In a Warring States tomb in Luoyang, more than 50 pieces of copper knives and forks have been unearthed, and the Eastern Han Dynasty copper fork has been unearthed in Jiuquan, Gansu, the Eastern Jin Dynasty iron fork has been unearthed in Guangdong, and the Yuan Dynasty fork and knife have been unearthed in Zhangxian County, Gansu......

In other words, Huaxia used knives and forks to eat at least 3,000 years ago, but why did knives and forks disappear later?

Quite simply, knives and forks are laborious, wasteful and impractical!

After the ancestor summed it up with many years of experience, he decisively threw it aside, no need!

Of course, if you don't need it, you have to have a substitute, otherwise, you can't always grasp it with your hands, right?

However, when it comes to chopsticks, it is not like replacing knives and forks overnight. According to historical records, the earliest chopsticks in China were 6 copper chopsticks found in Tomb 1005 of Yinxu in Anyang. It can be seen that in the Shang Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago, chopsticks were on the dinner table of the Chinese.

Of course, there is also a legend that I don't know whether it is true or false, it is said that when Dayu controlled the water, he cooked a pot of dishes, was in a hurry to eat, took two sticks and ate it, and opened the era of chopsticks. But this is a legend after all, and it is not good as a source.

In the Warring States period 2,500 years ago, chopsticks have basically become the mainstream on the dining table, and at that time, we Chinese people began to use chopsticks on a large scale. At that time, knives and forks, except for a few extremely stubborn people who continued to use them, could basically only enter the kitchen, cut vegetables or something, and it was difficult to get into the elegant hall.

From another point of view, knives and forks and chopsticks are actually just natural choices for the progress of social productive forces.

At the beginning, knives and forks appeared because people lived by hunting, and what they caught was wild beasts, and they were put on the fire and grilled directly, and large pieces of meat were difficult to swallow.

Later, the Chinese agricultural civilization matured, the ingredients became more and more abundant, and the processing methods began to be diversified and refined, and the way of cutting and eating cooked food at the dinner table could no longer meet the needs of people's lives. In addition, with the improvement of productivity, people's food has begun to change from satisfying their own survival needs to pursuing the enjoyment of food. So people began to have time to cook food, cut it into a pot before cooking, and when it was served, it was already the most suitable size for swallowing and chewing. Therefore, it is more convenient to use chopsticks to pick it up and put it directly in the mouth.

In addition, if there is a conflict or something on the table, it is very easy to have an accident. The advantage of chopsticks is that they are safer than knives and forks, and they are more elegant and calm. Before the Warring States period, those who could use chopsticks were aristocrats. Eating with chopsticks was a social status symbol at the time. After that, chopsticks were slowly popularized among the people as a fashion.

Luxurious and exquisite chopsticks are not only tableware, but also a symbol of wealth.

For example, Liu Yu, the founding emperor of the Southern Song Dynasty, gave chopsticks to his minister Shen Qingzhi, and Li Longji, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, rewarded Prime Minister Song Jing with his own golden chopsticks.

Therefore, the elimination of knives and forks by chopsticks is the inevitable result of the forward development of Chinese social civilization.

As for why the West did not choose chopsticks, but used knives and forks, the reason is actually very simple.

Because in ancient times, the West did not use knives and forks at all, they all ate with their hands. Of course, it's also fortunate that they don't have hot pot to eat, otherwise the knife and fork can be on the table early.

The reason why we eat with our hands is because the West regards Egyptian culture as the source of its own culture, and the Egyptian habit of eating with my hands has influenced the way of eating in the West.

This can be seen from the murals of various hands holding food in the pyramids, and the ancient Greeks and Romans also used their hands to eat rice. Even in Rome, which was the most powerful at the time, the most fashionable way for the aristocracy to eat was to lie on the bed and grasp the food with their hands. In many European and American historical film and television dramas, we can see that people at that time did not use knives and forks.

By the Middle Ages...... Well, looking at the way your eyes are straight, I don't know how long ago the Middle Ages were. Well, in fact, 1,000 years ago, Europeans still ate with their hands.

At that time, the European court was very particular about eating. In order to distinguish between high and low status, the royal family and the nobility used three fingers, not five fingers like the commoners, so today's dinner forks are all three-toothed. Those nobles whose fingers were stained with oil and water could not be licked or wiped with clothes like commoners, but with a special cloth, which is the origin of the napkin.

All this was also their helpless choice, because at that time, the geographical environment of Europe, agriculture has always been backward, without the current irrigation technology and production conditions, European society has always been in a semi-agricultural and semi-nomadic state. The backward production method led to a lack of food, and even the nobles at that time had difficulty eating enough, let alone eating well.

As far as the poor monks knew, in the early Middle Ages, the church enacted seven deadly sins, one of which was the absurd felony of "gluttony." There was often a famine, and the lords wandered around with their retinues, and each time they went to a subordinate estate, they could eat more, which also caused many nobles to die, so the church condemned and warned those who were gluttonous.

