Well, it's got something to do with Confucius and... Cardinal Richelieu?

嗯，這跟孔子和......黎塞留紅衣主教？

I know that doesn't make a lot of sense right now, but it's actually true, sort of.

我知道這句話現在聽起來沒有什麼意義，但它實際上是真的，有點像

And the two men did have one thing in common: they both hated eating with knives.

的......兩人確實有一個共同點：都討厭用刀吃飯。

Now, you might wonder, "What's wrong with knives?"

現在，你可能會問，刀子怎麼了？

After all, we've been using them since Neolithic times.

畢竟，我們從新石器時代就開始使用它們了。

They're the simplest way to stuff your face.. until they aren't, and that's where chopsticks come in.

它們是最簡單的填飽肚子的方式......直到它們不是，而這正是筷子來了。

The first chopsticks (that we know of at least) are around three thousand years old, and were found in the ruins of the city of Yin, the last capital of the Shang Dynasty in Northern China.

據我們所知，最早的筷子距今已有三千年左右的歷史。在殷墟遺址中發現，殷墟是商朝在北方的最後一個都城。 中國。

Now, interestingly enough, these chopsticks were only used to stir stews; they weren't actually used for eating.

有趣的是，這些筷子只用來攪拌燉菜，而不是實際上是用來吃的。

The Shang Dynasty also used long forks in their kitchens, yet for meal times, it was the good old knife and fingers.

商朝的廚房裡也使用長叉，但在用餐時，它是好用的老刀和手指。

So when did chopsticks make their way to the dining table?

那麼，筷子是什麼時候出現在餐桌上的呢？

Well, to find the answer to that, we need to fast forward a millennium or so, to around two thousand years ago during the Han Dynasty.

要找到這個問題的答案，我們需要把時間快進一千年左右，大約在兩千年前的漢朝。

Like their Shang predecessors, the Han ate almost exclusively millet: it didn't need fertilizer or particularly good soil, which was great because the north had neither.

和商朝的前人一樣，漢人幾乎只吃小米：因為它不需要因為北方沒有肥料或特別好的土壤，所以這很好。

The Han made porridge out of their millet and as you can imagine, eating porridge with chopsticks is not exactly the easiest thing to do, so it never caught on.

漢人用粟米煮粥，可以想象，吃粥的時候，粟米和粥一起煮，會有多麼美味。筷子並不是最容易做的事，所以一直沒有流行起來。

But as the Han Dynasty expanded south, their diet started changing.

但隨著漢朝向南擴張，他們的飲食習慣開始發生變化。

You see, the south was perfectly suited for growing rice; in fact, rice grew so plentifully there that they had enough leftover to feed the north with it too.

你看，南方非常適合種植水稻；事實上，水稻長得非常茂盛在那裡，他們還剩下了足夠多的食物來餵養北方。

Now, you might think that it's equally difficult to eat rice with chopsticks, but East Asian rice is starchy and conveniently sticks together in nice clumps: very easy to grab with a couple of sticks.

現在，你可能會認為用筷子吃米飯同樣困難，但東亞的大米富含澱粉，很容易粘成一團：用兩隻手就能輕鬆抓起。 的棍子。

Of course, it wasn't just rice that did it: in the north, millet had another challenger - wheat.

當然，不僅僅是大米，在北方，小米也是一個挑戰者- 小麥

More wheat meant less porridge and more noodles and dumplings, which of course leads to chopsticks again.

更多的小麥意味著更少的粥，更多的麵條和餃子，這當然會導致筷子的出現又來了

This period also saw the rise of stir frying – for which food was pre-cut into bite-sized morsels, all the easier to pick up and eat with your trusty chopsticks.

在這一時期，炒菜也興起了。這樣，您就更容易用筷子夾起來吃了。

They're pretty damn versatile, these chopsticks, and what was even better: they're cheap.

這些筷子還真是用途廣泛，更棒的是，它們還很便宜。

This actually matters quite a lot when you've got a population as big as China's, which - mind you - was about 1/4th of the entire world's population at the time.

