The Best Way to Eat a Salad? With a Pair of Chopsticks

published Jul 15, 2013
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(Image credit: Emma Christensen)

While living in Japan, I learned to eat almost every type of food with chopsticks. It didn’t take long to realize I had been eating salad like a chump my whole life.

Think about it. Spearing a flat, floppy piece of lettuce with a fork is at best a mild challenge and at worst an awkward way to smear dressing over half your cheek. Poking a fork through a rock-hard crouton usually cleaves it into two pieces of rock-hard crouton, which you have to try to scoop onto your fork. This may sound dramatic, but I’m not the only one to notice that it’s tough to gracefully eat a salad with a fork.

But when you eat a salad with chopsticks, there is no spearing or poking or scooping. There is only the easy transfer from plate to mouth with the help chopsticks, which act as a sort of extension of your fingers. Depending on how adept you are, it can be as easy as eating salad with your bare hands but, you know, a little less weird in public.

I haven’t gotten to the point where I carry a pair of chopsticks with me whenever I eat out, but I’ll admit that sometimes while sitting there, repeatedly stabbing a piece of stubborn arugula, I kind of wish I did.

Do you ever eat salad with chopsticks?