Germany not very far behind. Apparently. There's a
chopstick museum in Japan in Obama UM in the Wakasa
area where the specific type of layered wooden shell and
lacquer process was developed circle like the early eighteen hundreds.
They have some three thousand pairs in their collection and
(19:15):
run classes that let you create your own pair because
you uh, you like whittle or sharpen down into the
layers to to reveal them, to think patterns. It's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah,
I don't think you can do it during COVID but um,
but yeah, there's another museum in Shanghai that was founded
in night and includes over one thousand, two hundred pairs
(19:36):
in their collection, with some eight hundred on display at
any given time. Oh, I would love visiting both of
those places. Yes. Top six can be really really beautiful.
Oh yeah, I man I love I love functional art. Yeah, yes,
(19:57):
I do as well. That's definitely been the ration behind
a lot of our episodes, like the things like the
Celery dish. Yeah, items that we don't really see anymore
or not in that like super fancy presentation perhaps, although
it does still exist, but just fascinating to me. Yes,
And the history of chopsticks has long been quite fascinating.
(20:20):
It has been, and we are going to get into that, yes,
but first we're going to get into a quick break
for word from our sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you. Okay. So I feel like we say this
(20:41):
every time, and it's true every time, but the origin
of this one can vary vastly, particularly when it comes
to how people define chopsticks or even just particular regions
that you're looking into um. According to pop their retellings,
chopsticks a man come out of the distaste Confucius had
(21:02):
for the knife, which will get out and more into
in a second. But maybe they didn't come from that,
but certainly were popularized. Okay, yeah, yeah, but but but
that was that was a while in the timeline after
our theologists have found what they think are chopsticks. Yes,
confusingly enough, because everyone's like Confucius, I think it's such
(21:25):
a catchy, like Confucius and Van the chopstick, and then
you're like, wait, what like five thousand years after yeah, exactly. So.
The California Academy of Sciences, home of the Rights Collection
of Food Technology, which also sounds really cool, posits that
people were using chopsticks in the form of twigs to
stab food out of pots as far back as five
(21:49):
thousand years ago. Archaeologists have found bones that may have
served as chopstick prototypes at Neolithic sites in China. The
researchers speculate that six may have primarily been used as
cooking utensils. Um kind of particularly when you're talking about
like hot food, stirring that around, stabbing at it, whatever
(22:09):
it is. Yes, yeah, yeah, I think that. Um, I
think general consensus is that they were cooking utensils before
they were table utensils. And uh, these particular ones, um,
the bone ones that you were just talking about, could
be as old as like seven thousand years ago. And
(22:31):
at first researchers thought they might have been hair accessories,
but based on their placement, like ritualistic placement near the hands,
they were thinking instead that they might be uh, hand
related accessories. And weird, we are normal humans and not robot.
(22:53):
Show I know how to language. So good. Some time
around four hundred BC, cooks in Asia and perhaps specifically
China in this context, began cutting food up into smaller
strips so that it would cook more quickly and save energy,
and also because resources were scarce, and this kind of
(23:14):
made the knife a little obsolete, which was something Confucious
really vibed with since he was all about non violence.
Confucius once said, the honorable and upright man keeps well
away from both the slaughterhouse and the kitchen, and he
allows no knives on his table. Uh yeah, And and
he was working right around five hundred BC, so so right.
(23:38):
A lot of a lot of sources report that by
like like four hundred BC or so, chopsticks were really
starting to catch on, yes. Um. However, on the other hand,
other sources say the first chopsticks originated in China around
seventy six to two BC, and we're bronze ones. In
(24:00):
the beginning again, they were less an eating utensil and
more a cooking utensil. Yeah, and some researchers think that
this is when they became more common UM in general,
rather than later on Yea. Indeed, Um and folks have
pointed out the lack of archaeological evidence could be because
(24:23):
of how bamboo and wood decay. Sure, sure, it makes
perfect sense that bronze chopsticks stuck around a little bit longer. Um.
There are post hawk accounts of Um, the last king
of the Shang dynasty in China circle like eleven hundred BC,
using these extravagant ivory chopsticks, despite the fact that there
(24:45):
there were no elephants in the area, so it would
have been like a very extravagant thing to have um. So,
But mystery's history. Mystery's history. Chopsticks were present in Japan, Korea,
and Vietnam UM by five hundred CE. In these early
days in Japan, chopsticks were reserved for strictly ceremonial purposes. Um.
(25:07):
And usually they were bamboo joined at the top, sort
of like tweezers. Um. Spoons may have actually been more
commonly used in Japan during these times, these ancient times,
with chopsticks serving as sort of an assist device for
vegetables and proteins in soups. Yeah, chopsticks as eating utensils
may have come to Japan a little bit later, in
(25:28):
like the six to seven hundreds, um, filtering through the
aristocracy before they got to the common people. But but
filtering fairly quickly, like within the course of like a
hundred years or so. So, but for sure. In Korea,
burial sites dated to the five hundreds have been found
to include brass, silver, and gold chopsticks. Yeah yeah um.
(25:50):
And during China's early dynastic times, silver chopsticks may have
been used out of this belief that the silver would
turn to black. They came aim into contact with poison food,
which we've discussed before, and as we've discussed before in
previous episodes. While poisons like arsenic and cyanide won't change
the color of silver, foods like garlic an onion will.
(26:13):
So this led to a lot of like someone was
trying to kill me, but really it might have just
it was just it was just delicious. Yeah, someone was
trying to make my food delicious. Right. According to Q.
Edward Wong, author of Chopsticks, A Culture and Culinary History,
the Chinese Creans in the Vietnamese had adopted communal eating
(26:35):
by the twelfth century, which dictated the longer length of
their chopsticks for reaching, as opposed to shorter linked chopsticks
out of Japan, where bento boxes were more popular than
communal eating. The types of foods commonly eaten in these
countries as well might have had something to do with it. Um.
With these differences. That being said, those with wealth and
(26:57):
all of these countries may have used shorter, flatter chopsticks
a signifier of that, right, communicating you could afford to
eat out of your own bowl, you didn't have to
share with anybody. Yeah. Chopsticks both came out of necessity
for the less well off and an indicator of wealth
for the aristocrats, which is really interesting. It's really yeah. Um.
