There is no conclusive conclusion, but most people think it is in China.
The origin of chopsticks
East Asia is the birthplace of chopsticks. It is said that eating with chopsticks has a history of at least 3,000 years, and it is the region in the world where chopsticks are used as a food. Chopsticks look like very simple two small thin sticks, but they have the functions of picking, plucking, clamping, mixing, grilling, etc. They are easy to use, cheap and good-quality. Chopsticks are also a unique type of tableware in the world today. Chopsticks are a product of the slow evolution of humans in Asia and were not invented by a single person.
The first king to use ivory chopsticks
Our country is the birthplace of chopsticks and has a long history of eating with chopsticks. The ancient book "Han Feizi·Yu Lao" records that "in the past, Zhou was an elephant chopstick and the dustpan was terrible." Sima Qian also said in "Historical Records·Zongweizi Family" that "Zhou was an elephant chopstick and the dustpan was like a jade cup." The jade cup must be thought of the rare and strange things in the distance. From then on, the palace became unstoppable." Although this is a statement about the fear of the courtiers caused by King Zhou's extravagant life, it is based on the palace incident caused by the ivory chopsticks. It provides the most valuable written historical materials for us to trace the birth and development of chopsticks. Zhou was the last monarch of the Shang Dynasty. Based on this, it is estimated that around 1144 BC in our country, which means that refined ivory chopsticks appeared in our country more than 3,100 years ago.
Some people also doubt the record in the ancient book "Zhou is an elephant chopstick". They think that there are no elephants in Henan, Hebei and other places. According to archaeologists, archaeologists have discovered that the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty unearthed have the word "xiang" and Records of "Fu Xiang" and "Lai Xiang". There is also a sentence in "Lu Shi Chun Qiu Ancient Music" that "businessmen serve Xiang". According to the "Original Flavor Chapter", the "Jingxiang Agreement" means that the elephant trunk is also a delicacy. From this we can see that there were swarms of wild elephants in the Shang Dynasty. It is precisely because elephants were hunted in the Shang Dynasty that it was possible for "Zhou to become an elephant chopstick".
Jiang Ziya and Chopsticks
This legend is spread in Mengzhou and other places in our city. "Huaiqing Prefecture Chronicles" Volume 23 "Characters·Liuyu" quotes "Historical Records" to record "Lü Wang Note: Jiang Ziya was also called Jiang Taigong. His real name was Jiang Shang, and his surname was also called Lu Shang. His name was Taigong Wang, so he was also called Lu Wang in historical records. He slaughtered cattle in Chaoge and sold rice in Mengjin in the past. "It can be seen that before Jiang Ziya came out of the mountain, he mainly lived in seclusion in the area from Qi County to Meng County.
It is said that Jiang Ziya only knew how to fish with a straight hook and could not do anything else, so he was very poor. His wife really couldn't live a hard life with him, so she wanted to kill him and marry someone else.
This day Jiang Ziya went fishing and came home empty-handed. His wife said, "Are you hungry? I have cooked meat for you. Eat it quickly!" Jiang Ziya was indeed hungry, so he reached out to grab the meat. Suddenly a bird flew out of the window and pecked him. He was so painful that he uttered "Ah!" and rushed to catch the birds without eating any meat. When he went to get the meat a second time, the bird pecked the back of his hand. Jiang Ziya was suspicious of why the bird pecked me twice. Is it because I can't eat this meat? In order to test the bird, he went to catch the meat for the third time, and the bird came to peck him again. Jiang Ziya knew it was a magical bird, so he pretended to chase the bird away and chased it out until it reached an uninhabited hillside. The divine bird perched on a thin bamboo and murmured, "Jiang Ziya, Jiang Ziya, don't eat meat with your hands. The meat is under my feet..." Jiang Ziya listened to the instructions of the divine bird and hurriedly picked two thin bamboos and returned home. At this time, his wife urged him to eat meat again. Jiang Ziya put two pieces of silk bamboo into the bowl to sandwich the meat. Suddenly he saw streams of green smoke hissing out of the silk bamboo. Jiang Ziya pretended not to know about the poisoning and said to his wife, "Why does the meat smoke? Is it poisonous?" Jiang Ziya picked up the meat and put it into his wife's mouth. My wife turned pale with fright and hurriedly ran out the door.
Jiang Ziya understood that this silk bamboo was a sacred bamboo sent by the divine bird. Any poison can be detected. From then on, he used two silk bamboos for every meal. After the news came out, his wife not only did not dare to poison her again, but her neighbors also learned to use bamboo branches to eat. Later, more and more people followed suit, and the custom of eating with chopsticks was passed down from generation to generation.
This legend is obviously the product of worshiping Jiang Ziya and is inconsistent with historical records. And it is said that Jiang Ziya has no wife.
Ivory chopsticks appeared in the era of King Zhou of Yin. Jiang Ziya and King Zhou of Yin were contemporaries. Since King Zhou has already used ivory chopsticks, Jiang Ziya's silk and bamboo chopsticks can't be said to be any inventions. But one thing is true, that is, people in the Shang Dynasty used bamboo as chopsticks.
