While Europeans were still cutting up carcasses on the dinner table, the Chinese had for centuries considered the practice barbaric.
A Chinese proverb, “We sit at the dinner table to eat, not cut up carcasses,” dictated that eating should be simplified.
And so food was cut into bite sizes in the kitchen before serving.
The chopstick, from kwaitsze, which means “quick ones”, was the perfect instrument to convey this pre-cut food to the mouth.