(27:19):
Other sources point out that until the tenth century, the
spoon was the most used utensil in in these areas
because millet are the like was the most eaten grain
um and it's a smaller grain, more suited to the spoon.
That started to change in China and Creas soon after that,
as wheat based grains like noodles started to replace millet.
(27:41):
Um and we had been present previously, I've been available previously,
but with advancements in cooking technology, it was edging out
millet by the tenth century. This meant noodles and dumplings
among other things. Um, we're growing in popularity, which chopsticks
were better suited for later others and mostly Westerners, or
at least that's what I found. Would argue that, um,
(28:02):
chopsticks complimented and influenced the size and type of food,
so almost a chicken and egg argument that chopsticks stuck
around because people like chopsticks and made food with chopsticks
in mind, as opposed to the other way around that
chopsticks we're sort of based around the food and cooking techniques,
which I thought was interesting. Huh yeah. Yeah. The increased
(28:25):
consumption of rice beginning in the eleventh century and large
swaths of Asia also led to an increase in the
use of chopsticks. On top of that, a lot of
the popular dishes that were being consumed were boiled and
we're eaten hot. Chopsticks were better for that for a
lot of reasons than fingers. Nearby countries may have been
culturally influenced by China and China's use of chopsticks, particular
(28:49):
in countries like Vietnam, where China was once an imperial power.
In our more modern times, wars like the World Wars,
the Korean War and the Vietnam War had a not
small influence on chopstick use and the perception of chopsticks.
Western war propaganda painted then in a really gross light.
Um Other theories suggests that metal reusable chopsticks became more
(29:13):
popular in Korea after rationing during the Korean War made
them more necessary. Um Often they were made with recycled
tin cans from the army UM. In the late nineties,
research on the ergonomics of chopstick design saw a boost
of interest, which is which is cool because because yeah,
these are objects that people are using every day, multiple
(29:35):
times a day. And later research has indicated that the
habitual use of chopsticks is a risk factor of osteoarthritis
in the thumb later in life. So yeah, the ergonomics
research showed that rounded handles and groove tips are the
easiest for people to use. Yeah h yeah, I love
(29:58):
how people have chopstick preferences. Have a friend in particular
who's like, not these, she's a slippy Oh oh, I
hate a sleepy chopstick. Yeah I do. I will say
that that I love the ones that have the grooves
around the tip, you know, like like just around like
the last like inch or so of the chopstick. It's
just gottul rivets and circles. Yeah, so useful and then not.
(30:25):
Around the same time, around the turn of the twenty
one century, um, the problem of disposable chopsticks began getting
a lot of attention thanks to environmental activists and a
bunch of artists, like a whole bunch of artists got
um commissioned by organizations like Greenpeace to do these big
old installations, like public installations made out of used disposable
(30:49):
chopsticks to kind of show the scale of the issue.
And it is a big issue, um, And I mean
deforestation is a problem, waste is a problem. UM. Note
that this is not restricted to chopsticks. Um. Other disposed
disposable utensils are issues as well. I'm not saying that, like,
oh man, the plastic forks that I get a week
with all of my silly delivery are fine, But those chopsticks,
(31:14):
That's not what I'm saying. And yeah, yeah, there's there's
a bunch of there are so many interesting things being
being done, um sir. Circa a Canadian startup called chop
Value began collecting used disposable chopsticks from local restaurants and
developed a process to sanitize them, form them together with
(31:35):
a resin into the sturdy composite sheet material UM, and
then using it to make like art, or shelves or furniture,
you name it. As of early this month September one,
they've recycled over thirty seven million chopsticks. Oh wow, that's cool. Yeah.
Um up through in terms of disposable chopsticks, or half
(32:00):
of what was manufactured was made of bamboo. UM. But
then Aspen began really edging into the market in UM
after a hackathon focused on sustainability issues. A number of
Chinese food delivery apps took on the simple measure of
just requiring customers to opt in to receiving utensils with
(32:24):
each order instead of their inclusion being the default, which
I think should be on every delivery order all the
time always. I have seen that. Um my experience has
been though, I usually even if I opt out, I
still habit um yeah, share share. But I'm hoping like, yeah,
(32:46):
as that becomes more common and as time goes on,
it will be uh more adhered to, because yeah, I'm
the same like I have tons of topsticks, I have
tons of utensils. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that
there's a there's a few, um a few of the
organizations around town that have been doing um like food
(33:06):
drives and stuff like that. I've been I've just like
taken them tubs of these little packages of utensils and
been like can you give these away to humans? And
they're like sure, and I'm like thank you, yeah, because
they're not a lot of mine aren't open, Like yeah,
I put I put them away and get out my
reusable boys, right exactly. Mm hmmm. Um. Well, I was
(33:33):
just checking for like any news about chopsticks today as
we were recording this, and I found uh an article
describing a you know, we love I'll gadget sure. Um so,
I think Auguste recently, Okay, there's a Japanese company called Beeful.
(33:54):
They released gaming chopstick holders for quick access to chopsticks.
Um so, it's sort of like a chopsticks holder you
would touch to your controller, and they were saying like
it's great for quick you get it quickly and then
you won't get anything on your fingers so you can
go right back to right back to gaming. This is
(34:15):
not the first time we've talked about some kind of
gaming food delivery gadget or holder. Yeah. No, I I
like this concept. Like you've got your bowl of noodles
and you're playing your game and just just I don't know,
like once every few you know, like you you finish
what you're doing real quick, and then you just take
a bite a noodle and then you can go right back,
(34:37):
go right back. Yeah. I mean my fear is I
have a lot of fears for the reason I'm not
a professional gamer. I would spill the noodles on the control,
would sauce everywhere, it would be, it would be a
whole thing. It would be um yeah, yeah, goodness, and
(35:01):
and this is like like not our not our shortest episode,
but I there there's so many little little avenues of research,
and I tried to I tried to sess out the
beginning of the like industry of disposable shopsticks and um
a bunch of uncorroborated sources where like it was like
(35:23):
eighteen seventy seven or something like that, like something right
around that window, um in Japan. And I was like, what,
what give me in They were like, no, no, further
information is available. I was like, oh, okay, um. And
then another thing I was reading was like construction workers
were using disposable wooden shopsticks and like the eight hundreds.
