Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

June 7, 2021

Why is eating a burger with your hands ok, but eating a naan/ethnic food with your hands not?

Filed under: My Thoughts — Suramya @ 10:29 PM

When you eat using your hands in any of the western countries a lot of people look down upon you as someone who doesn’t know how to eat properly in civilized company. This is not just in high end restaurants, it in the local diner and other such places (that are not fast food) and for a long time I just took it for granted that this was normal. I use a fork & knife as well as anyone but there are foods that I have to eat using my hand and others I don’t eat with my hands even though others do so. I can’t eat rice with my hands for some reason. I just don’t enjoy it, but Jani does and she makes fun of me for it. This makes it interesting when you are out for a meal and start eating with your hands. People look at you strange.

Then earlier this week I saw this cartoon below and it made me think, even westerners eat food with their hands and they are ok with it as long as it is western food. As soon as there is any other type of food involved it suddenly becomes ‘uncouth’ to eat with your hands. Isn’t this a double standard? Why is it ok to eat a pizza with your hands but not ok to eat a naan or roti with your hands? You eat Fries with your hands so why not pakoda’s?


Eating food using your hands rather than cutlery.

In the end it comes down to the colonial mindset, our food is ok to eat with the hand but if you eat your traditional food with the hands then it is bad since you obviously must ape the western way of doing things. There are reasons behind why eastern civilizations eat food the way they eat. As per the Vedas and Ayurveda the nerve endings of the fingertips are believed to boost digestion. In fact, you become more aware of the textures, taste and aromas as you eat using your hands and engaging the fingertips. In addition, when you eat with your hands if the food is too hot for your fingers, you know it is too hot for your body/mouth. This allows you to ensure the food is not too hot or too cold before you put it in your mouth.

That doesn’t mean that all food should be eaten with your hands. For example, if you are having pasta I really don’t think that it should be eaten with your hands but rather should be eaten with a fork. I think that you should eat food as the natives eat it for the best experience. When I visited China two years ago I couldn’t use a chopstick for the life of me and had to constantly ask for a fork during meals. Then after a lot of attempts I finally figured out how to use chopsticks successfully and then I found that I was enjoying the food more. Plus the locals liked that I was making an effort to follow local custom and tradition. Same when I eat south Indian meals, I am fine using my hands till I get to the rice portion but I do try (unless I can get away with using a spoon) 🙂

If someone does things differently from how you do it, it doesn’t make it better or worse; It is just different. The more differences we look for the more we will find, similarly the more similarity we look for the more we will find. People who travel to other countries and expect things to be exactly the way they were at their home country are missing the point. The goal is to enjoy the diversity of custom and culture we have in the world.

Well this is all for now. Will write more later.

– Suramya

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