Who is the inventor of chopsticks?

Jiang Ziya and chopsticks.

This legend is circulated in Sichuan and other places, saying that Jiang Ziya is very poor, because he can only fish with a straight hook and know nothing else. His wife really couldn't stand living with him, so she wanted to kill him and marry someone else.

On this day, Jiang Ziya returned empty-handed after fishing. His wife said, "Are you hungry? I've cooked the meat for you, eat it quickly! " Jiang Ziya was really hungry, so he reached for the meat. Suddenly a bird flew out of the window and pecked him. He groaned in pain, didn't eat meat, and hurried to catch birds. When he went to get the meat for the second time, the bird pecked the back of his hand again. Jiang Ziya became suspicious. Why did this bird peck me twice? Can't I eat this meat? In order to try the bird, he caught the meat for the third time, and then the bird pecked him again. Jiang Ziya knew it was a divine bird, so he pretended to drive it away and chased it outside until it reached an uninhabited hillside. The bird perched on a silk bamboo and sang in a low voice: "Jiang Ziya Jiang Ziya, don't eat meat with your hands, the meat is at my feet …" Jiang Ziya listened to the bird's advice and picked two thin bamboos and went home. At this time, his wife urged him to eat meat again, so Jiang Ziya put two bamboo sticks in the bowl and caught the meat. Suddenly, he saw smoke coming out of the silk bamboo and hissing. Jiang Ziya pretended not to know about the poisoning and said to his wife, "How can meat smoke?"? Is it poisonous? " Jiang Ziya said, and picked up the meat to his wife's mouth. My wife turned pale with fear and hurried out the door.

Jiang Ziya knew that this bamboo was a gift from God Bird, and any poison could be detected. Since then, he has eaten with two bamboo sticks every meal. After the news came out, not only did his wife dare not poison again, but the neighbors also learned to eat with bamboo branches. 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 worshipping Jiang Ziya, and it is also inconsistent with historical records. Ivory chopsticks appeared in the Yin Dynasty, and Jiang Ziya and Yin were contemporaries. Now Zhou Wang has used ivory chopsticks, while Jiang Ziya's silk and bamboo chopsticks are far from being invented. But one thing is true, that is, bamboo was used as chopsticks in the south of Shang Dynasty.

2. da ji and chopsticks

This legend is circulated in Jiangsu area. It is said that Shang and Zhou dynasties are moody. When eating, the fish is not fresh, the chicken soup is too hot, and sometimes it is said that the food is too cold to eat. As a result, many chefs became ghosts under his sword. Da ji, the favorite princess, already knew that he was difficult to serve, so every time she gave a banquet, she had to taste it in advance so as not to make Zhou Wang angry again. On one occasion, da ji tasted it and thought some bowls were too hot, but it was too late to change them, because Zhou Wang had already served. In order to win the favor of Zhou Wang, da ji used his quick wits. He quickly took off his long hair clip and picked it up. He blew it over and over again, and then when the food cooled, he sent it to Zhou Wang's mouth. Zhou Wang is a dissolute and shameless person. He thinks it is a pleasure to feed da ji, so he does it every day. Da ji asked a craftsman to make two plates specially for her, which is the prototype of jade chopsticks. Later, this way of picking vegetables spread to the people, and chopsticks were produced.

This legend is not as full of myth as the first one, it is closer to life and has certain practical significance, but it is still full of legend and does not conform to historical facts. Archaeologists unearthed steel chopsticks in the Shang Dynasty tomb at Houjiazhuang 1005 in Anyang, which was earlier than the Zhou Wang era at the end of Yin Dynasty. Obviously, chopsticks were not invented by Zhou Wang or da ji, but should have been an earlier product.

3. Dayu and chopsticks

This legend has spread in the northeast. It's about the Yao-Shun era, when floods flooded and Shun ordered Yu to control water. After Dayu was ordered, he vowed to clear the flood for the people, so he searched his house three times and didn't go in. He struggled with fierce water waves day and night, not to mention resting, and even eating and sleeping, he could not bear to delay a minute.

Once, Dayu came to an island by boat. He was so hungry that he set up an earthenware pot to come to cook the meat. After the meat is boiled in water, it can't be eaten by hand because it is hot. Dayu didn't want to waste time waiting for the meat pot to cool down. He wanted to save water before the flood peak came, so he cut off two branches and took the meat out of the hot soup to eat. Since then, in order to save time, Dayu always used branches and thin bamboo poles to get food from the boiling hot pot. This will save time to subdue the flood. Over time, Dayu skillfully learned the skill of holding food with a thin stick. When his people saw that he ate like this, he was neither spicy nor greasy, so they followed suit and gradually formed the prototype of chopsticks.

Although "legend" mainly expresses people's understanding, views and feelings about historical events through some historical materials, rather than strictly reappearing the historical events themselves, Dayu accidentally produced the process of using chopsticks at first in water conservancy, which convinced people today that this was the real situation. Compared with the legend of making chopsticks in Jiang Ziya and da ji, it is more simple and true, and it also conforms to the development law of things.

The most important opportunity to promote the birth of chopsticks should be that cooked food is hot. In ancient times, because there were no metal utensils, and because the bones of animals were very short, extremely brittle and difficult to process, ancestors picked bamboo and branches to catch cooked food. In the wilderness environment, human beings live in dense forests and grass holes, and the most convenient materials are trees and bamboo branches. Because of this, sticks and thin bamboo were fiddled with by ancestors when baking, and they longed for clips when scalding food. When cooking millet, the rudiment of chopsticks gradually appeared. This is the inevitable development law of human beings in special environment. Judging from the shape of chopsticks now, they also have the characteristics of primitive bamboo sticks. Even after more than 4000 years of development, its originality cannot be changed.

Of course, any legend has to be processed by people of all ages, such as taking advantage of the situation, tailoring, fiction, exaggeration, rendering and even fantasy, and Dayu created chopsticks. It is the process of making chopsticks that people have gradually explored for thousands of years, with the focus on Dayu, a typical figure. In fact, the birth of chopsticks should be the collective wisdom of ancestors, not the credit of one person. However, chopsticks may have originated in Yu Wang's time. After hundreds or even years of hard work and popularization, it became a tableware used with Bi * * * in Shang Dynasty.