(35:44):
So so I'm like, well, that's a that's a question
for another day. I suppose, Um, that's true. That's true.
I mean there were so many and like we said,
also just regionally, there was interesting kind of different stories
and the way people have used them and how they
developed there and how they look um in these different places.
(36:07):
So yeah, there was a lot of the past we
could go down that may or may not have had
like resources for it that we could find. So as always, listeners,
if you know of something we missed, please let us know. Yeah, yes, always, always, always,
um and we do have some listener mail from folks
(36:27):
who have already written in probably not about chopsticks, not
that I know of, but it's still still exciting that
we get to read it. Nonetheless. Yes, yes, and we
will get into that after one more quick break for
a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(36:54):
thank you, and we're back with listeners. M hm. This
whole time, I've been craving just like a nice bowl
of rice and soy sauce and with sabby and chopsticks.
I had some leftover paw tofu for lunch, as I
(37:16):
was just telling you during the break that we took
during that commercial break, which we do sometimes um, but listeners,
I was having some leftover paw tofu um, and it
was very good. But be in my haste to to
get my lunch and bring it back to my desk,
I grabbed a fork and then was sitting here going
(37:40):
like Lauren missed opportunity, Like, can I eat cole slaw
with chopsticks? Yes, yes, that would be a terrific It
depends on the type of coal slaw. It depends on
the type of coal slaw. But now I just want
more mapu tofu with chopsticks. Yeah, that also sounds delicious, right,
(38:07):
bean sauce, Bean sauce anyway, delicious, Claudia wrote, I just
listened to the dipping dots episode and it reminded me
of being a t A. During college. I got a
degree in material science engineering, which is quite literally the
study of things. During my senior year, I was a
t A for an intro to Solid state chemistry class,
(38:28):
and throughout the year we'd use liquid nitrogen for certain experiments. However,
once the semester ended, the liquid nitrogen was disposed of.
In order to not let it go to waste and
to have some fun, the last day of lab was
always dedicated to liquid nitrogen bun Day. We'd ask our
students to bring in anything they wanted to throw in
a bowl of liquid nitrogen to see what happened. We
(38:51):
had the usual suspects, throwing in a rubber ball or
flower and washing it shatter when it was dropped. Although
those are classics, the best part of the class was
always making our own makeshift dip in dots. We'd let
some ice cream get melty and then carefully let it
drop into the liquid nitrogen bowl. It didn't come out
nearly as beautiful and spherical as the real stuff, but
(39:12):
it was tasty. Nonetheless, thanks for bringing back such a
good memory and thanks for making this show what it is. Ah,
that sounds so fun. Yes, And of course I'm immediately like,
what would I have thrown there? I'm like looking around
like in my life, going like, oh, yeah, I'd put
that in a bowl like with nitrogen today. Yes, and
(39:33):
then drop it, watch it shatter. I go through all
of my belongings and then nothing. This is the way
that you get me and Annie to be minimalists. Were
just like, well, can I make it shatter? Yes? Then
I will get rid of it. Yes. Um. Michelle wrote,
(39:56):
I've loved your podcast from the very first episode. Thank you.
I adopted a baby recently, so lately you've been keeping
me awake during those two am feeds. During the Blueberry episode,
one of you, sorry can't remember which one because who
I Am mentioned going to eye Hoop and getting blueberry
pancakes with blueberry syrup. My grandparents ran a hot stamping factory,
(40:18):
a method of decorating plastics by using a hot press
to melt a metal foil onto a plastic surface and
They made the lids of every eye Hoops syrup bottle
for years. I've attached a picture of the blueberry syrup
lit we keep in a shadow box. They also made
a beer tap, poles, and the buttons for soda machines.
(40:38):
They passed away about twenty years ago, so you likely
poured your syrup from someone else's bottle. But it made
me think very fondly of them, and remember the time
I spent helping in their small factory. I'm sad my
daughter will never get to meet them, but I'll tell
her all about them. Whenever we eat blueberry syrup. Oh
so sweet goodness, that's wonderful. I definitely ate blueberry syrup
(41:04):
from one of their bottles. Uh, any number of times
that that to thirty years ago? Yeah, it would have
been prime. Lauren eats blueberry syrup on pancakes at Eyehop
a clock, so yeah, yeah, oh yeah, um. And I
(41:24):
know both Lauren and I love these things. I never
think about like somebody had to make so that I
could get the blueberry. That's that's when I start to do.
The kids call it galaxy brain like, that's when I
start to feel like galaxy brain, like when I just like,
look at objects around me and what I'm not thinking
(41:45):
about whether or not I would shatter them. Um, And
I'm just like, somebody made all of this what and
we want to know the stories behind all of it.
That is high key why I do what I do
because this is all Everything in the world around us
is so endlessly fascinating and there are stories behind all
(42:05):
of it. And somebody cared about that blueberry syrup lid
and I want to know who they are. Yes, me too,
Well that is within our purview because a lot of
times I'll get in my head about like I suddenly
want to know all about skunks, which is true also
dreams also true. But this is food related, so we
could learn about syrup pouring. Yeah, yeah for the show
(42:29):
for work, Oh goodness. Um, but congratulations on your kiddo,
and uh and and and on having a rich blueberry
syrup history. Indeed, and thanks to both of those listeners
for writing. If you would like to write to us,
you can. Our email is hello at savor pod dot com.
(42:51):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saver pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Saver is production of
by Heart Ray Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio,
you can visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
(43:12):
more good things are coming your way.
