The Three Kinds of Chopsticks in my Kitchen

And what I use them for

Maybe it’s the way I’ve grown up eating with chopsticks, there are some foods that are just a more pleasant experience when I eat with chopsticks.

Maybe it’s the taste?

Maybe it’s that my brain just pairs the foods and utensils together? It just makes more sense, trust me.

So, I’m no stranger to the types of chopsticks that are out there. In fact, I own three kinds of chopsticks, all of which have specific spots in my drawer. You know how those standard kitchen drawers have that special spot for butter knives?

Well I only own one butter knife (I lost the other three in the set when I moved), and so the butter knife lives with the forks and the chopsticks have their special own spot.

That’s how you know I’m dedicated.

Here’s how I separate them.

The bamboo chopsticks

I’m not entirely sure that the stock photo depicts bamboo chopsticks — these could also be wood. It’s really hard to find stock photos for when I want to talk about things related to my culture; definitely something these stock photo companies need to work on.

The bamboo chopsticks elevated my quality of life so much because these are the chopsticks I use to cook with. It’s not the same trying to create a rolled Japanese omelette using a spatula. It just doesn’t quite provide the dexterity and you can’t split the spatula in two or anything. Luckily, chopsticks always come in pairs.

It is also infinitely easier to cook noodles with chopsticks. It’s like having a pair of tweezers that more directly lets you shake the noodles free in the boiling water, and to make sure any other toppings that you’re trying to cook can be picked out easily and plated as the other items are cooked.

The plastic chopsticks

These are the ones I generally use for eating. They’re not exactly my favourite, although wildly popular because they’re cheap to own. The only problem I have with them is that they snap under the weight of the dishes that I never do, which I wholeheartedly acknowledge is more a problem with my chore habits than the chopsticks themselves.

Note, when I first moved out, I did actually try and cook with the plastic chopsticks, just because I didn’t have any alternatives. I’m so wary of cooking with anything made plastic, though, so getting bamboo chopsticks made all the difference.

The metal chopsticks

These are my favourite so far. I have the round ones rather than the flat ones, which fit more ergonomically in my hand. These are great because they do not snap under my lack of responsibility. Part of me thinks that food does taste better with utensils made of certain materials. I like the weight of metal chopsticks in my hand far more than the bamboo and plastic ones as well.

I do have to note that metal chopsticks are more of a Korean tradition than a Chinese one, and I’m super grateful that this option has been made available in local Asian grocery stores.

You absolutely cannot cook with metal chopsticks, which, in hindsight might just be my dumb young adult mind not making this connection, but please know that metal conducts heat. I knew this for literally every other cooking utensil (the metal tongs I use for steak, for example) but sometimes, I don’t compute what’s clearly in front of me.

Now I have a visceral memory reminding me of this basic physics principle. That’s all that matters anyway.

Lucy (The Egg Girl) sometimes claims she can basically do open heart surgery with chopsticks, she’s so good at using chopsticks. This is simply untrue. What she can do is pick up soft tofu using chopsticks, which is a feat. On the food front, she’s also written about the wonderful umami-filled flavours of oyster and XO sauce, and how a long-distance relationship has different flavours. She also wants to encourage you to read Wardah Abbas’s article: What nobody told me about having sex for the first time.