How to hold sushi chopsticks
Rapidly breaking into our everyday life, Japanese cuisine today has firmly won a leading position in the segment of ready-made food for fast delivery. But when going to one of the YAPIKO restaurants or ordering rolls and sushi on this site, you should be prepared for the fact that instead of a fork you will be served traditional o-hashi. And this means that you have to learn how to properly hold Japanese chopsticks. In fact, there is nothing complicated in this, and after a little training you will be able to handle chopsticks like a real Japanese, we recommend ordering sushi in Kharkiv.
History of Sushi Sticks
The first chopsticks used for eating appeared in China about three thousand years ago. According to legend, they were invented by the ancient legendary emperor Yu to get meat from a boiling cauldron. Breaking off two branches, he tore off the leaves from them and squeezed a piece of meat between them, which he then ate. Modern Chinese sticks are called kuaizi. When turning wooden blanks for their manufacture, a few centimeters at the base are left square so that the sticks do not roll on the table.
In Japan, the use of chopsticks began much later than in China - about two thousand years ago. The first Japanese "cutlery" was a thin bamboo trunk, split into two halves, which were fastened at the top. Japanese chopsticks acquired their modern look about five hundred years ago. Initially, they were used only by the upper strata of the population, and ordinary people took food with their hands. Over time, hashi has firmly entered the daily life of the Japanese, they began to be made from precious woods and ivory, decorated with patterns and mother-of-pearl, covered with colored varnish.
To test your skill you can order sushi in Kyiv with different sticks: ordinary and training.
Training and Real Sticks
The Japanese highly value their chopsticks and even consider them a sacred symbol that brings good luck. In everyday life they are called "hasi", but when they want to emphasize the importance of these items, they say "o-hasi", using the so-called polite speech. Their length is standard and is 20-25 cm, the cross-sectional shape can be round or square. Special, longer sticks are used to transfer pieces from a common dish to your plate and to stir the dishes being prepared.
Japanese children start using o-hashi from the age of one. It has been noticed that the development of fine motor skills of the fingers helps the rapid development of intelligence: children who learn to eat with chopsticks begin to speak faster and learn new knowledge better. Since it is difficult for toddlers to hold real hashi for adults, training begins with the so-called training sticks. Their length is only 16 cm, and at the top there is an elastic clip, thanks to which the sticks are held together and turn into a kind of tongs.
You can also start mastering the technique of using hashi with training sticks for sushi in Odesa. They are offered in almost every Japanese restaurant: these are ordinary warisabi (disposable wooden sticks) and a flexible plastic holder. Practice at home taking small objects with training hashi and shifting them from one plate to another, then move on to food.
- Break a couple of warisabi.
- Fasten both sticks in the holder as close as possible to the square ends.
- Holding the device in the middle, pick up food with pointed tips, as with ordinary tweezers.
- Securely grasping a piece, send it to your mouth.
Japanese etiquette allows you to bring a bowl of rice or soup close to your mouth so as not to drip the broth or sauce onto your clothes.
How to Use Chopsticks Correctly
Before learning to eat sushi and rolls with chopsticks, you need to properly position them in your hand. For this:
- slightly bend the ring finger and little finger of the right hand;
- put the middle of the stick on the last phalanx of the ring finger, and place the first third between the thumb and forefinger;
- firmly hold the lower stick with your thumb and hold it still;
- take the second stick in the middle with the tips of your thumb, index and middle fingers.
Your fingers should form a kind of tweezers or tweezers from the sticks. Wiggle the pointed tips and make sure they move freely and without interference - this means that the hashi lies correctly in the hand. To capture a piece of food with them, move the top stick, pressing the food against the bottom one.
Do not forget about the rules of decency and eating rituals of the Land of the Rising Sun. To eat sushi, first lay it on its side, then squeeze rice and fish with chopsticks, dip in sauce and put in your mouth. Do not put the bitten sushi or roll back on the plate, send it to your mouth whole or bite off a piece, keeping the rest on weight. In no case should you prick pieces on a stick.
Having learned how to use o-hashi, you will feel confident when visiting YAPIKO restaurants or ordering Japanese food at home, sushi delivery Poltava.