Hello, I'm welcome to Favor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Anny Reese and I'm Lauren vocal Baum, and today
we have an episode for you about chopsticks. Yes, it's
been a minute since we've done a utensil. It has been,
it has been. Yes, I will say this one was
inspired by um me finding an article on how stuff
(00:30):
works dot com about chopsticks and turning it into a
episode of brain stuff mm hmm. And then I was like, oh,
we haven't done chopsticks yet. Yeah. Yeah, Always curious where
your your inspiration comes from. You never can tell. You know,
(00:53):
something just catches your attention and you're like, oh, yes,
you must talk about definitely both of us, of course,
of course. Yes. Um, I will say I have a
lot of chopstick memories. Um, I love using them now,
I love it, um, but I was so bad with
them when I first went to China, and just in general,
(01:16):
like you know this, Lauren, I think I I have
like a shaky countenance. I'm just a shaky person and
it actually runs in my family. So it's just hard
with chopsticks where I would just shake. It's that precision
that you need to share. Yeah, Yes, precision. And so
when I went to China, which I was there for
about eight months, and I was in college, right, yes,
(01:38):
and losing in college, and I was not good at
them at this point. And I had learned some Mandarin
and I've been studying it. But I was foolishly I
had been told, but also foolishly anticipated their opinion everywhere
where not oh, not anywhere. And also just the way
(02:00):
the language works, is it even if to my untrained
ear it sounds like I am saying the same thing
with the tones, yeah, the inflictions right right right. So
I I go to China and I'm starting with chopsticks.
And I remember on one more than one occasion, I
(02:21):
was given like gloves um to reach into shared plots
for food by like the restauranteers. UM. I was given
rubber banded chopsticks, and once a very kind, worried group
of ladies that I was in some way affiliated with.
I just didn't know them very well, but they weren't
(02:42):
total strangers. They were yes. Um. After witnessing my terrible
chopstick skills, they took me to an American style bakery
and got me a lot of cake that I could
eat with my hands, which was very sweet, very sweet, yes, yeah, goodness.
(03:02):
And then one time I was at one of those
tables where you know, rotates, Um, so I had that
added challenge and then the chopsticks, and so I resorted
to stabbing something with my chopsticks, like like you would
have fish with the spears. Oh that's one of the
that's one of the things you're not supposed to do.
I know. But the man next to me, he laughed
(03:26):
because I was very sorry about the whole thing. But
I was just so desperate and said something like, however,
you can get the food into your mouth is the
right way? Yeah, um, And I will never forget, like
the first week I was living by myself and yeah,
there's everything was written in in Mandarin and there was
no opinion. And I was trying to eat a cup
(03:49):
of noodles with a toothbrush and a comb as my
chopsticks because I did not know how to ask for
chopsticks in a way where I was understood. Uh. But
that being said, nothing like this experienced to learn quickly,
and I did. Yeah, yeah, sure, like pretty good with them?
(04:13):
Yeah yeah, I I usually I usually feel pretty confident
with a pair of chopsticks. Um, I h there are
certain foods that I'm just like, this is so much
easier with chopsticks than it is with any other Like
like like, why do we eat any kind of pasta
with not chopsticks? It? It really only makes sense to me.
I'm just like, well, but then you just grab the
(04:34):
noodles and then they're easy to I don't know, right,
but yeah, I don't think gosh. I feel like I
feel like I didn't learn to use them until high
school mm hmm. And I feel like I lied to
my dining partner the first time that it was like
(04:54):
the only option. I was like at a sushi place
for the first time, and I was like, oh, yeah,
I know about sushi and I don't know how to
use chopsticks. And I felt like really like cool and
grown up and I was not, and um it was
probably very funny, so right, yeah, yeah, but but that's
(05:20):
but that's fine. The learning curves. Learning curves for everybody.
Um yeah. Yeah. One of my best friends in high
school was from Taiwan and her family owned a Chinese
restaurant and I would go there pretty frequently and I
was determined to learn how to use the chopsticks, and
(05:41):
there was nothing like the burning embarrassment of you know, meal,
you're trying, you're hoping, no one's noticing that you're struggling
so much. And then eventually these chopsticks with the rubber
band and appeared and instructions and you're like, tell it again. Ah,
(06:04):
that that is the thing though, Like I mean, like
people just want you to eat. They want you to
enjoy the food. They know. No one wants you to
be struggling that right, well most people. Yeah. Um. I've
also heard a lot of superstitions around chopsticks, and I
read about some for this, but would love to hear
(06:26):
from anyone, um, from these places that you stop sticks
more regularly or might have these superstitions. I know we've
touched on some of them in past episodes before. Um,
but always love to hear from people that are on
the ground. Oh yeah, absolutely. Um. When I when I
think of chopsticks, the thing that I think of now is, um,
(06:47):
a superproducer Dylan eating cheetos, because this is the thing
I discovered when you know, back when we were in
the office. Um and uh Dylan, Dylan's desk got moved
to the staring mine right in the face, as is
so good with open office concepts where you're just you know,
like three ft away from someone and just looking at
(07:08):
them all day. Dylan is a delightful human to look at. Um.
That's you know, it's I felt bad because I feel
like a weird goblin all the time, and I was like, oh,
do not witness me. Um. But but I discovered through
this process of you know, staring him in the face
all day, that he loves cheetos. He loves hot cheetos,
(07:30):
and he only eats them with chopsticks so that he
keeps himself neat and clean. Yes, and this is so
genius that we even have a shirt we do. Yes. Gosh.
(07:51):
I gave him some engrave chopsticks for his birthday a
couple of years back, which was just recently. If you
want to wish him birthday. Oh right, yeah, yeah, oh yeah,
I've never seen it. I've never seen that before either,
and I was immediately like, of course, right, just makes sense.
(08:11):
You can also see our episodes on sports and forks
Um and I guess Rice Ramen and fuh we kind
of talk about chopsticks a little bit in those episodes. Um,
so you're always welcome to check those out if you
have not heard them already. But in the meantime, I
(08:31):
guess that brings us to our question. Chopsticks. What are they? Well,
chopsticks are a type of eating and cooking utensil. Uh.
They're a pair of usually identical or semi identical slender
sticks UM. Each one like a half ish or maybe
(08:54):
less than half of the width of a human finger,
anywhere from about six to twelve inches long that's about
fifth teen to thirty centimes, typically held in one hand,
um between the thumb and the first couple of fingers,
and used to manipulate food. They can be made of metal, plastic, wood, ceramic, stone,
I mean anything stiff enough to to to grip. Really.
