It is such a sort of instrumental part of our cooking vocabulary, in terms of the utensils. And it was like, that's interesting, there are people who live without chopsticks.
餐具嚟講, 佢係我哋煮食字典入面嘅一種重要工具。 即係好似,好有意思, 都有人生活唔用筷子。
[Small Thing.]
【小事情】
[Big Idea.]
【大學問】
Chopsticks are a pair of two long sticks used to eat things with one hand. Holding chopsticks is a little bit like holding a pencil, except that you have two of them and you move them together in a pincer movement. Most of them are made out of wood. They're also made out of plastic, bamboo, jade, gold, silver and even ivory, though I think that's not so cool anymore.
筷子係一對兩條長棍 用一隻手揸住嚟食嘢。 揸筷子就好似揸筆咁, 唔同嘅係你有兩支 同埋你要好似鉗咁郁佢。 大部份係用木造。都有啲用塑膠、竹、 玉、金、銀,甚至係象牙, 雖然我覺得用象牙唔再有型。
Chopsticks are really well designed for eating small bits of food. They're good for picking up noodles. If you're skilled, you can eat rice, pick up dumplings, pieces of meat.
筷子嘅設計可以畀人 夾啲好細嘅嘢嚟食。 可以好輕鬆咁夾起啲麵。 如果你有能力,你可以用筷子食飯, 夾餃子、肉片。
There are some no-nos with chopsticks. You should not use the chopsticks like drumsticks, which I know is tempting. You don't want to stick chopsticks into a bowl of rice face-up. And the reason for that is it actually looks like a bowl of incense, so it sort of echoes death.
用筷子有啲禁忌。 你唔可以當筷子係鼓棍, 雖然我覺得係幾吸引。 你都唔應該將筷子直插入碗飯度。 原因係咁樣好似上香咁, 有啲死亡嘅意味。
Chopsticks are used in a huge portion of the world, across much of Asia, about 1.5 billion people are covered in the chopsticks sphere. Different cultures have slightly different variations of chopsticks. Chinese chopsticks will tend to be long and round, Korean chopsticks are flatter and often made of metal and Japanese chopsticks tend to be round and very, very pointy.
世界上有好多地方都用筷子, 喺亞洲,大約15億人用筷子。 唔同文化用嘅筷子都有啲唔同。 華人嘅筷子係又長又圓, 韓國筷子就扁啲同用金屬整嘅 而日本筷子就比較圓 同埋非常非常尖。
While chopsticks are actually really commonplace in American society today, there was definitely a time in the late 1800s where this idea that Asian men, because they ate rice with sticks, were of a different quality than American men, who ate proper meat with a knife and fork. But when China and the United States began their diplomatic engagement in the 1970s, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, had to practice eating with chopsticks. What's been really interesting to see is that as Asian cuisine has moved from the East into the West, chopsticks have become part of the experience.
雖然喺宜家嘅美國 筷子已經係好普遍嘅嘢, 但喺十九世紀尾 由於亞洲人用筷子食飯, 啲人覺得係同美國人質素差好遠, 因為佢哋好高尚咁用刀叉食肉。 但當中國同美國 喺1970年代時開始有外交合作, 尼克遜、基辛格等人, 要練習用筷子食嘢。 好得意嘅係 亞洲菜由東方傳到西方時, 筷子都一齊傳咗過去。
There's evidence of chopsticks as long ago as the Shang dynasty, which is about 3000 years ago, and they loved tripods during the Shang dynasty. So when you cook with these big tripods, chopsticks were actually really useful, because it was a way for you to stir and to reach without getting burned as the water was boiling in these really big pots. Chinese culture has knives and has forks. It uses them in many cases for cooking. But in terms of like what moved into the dining room, it was the chopsticks.
有關筷子嘅記載可以追溯到商朝, 大概三千年前, 商朝人好鐘意用鼎。 所以當你用鼎嚟煮嘢, 筷子係好有用, 因為佢可以俾你攪拌煮嘢時 唔洗驚畀大煲入面啲水辣親。 中華文化都有刀同叉。 佢哋係用嚟煮嘢。 但去到飯枱時, 就係用筷子。
One of the things about Asian cooking is that it often comes in very small pieces. And I think part of that has to do with the fact that it's actually a lot more energy-efficient to cook little pieces quickly. But also, then you don't have to cut them. So you have a circular influence, where the type of food that is cooked allows people to use chopsticks, and then the fact that you have chopsticks influences the food that you can cook. But at the same time, chopsticks reflect the communal nature of eating food. You'll have these dishes that you put in the middle, it's very family style. You go in with your chopsticks, and you put it on your rice, and then you eat individually.
有一樣嘢關於亞洲人煮飯 係啲食物煮到好細件。 而我覺得部份原因係 煮熟細啲嘅食物比較慳力。 同埋,你唔洗切嚟食。 所以呢度係個相互作用, 啲食物影響人係咪用筷子, 而用筷子又影響應該煮咩嚟食。 但同時, 筷子反映咗一班人食嘢時嘅習慣。 你會將啲餸放曬喺中間, 好有家庭特色。 你用筷子夾餸, 之後擺喺你碗飯度, 跟住食自己碗飯入面啲嘢。
There's actually a famous sort of legend where everyone has these really, really long chopsticks, like way too long for them to feed themselves. And so in hell, everyone starves, because they can't pick up food and put it in their mouths. But in heaven, people take the same chopsticks and then feed each other.
其實有一個好出名嘅傳說 係每個人有對好長好長嘅筷子, 長到唔可以自己夾畀自己食。 咁所以喺地獄,個個人都挨餓, 因為佢哋唔可以夾餸放入自己個口度。 但喺天堂,啲人用一樣嘅筷子, 去餵大家食嘢。