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If you
are not familiar with how to use chopsticks then dining at Japanese or
other Asian cuisine restaurants may present a challenge at first. But
once you have mastered them then eating with this simple instrument is
a genuine pleasure.
Except in Chinese restaurants that provide plastic chopsticks, you eat
with wooden chopsticks that come in a paper wrapper. Take them out,
split them in half, and hold the two halves in one hand with your
thumb, forefinger and middle finger, as if holding two pencils. Then
let the middle finger slip between the two sticks. One stick will rest
between the forefinger and middle finger, the other between the middle
and ring fingers. Watch how other people manipulate the sticks to
figure out how to pick up pieces of food correctly.
To deal with soup, pick up the small bowl with one hand and sip from
the edge of the bowl. You can dip your chopsticks into the soup to
pick up small chunks of bean curd or thin slices of seaweed.
Noodles served on a wooden tray are simply picked up in bite-size
portions. If served in a hot broth, alternate between picking them up
and lifting the bowl to sip the broth. Slurping is a sign of a good
appetite and eating with pleasure, and is in this instance, perfectly
acceptable. |
Information
provided by Japan National Tourist Organization.