(09:16):
Different materials lend themselves to different uses. UM. If you're
going to be interacting with food that is in the
process of cooking, say um on a tabletop grill UM
stainless steel chopsticks you know, like, won't melt or catch
on fire, convenient and will also stay cool enough in
your hands that you won't burn yourself further convenience. UM
Coated wood and plastic are popular for personal reusable table chopsticks.
(09:41):
Disposable chopsticks are strange category um and kind of separate.
But yeah. These are given out at restaurants or with
takeaway and are are meant to be used once and
then thrown away, and are typically made of lightweight wood um, bamboo, birch,
cotton wood, increasingly aspen. And on the other end of
the spectrum, chopsticks can get heck and fancy um and
(10:04):
especially historically they have um with all kinds of of
methods of carving and lacquering materials like ivory, silver, gold, gold,
gold is so soft, why would you use anyway? I
don't know, jade, coral, tortoiseshell, all kinds of inlays like
enamel or mother of pearl or shark skin. I almost
(10:29):
brought these lightsabers that looked like lightsabers, and lightsabers that
look lightsabers like that look light lightsabers, and I lit
up and everything, and I was like, do I need this?
Probably not? Do I want it? Yes. Back when the
prequels came out, um my, a friend of mine sent
(10:53):
me a spoon that a little plastic spoon that had
the spoon part was clear and had a little led
in the base in the handle that made it light
up like a little lightsaber. I think was from like
a Cereal box or something like that. Yep, yeah, but
not surprisingly it was pretty cool though. Yeah, I think
(11:17):
I broke it. I think I broke it immediate life.
But yeah, that sounds right as well. I was like, oh,
this can get wet, right No. No, UM, chopsticks, yes,
the the length and shape of the sticks in question
will vary based on a personal preference in the types
of cooking and eating that you're doing. A shared dishes
(11:39):
at a family style table may involve serving chopsticks that
are longer and uh and don't have much of a
taper to them for better balance and reach. Chopsticks that
you would use to eat an individual plate of food,
especially individual plates of food that are served in UM
larger than bite sized pieces might be Those chopsticks might
(11:59):
be shorter and come to like a fairly fine tapered
point at the tips, not like sharp, but tapered so
that you can pinch off bite sized pieces of the food,
or maybe like pick bones out of a piece of
fish something like that. And there are also more specialized
chopsticks shapes for different situations. UM. There are chopsticks not
even with a rubber band, but but that are naturally
(12:21):
joined at the handle with a spring for people who
are first learning to use them, or or chopsticks that
are curved to be more easily grippable, if that's a
thing that would be useful to you. Chopsticks that fold
for travel us or that have like a tiny fork
or a dull knife or a spoon on the handling
so that they're multi purpose. Uh. I read about chopsticks
that you can put sauce into. What I still don't
(12:45):
understand how this works, Like you unscrew the chopstick and
you pour sauce into the into the tapered end, and
somehow it spills sauce onto your food as you I'm
not sure, Wow, technologically advanced, I don't know, Uh, etiquette
(13:10):
as far as I can tell. How you hold chopsticks
in your hand doesn't really matter the way that it
would with a with a fork. But yeah, everyone just
kind of uses a grip that works best for them.
Let me know if I'm steering folks wrong. If this
is a thing, uh in your family or in your area,
or that you've heard of, please let us know. Um.
(13:31):
But yeah, As with any dining situation, there are different
rules of etiquette that are going to vary from place
to place, even table table. Uh. Very basically, I would say,
I would say that you should avoid stabbing food with
your chopsticks if you can. Other social faux pie made
(13:55):
keep racking them up on this show, I would I
would say that generally the like like using your hands
is preferable to to to doing a stabby stab, except
when you're dealing with shared dishes, So I don't know.
I mean, you know, always always go with what people
are telling you to do around you, Like that's that
is the best rule of etiquette. Watch and learn, ask
(14:18):
if you can um. But also yeah, avoid sticking chopsticks
into things or at odd angles and like leaving them.
They're like, if you're if you're gonna um, put chopsticks down,
rest them on top of your dish or on a
on a dedicated holder parallel to the table. Um is
the preferred position because when you stick chopsticks or other
(14:40):
sticks into a bowl, um, it's reminiscent of funerary practices
in a lot of areas. So that's weird for a
dining table situation. Mm hmmm. Yes, and yes, chopsticks are
also used in religious practices um and some cultures are
important gifts around weddings and births stuff like that. Yes, Um,
(15:03):
well how about the nutrition. You know, I didn't look
into edible chopsticks. I'm sure these exist. Oh I bet
they do. Sure they exist. Listeners, you gotta let us know,
but generally don't eat you're eating utensils. Yeah, yeah, um.
(15:29):
I will say that there has been some research into into, um,
how the use of chopsticks encourages UM smaller, more mindful
bites in many situations, and that that can lead to
UM to slower chewing and to better digestion. Mm hmm.
(15:53):
So that's nutrition related. Yeah yeah, um I I I
was reading about that, And this is totally anecdotal experience,
so it is not a even a generalization make but
it reminded me of when I was in college and
my roommates, Um one of them, he was from Korea,
(16:17):
and he challenged my other roommates Trevor it was from Georgia,
to like, who could eat a bowl of ramen the quickest?
And Sean was going to do it with the chopsticks,
and Trevor was going to do it with the fork,
and Sean blew him out of water shop even close.
But that kind of goes back to like what you
were saying about certain foods just seem like, oh yeah better, which, um,
(16:42):
but it was no competition and I blew out. I
think I think the specific the specific study that I
was looking at that that had found this was about
eating rice, and it was about chopsticks versus a spoon
versus is um using using your hands. Huh and and
(17:04):
and of those three, the chopsticks were like, slow down
a little bit, right, although yeah, no, I mean I
have certainly inhaled food using chopsticks. That's just nonsen like
a character in an in an in an anime, just
like just like Naruto, just like drawn. And then you're like,
(17:26):
how did that happen? There's no one left more noodles? Yes, um,
we do have some numbers for you. Over one point
five billion people use chopsticks daily. China is the number
one producer of disposable chopsticks. However, in a small factory
in Georgia, the country was producing ten million sets a
(17:48):
week for export, but that business is now closed. Uh yeah, yeah.
