00:00I say, you ever wonder why the Chinese use chopsticks?
00:04Well, it's got something to do with Confucius and Cardinal Richelieu.
00:10I know that doesn't make a lot of sense right now, but it's actually true. Sort of.
00:15And the two men did have one thing in common. They both hated eating with knives.
00:21Now, you might wonder what's wrong with knives. After all, we've been using them since Neolithic times.
00:26They're the simplest way to stuff your face until they aren't.
00:33And that's where chopsticks come in.
00:35The first chopsticks, that we know of at least, are around 3,000 years old
00:41and were found in the ruins of the city of Yin, the last capital of the Shang Dynasty in northern
00:47China.
00:48Now, interestingly enough, these chopsticks were only used to stir stews.
00:53They weren't actually used for eating.
00:54The Shang Dynasty also used long forks in their kitchens.
00:59Yet, for meal times, it was the good old knife and fingers.
01:03So, when did chopsticks make their way to the dining table?
01:08Well, to find the answer to that, we need to fast forward a millennium or so
01:12to around 2,000 years ago during the Han Dynasty.
01:16Like their Shang predecessors, the Han ate almost exclusively millet.
01:22It didn't need fertilizer or particularly good soil, which was great because the North had neither.
01:27The Han made porridge out of their millet.
01:30And as you can imagine, eating porridge with chopsticks is not exactly the easiest thing to do.
01:36So, it never caught on.
01:37But as the Han Dynasty expanded south, their diet started changing.
01:43You see, the south was perfectly suited for growing rice.
01:47In fact, rice grew so plentifully there that they had enough left over to feed the North with it too.
01:53Now, you might think that it's equally difficult to eat rice with chopsticks.
01:58But East Asian rice is starchy and conveniently sticks together in nice clumps.
02:05Very easy to grab with a couple of sticks.
02:08Oh, that's quite easy.
02:09Of course, it wasn't just rice that did it.
02:12In the North, millet had another challenger.
02:15Wheat.
02:15More wheat meant less porridge and more noodles and dumplings.
02:20Which, of course, leads to our friends, the chopsticks again.
02:24This period also saw the rise of stir-frying.
02:27For which food was pre-cut into bite-sized morsels.
02:31All the easy to pick up and eat with your trusty chopsticks.
02:35Ha ha!
02:36They're pretty damn versatile, these chopsticks.
02:39And what was even better, they were cheap.
02:41This actually matters quite a lot when you've got a population as big as China's.
02:46Which, mind you, was about one-fourth of the entire world's population at the time.
02:52More people means less resources to go round.
02:55Less metal for knives and forks.
02:57Less fuel for fires.
02:59And here's some culinary physics for you.
03:02Cutting food into small chunks before cooking it makes it cook faster.
03:07And uses less fuel.
03:09It's economics all the way down.
03:12And a bit of psychology as well.
03:14After all, once you start using chopsticks, you'd naturally prefer smaller chunks of food
03:19that are easier to eat with said chopsticks.
03:22So in the end, knives moved from the table to the kitchen,
03:26and chopsticks from the kitchen to the table.
03:30See what we did there?
03:31Swopsy.
03:31Anyway.
03:32Our good friend Confucius was one of the biggest advocates of chopsticks.
03:36In his eyes, a tool as violent and barbaric as the knife had no place on an honorable man's table.
03:43In fact, he made such a big deal out of it that his followers recorded this in the Book of
03:48Rites,
03:49one of the five classics that make up the core of Confucian philosophy.
03:53Now, I know that ever since we started this you've been meaning to ask,
03:57what the hell does Cardinal Richelieu have to do with any of this?
04:01That's a very good question.
04:03Well, although he probably wasn't well versed in his Confucian etiquette,
04:07he too hated seeing knives at his table.
04:11You see, back in those days, the knives you'd find on the average European dining table were pretty sharp.
04:17In fact, they were just as sharp as a knife you'd use to stab someone.
04:23Sorry, meant to go for the pumpkin.
04:25What's even weirder, though, is that when your table guests weren't actively conspiring against you,
04:30they'd use those same sharp knives as toothpicks.
04:34Richelieu, being the cunning mastermind that he was,
04:37started ordering every knife's blade to be ground down until it could barely cut anything.
04:44Richelieu fixed his pointy knife problem by inventing the table knife,
04:48while Confucius solved it by popularising chopsticks.
04:53And that, my friends, is the point. Or not, as the case may be.
04:58Well, my friends, time for some stir-fry and chopsticks.
05:02I hope I've satiated your culinary historical hunger.
05:06In case I did, you'll be happy to hear that we're cooking new batches as we speak.
05:11So, if you'd like to be the first to know when the next one is ready,
05:15feel free to subscribe and hit that bell button with your chopsticks or your blunt and knife.
05:22Again, thank you for watching.
05:24We'll see each other again soon for the next deliciously delectable and devious episode of SideQuest.
05:36The dingen stock psoordo Jesse to binge teacher from
05:40You're going to leave upright and options for the next two weeks.
05:40I'll see you soon.
05:40Yes, guys.
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