eating with chopsticks

Chopsticks were used by Second Age elves as a simple cooking tools to stir stews. This practice is still fairly popular in the kitchens of modern grey elves and wood elves.   Chopsticks were adopted as an eating utensil in Umera late in the Red Era. By the dawn of the feudal era, chopsticks became ubiquitous on the dinner tables of most peasants and princes alike in Umera.   This pushed by two factors. First, Mera affiliated philosophers preached against having knives at the dinner table of peaceful and civilized families. Second, chopsticks are cheap and population and economic pressures made this pragmatic to adopt.   Centuries later, trade with Umera has caused chopstick use to spread but these tend to be limited to relatively small localized areas. Some human citizens of the Elven Empire picked up the practice, as have a few Penarchian humans, especially in rice growing regions where chopstick use was adopted along with Umeran rice farming techniques.   In recent centuries, wood elves on Rumspringa visiting Umera have adopted the practice of using chopsticks as eating utensils and brought it home with him. Note that most food Codenyans eat is less sticky and is somewhat harder to eat with chopsticks than the rice, noodles, and dumplings Umerans favor. Some wood elves view this a feature as a bug as it improves concentration and manual dexterity while also helps eaters slow down and savor their food.   In Codenya, eating with chopsticks is now often associated with Korus worship as this is the cultural subgroup of Codenya that adopted the practice and believes that eating with sticks helps with a back-to-nature lifestyle while also appreciating the aforemention slowing down of mealtimes.

Most chopsticks are wooden, and most are unadorned. Half the point of chopsticks is that they are cheap and easy to manufacture.   Originally used partially because they were cheap, some in the higher social classes opted to differentiate their own chopsticks much like how many wealthy people like fancy knives and spoons. Many chopsticks are intricately carved. Some fancier chopsticks are made out of ivory or ironically even metal.