China in the in the early twenty teens, China was producing,
depending on who you ask, some fifty seven to eighty
billion pairs of disposable wooden chopsticks every year. Wow. As
(18:08):
of the largest Chinese food delivery company UM in that country,
responsible for like forty six percent of the food delivery
market share was going through UM some twenty million pairs
a day. Wow. Yeah, uh yeah, disposable chopsticks are a
(18:30):
huge business, just massive UM. As of twenty the industry
was estimated to be worth UM twenty three point three
billion dollars a year and was projected to not quite
double but hit forty five point three billion, with with
the largest percentage of growth in China, but the US,
(18:53):
Canada and Germany not very far behind. Apparently. There's a
chopstick museum in Japan in Obama UM in the Wakasa
area where the specific type of layered wooden shell and
lacquer process was developed circle like the early eighteen hundreds.
They have some three thousand pairs in their collection and
(19:15):
run classes that let you create your own pair because
you uh, you like whittle or sharpen down into the
layers to to reveal them, to think patterns. It's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah,
I don't think you can do it during COVID but um,
but yeah, there's another museum in Shanghai that was founded
in night and includes over one thousand, two hundred pairs
(19:36):
in their collection, with some eight hundred on display at
any given time. Oh, I would love visiting both of
those places. Yes. Top six can be really really beautiful.
Oh yeah, I man I love I love functional art. Yeah, yes,
(19:57):
I do as well. That's definitely been the ration behind
a lot of our episodes, like the things like the
Celery dish. Yeah, items that we don't really see anymore
or not in that like super fancy presentation perhaps, although
it does still exist, but just fascinating to me. Yes,
And the history of chopsticks has long been quite fascinating.
(20:20):
It has been, and we are going to get into that, yes,
but first we're going to get into a quick break
for word from our sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
thank you. Okay. So I feel like we say this
(20:41):
every time, and it's true every time, but the origin
of this one can vary vastly, particularly when it comes
to how people define chopsticks or even just particular regions
that you're looking into um. According to pop their retellings,
chopsticks a man come out of the distaste Confucius had
(21:02):
for the knife, which will get out and more into
in a second. But maybe they didn't come from that,
but certainly were popularized. Okay, yeah, yeah, but but but
that was that was a while in the timeline after
our theologists have found what they think are chopsticks. Yes,
confusingly enough, because everyone's like Confucius, I think it's such
(21:25):
a catchy, like Confucius and Van the chopstick, and then
you're like, wait, what like five thousand years after yeah, exactly. So.
The California Academy of Sciences, home of the Rights Collection
of Food Technology, which also sounds really cool, posits that
people were using chopsticks in the form of twigs to
stab food out of pots as far back as five
(21:49):
thousand years ago. Archaeologists have found bones that may have
served as chopstick prototypes at Neolithic sites in China. The
researchers speculate that six may have primarily been used as
cooking utensils. Um kind of particularly when you're talking about
like hot food, stirring that around, stabbing at it, whatever
(22:09):
it is. Yes, yeah, yeah, I think that. Um, I
think general consensus is that they were cooking utensils before
they were table utensils. And uh, these particular ones, um,
the bone ones that you were just talking about, could
be as old as like seven thousand years ago. And
(22:31):
at first researchers thought they might have been hair accessories,
but based on their placement, like ritualistic placement near the hands,
they were thinking instead that they might be uh, hand
related accessories. And weird, we are normal humans and not robot.
(22:53):
Show I know how to language. So good. Some time
around four hundred BC, cooks in Asia and perhaps specifically
China in this context, began cutting food up into smaller
strips so that it would cook more quickly and save energy,
and also because resources were scarce, and this kind of
(23:14):
made the knife a little obsolete, which was something Confucious
really vibed with since he was all about non violence.
Confucius once said, the honorable and upright man keeps well
away from both the slaughterhouse and the kitchen, and he
allows no knives on his table. Uh yeah, And and
he was working right around five hundred BC, so so right.
(23:38):
A lot of a lot of sources report that by
like like four hundred BC or so, chopsticks were really
starting to catch on, yes. Um. However, on the other hand,
other sources say the first chopsticks originated in China around
seventy six to two BC, and we're bronze ones. In
(24:00):
the beginning again, they were less an eating utensil and
more a cooking utensil. Yeah, and some researchers think that
this is when they became more common UM in general,
rather than later on Yea. Indeed, Um and folks have
pointed out the lack of archaeological evidence could be because
(24:23):
of how bamboo and wood decay. Sure, sure, it makes
perfect sense that bronze chopsticks stuck around a little bit longer. Um.
There are post hawk accounts of Um, the last king
of the Shang dynasty in China circle like eleven hundred BC,
using these extravagant ivory chopsticks, despite the fact that there
(24:45):
there were no elephants in the area, so it would
have been like a very extravagant thing to have um. So,
But mystery's history. Mystery's history. Chopsticks were present in Japan, Korea,
and Vietnam UM by five hundred CE. In these early
days in Japan, chopsticks were reserved for strictly ceremonial purposes. Um.
(25:07):
And usually they were bamboo joined at the top, sort
of like tweezers. Um. Spoons may have actually been more
commonly used in Japan during these times, these ancient times,
with chopsticks serving as sort of an assist device for
vegetables and proteins in soups. Yeah, chopsticks as eating utensils
may have come to Japan a little bit later, in
(25:28):
like the six to seven hundreds, um, filtering through the
aristocracy before they got to the common people. But but
filtering fairly quickly, like within the course of like a
hundred years or so. So, but for sure. In Korea,
burial sites dated to the five hundreds have been found
to include brass, silver, and gold chopsticks. Yeah yeah um.
(25:50):
And during China's early dynastic times, silver chopsticks may have
been used out of this belief that the silver would
turn to black. They came aim into contact with poison food,
which we've discussed before, and as we've discussed before in
previous episodes. While poisons like arsenic and cyanide won't change
the color of silver, foods like garlic an onion will.
(26:13):
So this led to a lot of like someone was
trying to kill me, but really it might have just
it was just it was just delicious. Yeah, someone was
trying to make my food delicious. Right. According to Q.
