how did the Asian food utensils originate?
Our next article was prompted by an American reader, Mitch, who has just returned from a trip to Vietnam. He tells us plans are already made to return and to send home even more pieces of beautiful art. Before that happens though, he’s determined to master the art of “doi dua” — eating with chopsticks. Mitch asked us: “…OK — so the food was incredible and the Vietnamese people’s hospitality even more so, but why do they eat with chopsticks? How did chopsticks come about?” Vietnam Art Gallery’s done some research…and this is what we found out. In much of Asia, especially the so-called “rice bowl” cultures of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, food is usually eaten with chopsticks. Chopsticks are two long, thin, usually tapered, pieces of wood. Bamboo is the most common material, but they are also be made of various types of wood, as well as plastic, porcelain, animal bone, ivory, metal, coral, agate, and jade. During the Middle Ages, aristocrats often favoured silver chopsticks sin
