Fork & Spoon

I have been cooking lots of Asian dishes at home and I have paired them with rice most of the time.  When it comes to serving the food, Pete knows to bring a fork for him and a spoon for me, or sometimes I even forgo the spoon and eat rice the Malay way - with my fingers.  I am used to eating rice with spoons.  That's how it is back home.  We usually eat rice dishes with a fork and a spoon, pushing the rice with the back of the fork into the spoon.  The spoon is used to scoop everything up neatly into our mouths.

But here people use a knife and fork to eat, even when rice is served.  When I am invited to other people's houses for a meal, I notice that the table would be laid with a fork on the left of the plate and a knife on the right.  And it's interesting to see how they would eat the bits of rice, whatever they could push with their knife onto the fork.  When we invite people over, I would make sure I lay the table with fork, knife and spoon.  But I notice that I am the only one using the fork and spoon to eat the rice.

I guess the difference is that back home, rice is the main component of the meal.  The other dishes that are served with it, whether it's chicken, beef or seafood, are accompaniments. Here, rice is usually the side dish.  Hence the difference in the cutlery used.  And it's not only in the homes that the fork and knife combo is the norm.  When we went to an Asian buffet restaurant where dishes like chicken curry are served, again the spoons are missing. 

It looks like I have to get used to eating rice with a fork but at home, I am still going to use the spoon or even better, my fingers.  That way, I can enjoy my rice dishes fully.