Edward Wong, author of Chopsticks, A Culture and Culinary History,
the Chinese Creans in the Vietnamese had adopted communal eating
(26:35):
by the twelfth century, which dictated the longer length of
their chopsticks for reaching, as opposed to shorter linked chopsticks
out of Japan, where bento boxes were more popular than
communal eating. The types of foods commonly eaten in these
countries as well might have had something to do with it. Um.
With these differences. That being said, those with wealth and
(26:57):
all of these countries may have used shorter, flatter chopsticks
a signifier of that, right, communicating you could afford to
eat out of your own bowl, you didn't have to
share with anybody. Yeah. Chopsticks both came out of necessity
for the less well off and an indicator of wealth
for the aristocrats, which is really interesting. It's really yeah. Um.
(27:19):
Other sources point out that until the tenth century, the
spoon was the most used utensil in in these areas
because millet are the like was the most eaten grain
um and it's a smaller grain, more suited to the spoon.
That started to change in China and Creas soon after that,
as wheat based grains like noodles started to replace millet.
(27:41):
Um and we had been present previously, I've been available previously,
but with advancements in cooking technology, it was edging out
millet by the tenth century. This meant noodles and dumplings
among other things. Um, we're growing in popularity, which chopsticks
were better suited for later others and mostly Westerners, or
at least that's what I found. Would argue that, um,
(28:02):
chopsticks complimented and influenced the size and type of food,
so almost a chicken and egg argument that chopsticks stuck
around because people like chopsticks and made food with chopsticks
in mind, as opposed to the other way around that
chopsticks we're sort of based around the food and cooking techniques,
which I thought was interesting. Huh yeah. Yeah. The increased
(28:25):
consumption of rice beginning in the eleventh century and large
swaths of Asia also led to an increase in the
use of chopsticks. On top of that, a lot of
the popular dishes that were being consumed were boiled and
we're eaten hot. Chopsticks were better for that for a
lot of reasons than fingers. Nearby countries may have been
culturally influenced by China and China's use of chopsticks, particular
(28:49):
in countries like Vietnam, where China was once an imperial power.
In our more modern times, wars like the World Wars,
the Korean War and the Vietnam War had a not
small influence on chopstick use and the perception of chopsticks.
Western war propaganda painted then in a really gross light.
Um Other theories suggests that metal reusable chopsticks became more
(29:13):
popular in Korea after rationing during the Korean War made
them more necessary. Um Often they were made with recycled
tin cans from the army UM. In the late nineties,
research on the ergonomics of chopstick design saw a boost
of interest, which is which is cool because because yeah,
these are objects that people are using every day, multiple
(29:35):
times a day. And later research has indicated that the
habitual use of chopsticks is a risk factor of osteoarthritis
in the thumb later in life. So yeah, the ergonomics
research showed that rounded handles and groove tips are the
easiest for people to use. Yeah h yeah, I love
(29:58):
how people have chopstick preferences. Have a friend in particular
who's like, not these, she's a slippy Oh oh, I
hate a sleepy chopstick. Yeah I do. I will say
that that I love the ones that have the grooves
around the tip, you know, like like just around like
the last like inch or so of the chopstick. It's
just gottul rivets and circles. Yeah, so useful and then not.
(30:25):
Around the same time, around the turn of the twenty
one century, um, the problem of disposable chopsticks began getting
a lot of attention thanks to environmental activists and a
bunch of artists, like a whole bunch of artists got
um commissioned by organizations like Greenpeace to do these big
old installations, like public installations made out of used disposable
(30:49):
chopsticks to kind of show the scale of the issue.
And it is a big issue, um, And I mean
deforestation is a problem, waste is a problem. UM. Note
that this is not restricted to chopsticks. Um. Other disposed
disposable utensils are issues as well. I'm not saying that, like,
oh man, the plastic forks that I get a week
with all of my silly delivery are fine, But those chopsticks,
(31:14):
That's not what I'm saying. And yeah, yeah, there's there's
a bunch of there are so many interesting things being
being done, um sir. Circa a Canadian startup called chop
Value began collecting used disposable chopsticks from local restaurants and
developed a process to sanitize them, form them together with
(31:35):
a resin into the sturdy composite sheet material UM, and
then using it to make like art, or shelves or furniture,
you name it. As of early this month September one,
they've recycled over thirty seven million chopsticks. Oh wow, that's cool. Yeah.
Um up through in terms of disposable chopsticks, or half
(32:00):
of what was manufactured was made of bamboo. UM. But
then Aspen began really edging into the market in UM
after a hackathon focused on sustainability issues. A number of
Chinese food delivery apps took on the simple measure of
just requiring customers to opt in to receiving utensils with
(32:24):
each order instead of their inclusion being the default, which
I think should be on every delivery order all the
time always. I have seen that. Um my experience has
been though, I usually even if I opt out, I
still habit um yeah, share share. But I'm hoping like, yeah,
(32:46):
as that becomes more common and as time goes on,
it will be uh more adhered to, because yeah, I'm
the same like I have tons of topsticks, I have
tons of utensils. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that
there's a there's a few, um a few of the
organizations around town that have been doing um like food
(33:06):
drives and stuff like that. I've been I've just like
taken them tubs of these little packages of utensils and
been like can you give these away to humans? And
they're like sure, and I'm like thank you, yeah, because
they're not a lot of mine aren't open, Like yeah,
I put I put them away and get out my
reusable boys, right exactly. Mm hmmm. Um. Well, I was
(33:33):
just checking for like any news about chopsticks today as
we were recording this, and I found uh an article
describing a you know, we love I'll gadget sure. Um so,
I think Auguste recently, Okay, there's a Japanese company called Beeful.
(33:54):
They released gaming chopstick holders for quick access to chopsticks.