Daji and Chopsticks
This legend is spread in Wen County, Boai and Encun in Shanyang District of our city. Daji was the daughter of Jizhou Hou Suhu. Suhu was a native of Wenxian County, which is located in today's Boai County. Su escorted Daji to Chaoge and passed by Encun, which was noted as Enzhou Post accommodation. Many stories related to it are still circulated in En Village to this day. There used to be a large earthen mound on the west side of the Wengjian River in the southeast of the first street of Jinen Village called "Daji Tomb" or "Fox Fairy Tomb". The locals called it "Mound Gudui".
It is said that Shang Zhou was in a moody mood when he was eating. He either said that the fish was not fresh or that the chicken soup was too hot. Sometimes he said that the dishes were too cold to eat. As a result, many chefs fell under his knife. The beloved concubine Daji also knew that he was difficult to serve, so every time she served wine for a banquet, she had to taste it in advance to avoid King Zhou's unpalatable taste and anger.
Once Daji tasted that several bowls of delicacies were too hot, but it was too late to change them because King Zhou had already arrived at the table. In order to please King Zhou, Daji hurriedly took off the long jade hairpin on her head, picked up the dish and blew it again and again until the dish cooled down a bit before putting it into King Zhou's mouth. King Zhou was a dissolute and shameless person. He thought it was a pleasure for Daji to pick up vegetables and feed her, so he wanted Daji to do this every day. Daji asked the craftsmen to make two long jade hostas specially for her to hold vegetables. This was the prototype of jade chopsticks. Later, this method of picking up vegetables spread to the people, and chopsticks were produced.
This legend is not full of mythology like the first legend, but is closer to life and has some practical significance, but it is still legendary and inconsistent with historical facts. The steel chopsticks unearthed by archaeologists in the Yin Shang Tomb No. 1005 in Houjiazhuang, Anyang have been verified to be earlier than the King Zhou era at the end of the Yin Dynasty. Obviously, chopsticks were neither invented by King Zhou nor Daji, but should be an earlier product.
The first person to use chopsticks in China
There is a folk legend in my country. It is said that when Yu was dealing with floods, he passed through the house three times without entering. I'm eager to eat when I start cooking, and then I'm on my way. But when the soup was boiling and I couldn't do anything, I just broke branches and stuffed them with meat or rice flour. This was the first prototype of chopsticks. Although the legend is not official history, it is in line with the laws of human life and development that chopsticks and chopsticks were born because cooked food was hot.
Zheng Zhu in "Book of Rites" says, "The living things can be eaten by coating them with soil." This involves wrapping millet leaves in paste and roasting it in a fire. Some experts believe that this grilling method also promoted the formation of chopsticks. When the ancestors roasted the grains coated with mud in the ashes of the fire, they constantly stirred them with branches to make them ripen evenly. It was in the process of stirring the primitive popcorn that our intelligent ancestors were inspired to form the prototype of chopsticks. Gradually appeared in the hands of the ancestors.
This is of course speculation because there was no writing at the end of the Neolithic Age and the Xia and Yu era, and it was impossible to record the invention of chopsticks at that time. However, these speculations by dietary experts are not without scientific reason.
"Han Feizi Yu Lao" calls chopsticks "箸", which once again proves that chopsticks were originally made of wood and bamboo. Because there are many trees in the north and bamboo in the south, our ancestors used local materials. Therefore, bamboo is the most primitive raw material for chopsticks in my country.
Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" of the Han Dynasty said that chopsticks are "made from bamboo." A tool for carrying food. However, it takes hundreds of years or even longer to use twigs and thin bamboos to scoop hot food from clay pots to the time when chopsticks are formed.
The history of mankind is a history of evolution. As food and cooking methods improve, its eating utensils also continue to develop. In primitive society, everyone ate with their hands. In the Neolithic Age, our ancestors mostly used the steaming method for meals. The staple food, rice and beans, was boiled into porridge. Non-staple food, vegetables and meat were added with water to cook into a juicy soup. For porridge, a dagger was used to pick vegetables and meat out of the soup, and a dining spoon was used. It is inconvenient to use chopsticks to pick up vegetables and leaves, but it is easy to eat them. Therefore, "Book of Rites·Quli" says, "If there are vegetables in the soup, use it to hold it, and if there is no vegetable, you don't need to hold it." Zheng Xuan notes, "It is also like holding chopsticks." From this we can see the new In the Stone Age, soup was a secondary staple food. It was extremely inconvenient to use a spoon to grasp the hot and thin soup with your hands. Therefore, chopsticks became the ideal tableware.
In short, the appearance of chopsticks is not isolated. Daggers and keys have been found in Yangshao cultural sites as far back as the middle Neolithic Age. When history advanced to the late Neolithic Age, people's wisdom had developed to a certain extent and living conditions had improved. Eating with daggers and spoons alone could no longer adapt to the evolution of cooking, and chopsticks appeared in line with the trend. However, four thousand years ago, the Xia Dynasty chopsticks were still in their infancy. After hundreds of years of continuous evolution, in the Shang and Tang Dynasties, they gradually formed two small sticks of the same length, longer than the tiger's mouth. Then it developed to the end of the Shang Dynasty, in order to satisfy the needs of his king's luxurious and noble life, Zhou ordered the hunting of elephants to saw their teeth and make elephant chopsticks.
Because there is no record of the birth of the chopsticks, we can only trace the origin of the chopsticks based on various inferences and circumstantial evidence from some experts. But we believe that the emergence of the chopsticks is the inevitable result of historical deduction.