Preface
Chopsticks, these two short small wooden sticks, that is the proof of our 5,000-year-old Chinese history.
No other country uses chopsticks like the mainland, they either use spoons, forks or hands.
And when they learned how to use chopsticks, none of the foreigners could pick up anything, and if they only used chopsticks to eat a meal, that bowl of noodles might have to be eaten for a day.
When did chopsticks appear, and did the ancients also use chopsticks to eat?
When chopsticks did not appear, what tools did the ancients use to eat?
What did the ancients use to eat
Since a long time ago, it seems that the ancients in the mainland began to eat with chopsticks, and this pair of simple chopsticks is also the culture inherited by the mainland for thousands of years.
Our ancestors basically lived a nomadic life, how could there be such elegance when eating, eating with chopsticks, they basically ate with their hands, which was not only convenient but also fast.
At that time, they had not yet developed civilization, and the food they ate was even raw, and their daily food source was hunting, directly pulling out their fur to eat meat and drink blood.
The caves in the mountains are their best places to live.
You must know what it means to live to learn from old age, the ancients continued to invent and create, and constantly used wisdom to improve their quality of life.
From that time when there was nothing, the ancestors took local materials, and everything was polished into stone to make what they wanted.
With the slash of lightning, the ancestors found that the meat that had been struck by lightning seemed to become more fragrant, and after the fire came out, the ancestors' living habits gradually became elegant.
It is no longer a matter of seeing something and eating it raw, but it will be cooked and eaten maturely.
With the continuous development of society, the quality of life of the ancient people in the mainland has been continuously improved, and they have begun to pay attention to the quality of life.
Originally, it was a knife and fork, but with the development, people began to eat with spoons instead of inconvenient things.
Then it was inconvenient to slowly develop the spoon, he only used it to eat porridge and drink soup, and it was really troublesome to eat some noodles and some vegetables.
Then we continued to improve, and then we formed the necessities we now eat, chopsticks.
Whether you are eating rice, noodles, or anything else, the chopsticks are very convenient, even if you eat some porridge, the chopsticks can still be pulled into the mouth.
The emergence of chopsticks has changed our living habits all of a sudden, forming a unique living habit of Chinese, not only promoting the development of China's catering culture, but also promoting the etiquette culture of Chinese on the table.
Just like now, when we are accustomed to using chopsticks, when we go to eat Western food, we cut them one by one, and then send them to our mouths one by one, which is simply troublesome to death.
Or if you want to eat noodles with a fork, it's easy to slide down the noodles just over it, and you have to turn it several times to get it.
So many times when we go to Western food, we will ask for a pair of chopsticks, so that it is much easier to eat.
The earliest chopsticks were not made of wood, not two, but one, known as "chopsticks", and there was only one chopstick, which was used to scoop up the food in the soup, and at that time it may have only been used by the royal family.
At that time, the chopsticks were made of ivory, and this material was very precious.
At this time, people did not generally start to use chopsticks, and people still used pilaf when eating.
It was not until the Han Dynasty that the frequency of chopsticks began to increase, and at that time there were already two chopsticks with a wooden structure.
In addition to wood, the nobles of the palace did not look down on chopsticks made of wood, they must use the best, so there were those made of gold and jade.
Even the golden chopsticks and jade chopsticks will become funeral objects after death, which can reflect how much people loved the chopsticks at that time.
After that, the chopsticks were made more and more exquisitely, and people were pursuing higher quality chopsticks while pursuing the convenience of eating.
These are chopsticks that can be called handicrafts, and they can definitely be regarded as national treasures of the mainland.
And even the current chopsticks are also through the beautiful appearance to attract more consumers, when we choose the chopsticks we use, we will definitely choose a beautiful, our favorite, so that the food is fragrant!
Interestingly, many of us now have a somewhat profound understanding of chopsticks, and it is not difficult to find that one end of the chopsticks is a prototype when we look closely, and the other end of the chopsticks is square.
As for why it is designed this way, there is a lot to be said, one is why the chopsticks become two pairs, instead of the previous chopsticks with only one.
Because the two chopsticks now represent "yin and yang", which is completely in line with the ancients' love for Taoist culture at that time.
One end of the chopsticks is round and the other end is square, which is my "heaven is round and the place is round", one end represents the round sky, and the other side represents the square earth.
And using chopsticks of such a shape to clamp up the food, that is the "golden mean", which is the excellent 5,000-year cultural history of the mainland.
The inheritance of chopsticks proves the Chinese culture on the table and represents the development of China's history and culture for thousands of years.
Why don't the Song people use chopsticks
The Song Dynasty already had the appearance of the short man, but they were so different from us that they left us with the impression that "the people of the Song Dynasty did not like to use chopsticks".
At that time, the Song people's eating habit was to "hold a spoon in the left hand and a spoon in the right hand".
This is like a Western culture, holding a fork in the left hand and a knife in the right hand, and this behavior gives people the impression that they don't like chopsticks.
It is precisely because of the unique way of using chopsticks that the Song people always remind us of the way of eating in Western countries.
The Song people were a period when they attached great importance to table etiquette, and they ate in an elegant way that did not allow a little food to be stained on their hands.
summary
Chopsticks are no longer just a tool for eating, but represent the development of mainland history and culture, and the development of mainland table culture.
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