A folk tale from Northeast my country states that while combating floods, Dayu passed by his home three times without entering, instead dining outdoors. Sometimes pressed for time, he would wait for the meat to boil before setting off on his journey. However, when the soup was boiling and he couldn't begin, he would break off branches to pick up meat or rice to eat. This was the earliest prototype of chopsticks. While this legend isn't official history, the fact that cooked food is hot suggests that chopsticks emerged as a result, in line with the laws of human development.
Zheng's commentary on the "Book of Rites" states, "They coated living things with earth and roasted them." This refers to wrapping millet in leaves, coating it with mud, and roasting it over a fire. Some experts believe this roasting method also led to the development of chopsticks. When our ancestors roasted the coated grains in ashes, they used branches to stir them evenly. Our ingenious ancestors were inspired by the process of stirring primitive popcorn. Over time, the prototype of chopsticks gradually emerged. This is of course speculation, as there was no written language at the end of the Neolithic Age, entering the Xia Yu era, and the process of chopstick invention could not be recorded at that time. However, these speculations by food experts are not without scientific basis.
The Han Feizi (Han Feizi) "Yu Lao" refers to chopsticks as "zhu," further supporting the idea that they were originally made of wood or bamboo. Because wood was plentiful in the north and bamboo in the south, our ancestors sourced local materials, making bamboo and wood the most primitive materials for chopsticks in my country.
Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" from the Han Dynasty states that "zhu" (zhu) is derived from the sound of "zhuzhe." The ancients said, "zhu means to hold something," and "jia" (jia) is derived from the character "mu." This further supports the idea that our ancestors first used thin tree trunks or bamboo as food-holding implements. However, the long process from using branches or bamboo to pick up hot food from pottery pots to the development of chopsticks was centuries, if not longer.
From the origin of chopsticks, we can extend this to our daily tableware, such as containers and frying spoons, which are likely made of bamboo, wood, or stone tools, thus reflecting the long history of bamboo and wood tableware in our lives.
