Consider the Utensil

Growing up, I've always known that it's commonplace to eat with your hands in India. Even though my parents still ate rice and other traditional Indian food by hand, I always preferred to use a spoon because that's what I grew up with. In 2009, shortly before a trip to India to see all our relatives, my parents made an effort to teach me eat rice by hand, but it just didn't come naturally to me like it did for them. I was uncoordinated and rice went everywhere, unlike the comparatively coordinated hand movements my parents made. One thing that I learned back then is that you're only supposed to pick up the food with your fingertips, and you really shouldn't let food touch your palm or anywhere else on your hand. So it was definitely less messy than I initially imagined.

When I got to India, I slowly learned by observing. However, I still vastly preferred a spoon, knife, or fork over hands. And while I eventually got the hang of it, I never really enjoyed the practice itself.. In Wallace's Consider the Lobster, I felt that one quote stood out to me about my initial misconceptions of eating by hand:

"Friend and stranger alike sit cheek by jowl, cracking and chewing and dribbling. It's hot, and the sagged roof traps the steam and the smells, which latter are strong and only partly food-related. It is also loud, and a good percentage of the total noise is masticatory."

I initially assumed eating by hand was dirty, messy, and awkward compared to the western tradition of using a spoon, fork, or knife. While I still prefer to use utensils(unless it's something like naan, pictured above), my experience in India and with relatives has taught me that eating by hand can be a great experience. When I consider the relative significance of the eating utensil in cultures across our globe, I am struck by an insightful conclusion: it really do be like that sometimes.