UTENSILS FOR EATING

10 January 2021 | First thing you don’t see much of in Singapore is chopsticks which seems unusual only because the population is largely ethnic Chinese.

The second thing you don’t see much - particularly at a Hawker Centre - is a knife. Singaporeans don’t use knives that often. It was so perplexing to me when I first arrived in Singapore. Where did all the knives go? The Singapore government is notorious for over-legislating laws to protect people from the simplest things (i.e., no outlets in the bathroom) so maybe they banned knives in restaurants? No, they did not ban knives. I eventually found them.

Here’s the thing and here’s why I didn’t see knives very often. Singaporeans don’t really use knives that much. They use a fork with a big spoon. Typically, (if you are right-handed) you hold the fork in your left hand and the big spoon in your right hand. You use the fork, for example, to hold a piece of chicken and then you use the side of the spoon like a knife to tear apart and cut the food. After you’ve done that, you use the fork to help push food into the spoon to eat. I’m probably over-simplifying it a bit and there is probably more technique to it than what I’m describing but when I saw people eat this way, I marveled at the simplicity and efficiency of it all.

And that’s when you realize that unless you are eating some big rib eye steak, a knife is really unnecessary and just one less piece of silverware to wash at the end of the day.