You still eat with your hands.” This is a comment (allegedly) made by Oprah Winfrey in her show on India, suggesting as if eating with hands is something primitive and undesirable. Such cultural insensitivity from a TV hostess renowned for her empathy! Why this disgust about eating with hands? Tribes in Africa eat with their hands. Tribes in Australia eat with their hands. Tribes in America eat with their hands. Greeks did not use cutlery. Romans did not use the fork and knife. And Jesus certainly broke bread with his hands.

Long before cutlery became fashionable in Europe, chopsticks were used in China. The oldest ones, made of bronze, have been dated to 1000 BC. In the Orient, it is considered uncivilised to serve a guest food that has to be cut or torn with a knife or speared by a fork.