當你擁有像中國這樣龐大的人口時，這一點其實非常重要。- 你要知道，這大約是當時全世界人口的四分之一。

More people means less resources to go round: less metal for knives and forks, less fuel for fires.

人口越多，資源越少：刀叉的金屬用量減少，燃料減少火災。

And here's some culinary physics for you: cutting food into small chunks before cooking it makes it cook faster and uses less fuel.

下面是一些烹飪物理知識：烹飪前將食物切成小塊這樣烹飪速度更快，燃料消耗更少。

It's economics all the way down and a bit of psychology as well.

從頭到尾都是經濟學......還有一點心理學。

After all, once you start using chopsticks, you'd naturally prefer smaller chunks of food that are easier to eat with said chopsticks.

畢竟，一旦你開始使用筷子，你自然會更喜歡小塊的食物。用筷子更容易吃到的食物。

So in the end, knives moved from the table to the kitchen and chopsticks from the kitchen to the table.

最後，刀子從餐桌移到了廚房，筷子從廚房移到了餐桌。到餐桌上。

Our good friend Confucius was one of the biggest advocates of chopsticks: in his eyes, a tool as violent and barbaric as the knife had no place on an honorable man's table.

我們的好朋友孔子是筷子的最大擁護者之一：在他眼中，筷子是一種工具像刀子一樣粗暴野蠻的東西在一個體麵人的餐桌上是沒有地位的。

In fact, he made such a big deal out of it that his followers recorded this in the Book of Rites, one of the Five Classics that make up the core of Confucian philosophy.

事實上，他在這件事上大做文章，以至於他的追隨者在《聖經》中記錄了這樣一段話禮記》是構成儒家哲學核心的 "五經 "之一。

Now, I know that ever since we started this, you've been meaning to ask, "What the hell does Cardinal Richelieu have to do with any of this?"

我知道，自從我們開始做這件事，你就一直想問，這到底是怎麼回事？紅衣主教黎塞留與此事有何關係？ 好吧，雖然他可能並不精通儒家禮儀，但他也討厭看到

Well, it's a very good question.

Well, although he probably wasn't well-versed in his Confucian etiquette, he too hated seeing knives at his table.

他桌上的刀

You see, back in those days, the knives you'd find on the average European dining table were pretty sharp; in fact, they were just as sharp as a knife you'd use to stab someone.

要知道，在那個年代，一般歐洲餐桌上的刀具它們非常鋒利；事實上，它們就像用來刺人的刀一樣鋒利。

What's even weirder though, is that when your table guests weren't actively conspiring against you, they'd use those same sharp knives as toothpicks.

但更奇怪的是，當你的同桌客人沒有積極密謀時對付你，他們會用那些尖刀當牙籤。

Richelieu, being the cunning mastermind that he was, started ordering every knife's blade to be ground down until it could barely cut anything.

黎塞留是個狡猾的主謀，他開始訂購每一把刀的刀刃被磨得幾乎無法切割任何東西。

Richelieu fixed his pointy-knife problem by inventing the table knife, while Confucius solved it by popularizing chopsticks.

黎塞留髮明瞭餐刀，解決了尖刀問題，而孔子筷子的普及解決了這個問題。

And that my friends is the point... or not, as the case may be.

我的朋友們，這才是重點......或者不是重點，視情況而定。

Well, my friends, I hope I've satiated your culinarily-historical hunger.

好了，我的朋友們，希望我已經滿足了你們對美食和歷史的渴望。

In case I did, you'll be happy to hear that we're cooking new batches as we speak, so if you'd like to be the first to know when the next one is ready, feel free to subscribe and hit that bell button with your chopsticks or bluntened knife.

如果我這樣做了，你會很高興聽到我們正在烹飪新的批次，所以如果您想第一時間知道下一篇文章的發佈時間，請隨時訂閱 然後用筷子或鈍刀敲擊鈴鍵。

Again, thank you for watching; we'll see each other again soon for the next deliciously delectable and devious episode of SideQuest!

再次感謝您的收看；我們很快就會在下一期美味節目中再見面。令人食指大動的 "SideQuest "情節！