Therefore, their social productivity has always been very low, where can they be in the mood to think about how to enjoy food.

Moreover, the diet of Europeans is very simple, mainly cereals, legumes, and a small amount of fruits and vegetables, not to mention chopsticks, even knives and forks are useless, just use your hands. At that time, including Queen Elizabeth I of England and Louis XIV of France, they were still eating with their hands.

Later, the courts and nobles of Europe were influenced by Eastern culture before they accepted knives and forks.

Therefore, tracing back to the roots, the knives and forks used by Westerners are still learned from us. So, now some ignorant children envy the Europeans and Americans who use knives and forks for gentlemen, and the poor monks really don't know what they think.

If they like the habits of Europeans and Americans, they can try hand-grabbed hot pot. ”

Speaking of this, Fang Zheng paused, talked so much in one breath, his mouth was dry, and after drinking a big bowl of water, he saw the red boy playing with his mobile phone there, frowned, and asked, "Pure heart, what are you doing?"

Red Boy said: "I'll write down what you just said, Master, and post it on Weibo." Scold, those fools!"

Qin Shou glared at the red boy and said, "Monk, don't scold people, unless it's not a person who scolds!"

"Yes, Master, these fools!" the red boy continued to scold.

Qin Shou had a teachable expression, stabbed the squirrel on the table that was about to roll up with a smile, and asked, "Where did you just say for the teacher?"

The squirrel's eyes rolled widely, and he immediately said, "Speaking of them, they learned knives and forks from us." ”

Qin Shou patted his head and said, "Yes, this is it." This is not bragging, this is something that has historical evidence.

At that time, the Chinese civilization was as bright as the sun in the East, shining on the world. At that time, the first to be affected were the ethnic minorities around China. At that time, the nobles among them also began to use chopsticks. However, what should I do if I still have to cut meat and eat meat? So, there is a combination of knives and chopsticks, and the pursuit is practical and procedural, aristocratic and noble.

If you don't believe it, you go to see the Dong people, Tujia and other ethnic minorities, until now, they are still using chopsticks to intersperse the process of proposing, engaged, and getting married, and have become mascots. In particular, the chopstick dance of the Mongolian festival gives the chopsticks a festive and auspicious meaning.

After they were affected, they were out of control, and Arab and other countries were affected one after another, so China's knives, forks and chopsticks spread to Central Asia and Europe.

As for why Europeans began to use knives and forks, in fact, even Western scholars and experts are not clear, so everyone can only deduce and speculate.

Some believe that the use of knives and forks in Europe can be deduced from the 10th century AD, that is, during the Byzantine Empire, while others believe that it was the 15th century.

Western historian Rhea Tannehir says that forks were first used in the Near East for many years, but only as kitchen utensils, and the widespread use of forks as cutlery began in the 10th century during the Byzantine Empire. During this period, Byzantium was at the juncture of cultural exchanges between the East and the West, and European society accepted many cultures and inventions from the East, such as paper, gunpowder, and of course, knives, forks and chopsticks.

As soon as knives and forks were introduced to Europe, they were discriminated against and ostracized. At that time, the Church of England was opposed to eating with knives and forks, believing that food was a gift from God for the benefit of mankind, and that it was arrogant and insulting to God not to touch food with fingers. The missionaries of medieval Germany even denounced the fork as a "devil's luxury", saying that "if God wanted us to use such a tool, he would not give us a finger".

But after all, eating with knives, forks and chopsticks is much more civilized than eating with hands, and slowly, the European court began to accept eating with knives and forks.

King Charles V of France promoted knives and forks, and his court wore gold and silver forks, which were marked as "used when eating mulberries or food that easily stains the hands".

The introduction of the dinner fork was also a sign that the Western diet had entered the era of civilization. In the late Middle Ages, due to the outbreak of the Black Death, the population of Europe plummeted, and the land was idle, which also led to the development of animal husbandry in Europe, and meat became one of their main foods, and knives and forks were of course more popular than chopsticks.

In addition, in the past, European cooking methods were also very simple and crude, with only three simple ways of stewing, boiling, and baking, and there was no need for tableware such as chopsticks.

The backwardness of food culture and methods has made Europe only choose knives and forks, not chopsticks.

Speaking of which, in fact, to sum up, the knives and forks they use are actually poor, backward, and primitive products, and they are not lofty things at all. Those guys who worship foreigners, to put it bluntly, don't think that knives and forks are noble, but they are beaten and knelt down, and they can't stand up.

After all, in the two hundred years of modern times, the rapid rise of the West with industry defeated the East, and destroyed the self-confidence of the Chinese people, believing that the culture and lifestyle of the West were superior to their own culture, but they took the use of knives and forks as a fashion, but they did not know that this was just a rotten thing that the ancestors disliked.

But if ordinary people don't understand, why are luxury brands so ignorant? Do they think that the current China is still the China of the past? Do they want to refer to the deer as a horse and refer to the deer as a horse? It's really ignorant ......?"

The red boy immediately followed: "Yes, that's a bunch of fools!"