CULTURE
THE FORK NOT TAKEN EATING UTENSILS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
words: Madeline Crozier | photography: Jennifer Reidy | layout: Caryn Scheving When we think about global cuisines, we often consider food in terms of difference. And the means by which people deliver food to their mouths— whether by forks, spoons, chopsticks, flatbreads or fingers—often signals that difference the most. Custom and culture can and do shape the variety of ways people eat. Yet eating around the world isn’t always about what’s different—it’s also about what’s the same. Consider the words of Dr. Margaret Visser, cultural anthropologist and author of The Rituals of Dinner: “Food is never just something we eat . . . we use eating as a medium for social relationships: Satisfaction of the most individual of needs becomes a means of creating community.”
Yemeni food includes hummus, tabbouleh, lamb shawarma, rice, naan bread
Here’s a closer look at some of the most common ways people around the world eat their food and create community.
FORKS, SPOONS & KNIVES
Pottery spoons by Gravesco Pottery
GravescoPottery.com
In Thailand, most people eat with a spoon in the right hand and a fork in the left hand, using the fork to move food onto the spoon. Chopsticks tend to appear only alongside noodle dishes. In the Philippines, forks and spoons function in a similar way. But at a traditional Kamayan feast, a Tagalog word that translates to “by hand,” a bounty of Filipino dishes sits atop banana leaves and everyone around the table gathers bites of food and rice with their hands. Forks, knives and spoons may reign as the most common cutlery in the United States, but we still eat plenty of hand-held foods simply for the sake of convenience and speed. When we think about hamburgers, French fries and corn on the cob, eating with our hands doesn’t seem so different after all.
12
edible INDY
Summer 2019