Um so, it's sort of like a chopsticks holder you
would touch to your controller, and they were saying like
it's great for quick you get it quickly and then
you won't get anything on your fingers so you can
go right back to right back to gaming. This is
(34:15):
not the first time we've talked about some kind of
gaming food delivery gadget or holder. Yeah. No, I I
like this concept. Like you've got your bowl of noodles
and you're playing your game and just just I don't know,
like once every few you know, like you you finish
what you're doing real quick, and then you just take
a bite a noodle and then you can go right back,
(34:37):
go right back. Yeah. I mean my fear is I
have a lot of fears for the reason I'm not
a professional gamer. I would spill the noodles on the control,
would sauce everywhere, it would be, it would be a
whole thing. It would be um yeah, yeah, goodness, and
(35:01):
and this is like like not our not our shortest episode,
but I there there's so many little little avenues of research,
and I tried to I tried to sess out the
beginning of the like industry of disposable shopsticks and um
a bunch of uncorroborated sources where like it was like
(35:23):
eighteen seventy seven or something like that, like something right
around that window, um in Japan. And I was like, what,
what give me in They were like, no, no, further
information is available. I was like, oh, okay, um. And
then another thing I was reading was like construction workers
were using disposable wooden shopsticks and like the eight hundreds.
(35:44):
So so I'm like, well, that's a that's a question
for another day. I suppose, Um, that's true. That's true.
I mean there were so many and like we said,
also just regionally, there was interesting kind of different stories
and the way people have used them and how they
developed there and how they look um in these different places.
(36:07):
So yeah, there was a lot of the past we
could go down that may or may not have had
like resources for it that we could find. So as always, listeners,
if you know of something we missed, please let us know. Yeah, yes, always, always, always,
um and we do have some listener mail from folks
(36:27):
who have already written in probably not about chopsticks, not
that I know of, but it's still still exciting that
we get to read it. Nonetheless. Yes, yes, and we
will get into that after one more quick break for
a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,
(36:54):
thank you, and we're back with listeners. M hm. This
whole time, I've been craving just like a nice bowl
of rice and soy sauce and with sabby and chopsticks.
I had some leftover paw tofu for lunch, as I
(37:16):
was just telling you during the break that we took
during that commercial break, which we do sometimes um, but listeners,
I was having some leftover paw tofu um, and it
was very good. But be in my haste to to
get my lunch and bring it back to my desk,
I grabbed a fork and then was sitting here going
(37:40):
like Lauren missed opportunity, Like, can I eat cole slaw
with chopsticks? Yes, yes, that would be a terrific It
depends on the type of coal slaw. It depends on
the type of coal slaw. But now I just want
more mapu tofu with chopsticks. Yeah, that also sounds delicious, right,
(38:07):
bean sauce, Bean sauce anyway, delicious, Claudia wrote, I just
listened to the dipping dots episode and it reminded me
of being a t A. During college. I got a
degree in material science engineering, which is quite literally the
study of things. During my senior year, I was a
t A for an intro to Solid state chemistry class,
(38:28):
and throughout the year we'd use liquid nitrogen for certain experiments. However,
once the semester ended, the liquid nitrogen was disposed of.
In order to not let it go to waste and
to have some fun, the last day of lab was
always dedicated to liquid nitrogen bun Day. We'd ask our
students to bring in anything they wanted to throw in
a bowl of liquid nitrogen to see what happened. We
(38:51):
had the usual suspects, throwing in a rubber ball or
flower and washing it shatter when it was dropped. Although
those are classics, the best part of the class was
always making our own makeshift dip in dots. We'd let
some ice cream get melty and then carefully let it
drop into the liquid nitrogen bowl. It didn't come out
nearly as beautiful and spherical as the real stuff, but
(39:12):
it was tasty. Nonetheless, thanks for bringing back such a
good memory and thanks for making this show what it is. Ah,
that sounds so fun. Yes, And of course I'm immediately like,
what would I have thrown there? I'm like looking around
like in my life, going like, oh, yeah, I'd put
that in a bowl like with nitrogen today. Yes, and
(39:33):
then drop it, watch it shatter. I go through all
of my belongings and then nothing. This is the way
that you get me and Annie to be minimalists. Were
just like, well, can I make it shatter? Yes? Then
I will get rid of it. Yes. Um. Michelle wrote,
(39:56):
I've loved your podcast from the very first episode. Thank you.
I adopted a baby recently, so lately you've been keeping
me awake during those two am feeds. During the Blueberry episode,
one of you, sorry can't remember which one because who
I Am mentioned going to eye Hoop and getting blueberry
pancakes with blueberry syrup. My grandparents ran a hot stamping factory,
(40:18):
a method of decorating plastics by using a hot press
to melt a metal foil onto a plastic surface and
They made the lids of every eye Hoops syrup bottle
for years. I've attached a picture of the blueberry syrup
lit we keep in a shadow box. They also made
a beer tap, poles, and the buttons for soda machines.
(40:38):
They passed away about twenty years ago, so you likely
poured your syrup from someone else's bottle. But it made
me think very fondly of them, and remember the time
I spent helping in their small factory. I'm sad my
daughter will never get to meet them, but I'll tell
her all about them. Whenever we eat blueberry syrup. Oh
so sweet goodness, that's wonderful. I definitely ate blueberry syrup
(41:04):
from one of their bottles. Uh, any number of times
that that to thirty years ago? Yeah, it would have
been prime. Lauren eats blueberry syrup on pancakes at Eyehop
a clock, so yeah, yeah, oh yeah, um. And I
(41:24):
know both Lauren and I love these things. I never
think about like somebody had to make so that I
could get the blueberry. That's that's when I start to do.
The kids call it galaxy brain like, that's when I
start to feel like galaxy brain, like when I just like,
look at objects around me and what I'm not thinking
(41:45):
about whether or not I would shatter them. Um, And
I'm just like, somebody made all of this what and
we want to know the stories behind all of it.
That is high key why I do what I do
because this is all Everything in the world around us
is so endlessly fascinating and there are stories behind all
(42:05):
of it. And somebody cared about that blueberry syrup lid
and I want to know who they are. Yes, me too,
Well that is within our purview because a lot of
times I'll get in my head about like I suddenly
want to know all about skunks, which is true also
dreams also true. But this is food related, so we
could learn about syrup pouring. Yeah, yeah for the show
(42:29):
for work, Oh goodness. Um, but congratulations on your kiddo,
and uh and and and on having a rich blueberry
syrup history. Indeed, and thanks to both of those listeners
for writing. If you would like to write to us,
you can. Our email is hello at savor pod dot com.
(42:51):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at saver pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Saver is production of
by Heart Ray Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio,
you can visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as
always to our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
(43:12):
more good things are coming your way.
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com