Why do Filipinos use spoon and fork during meals instead of knife and fork or chopsticks?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “knife and fork in spanish“
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Written by: Alexandra
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Why do Filipinos use spoon and fork during meals instead of knife and fork or chopsticks?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “knife and fork in spanish“
About Alexandra
In my opinion, it is about the efficiency of how we Filipinos eat. Fork and knife with rice meals would be inefficient as rice grains would fell off. Efficiency and ease of use is more important there in terms of eating. In the Philippines, having left over grains in your plate is frowned upon specially by the elder people. They would always tell you to make sure everything is consumed in your plate as there are other people dying of hunger. Also, for the meat part, mostly we don’t have steaks and hard meat that needs cutting with a fork like the Western countries. Most of meats we have are properly done, tendered and cut into pieces. In case you really need to cut food, it either means it is a steak or it is not properly done.
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The Philippines was under the Spanish for 300 years, and we were also occupied by the Americans (30 years if I remember right) and Japanese (for only a few years).
Most Spanish dishes and culture in general prefer the spoon and fork over chopsticks. There are more rice meals and dishes with sauce, compared to food similar to noodles and dimsum.
Here are some local dishes, and while some technically can be eaten with chopsticks, it is sooooooo much more better to use spoon and fork (and sometimes even with hands)
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Filipinos are highly influenced by other cultures. Other countries’ conquest on the Philippines resulted in a very complex history—from Japan, China, Spain, and America, to name a few. Spain ruled the Philippine islands for a whopping 333 years.
I guess that’s where Filipinos picked up the use of the spoon and the fork— cubiertos , in Spanish, and was passed down from generation to generation.
I would just like to point out, that Filipinos occasionally use chopsticks—for Chinese food or Japanese food—but it’s not as often as the use of the legendary spoon and fork.
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In my point of view, as a Filipino, it is because spoon and fork is multifunctional and less messy. It’s the easiest tool for us compared to chopsticks and knife and fork and still be able to shove the most food/rice we can in our mouth without wasting too many grains.
The spoon has a thin edge that’s sharp enough to cut tender meat (and it’s the norm here in Philippines to cook meat well done). It acts as a shovel — you can eat rice, soup, saucy dishes with a spoon. You can virtually eat any dish with just spoon and fork, and you can collect every grain into your spoon and shove them all in your mouth. Plus points: you’re hands rarely get messy. The only time we switch to hands is when we’re eating seafood and fried food.
The thing with our staple is that it’s usually rice and side dishes. We don’t treat bread as something you eat for a proper meal, and our side dishes can range from dry to very wet, soupy or saucy food. So spoon and fork is the most logical and convenient set of utensils for us.
Edit 10/2019: Removed the entire half of this answer that regarded Philippine History during the Hispanic era. Reasons: Too biased, unproven, and unreliable. Replaced with new additions/answers.
Came across this after actually googling it (but still, this isn’t cited or historically proven):
Before the Spaniards came to conquer the Philippines, the natives used their hands to eat. The natives scoop up food using the fingers of their right hand. When Spaniards came, they brought their culinary traditions and our dishes evolved. Using hands to eat were then frowned upon since they introduced the use of utensils. The spoon and fork became the primary choice.
“Why Filipinos Eat With a Spoon and Fork” by Pinay Ramblings on June 13, 2016. Why Filipinos Eat With a Spoon and Fork
And then I found out Thais use spoon and fork as well: Why, when, and how did Thailand and the Philippines adopt the fork and spoon as tools for eating while the rest of East and Southeast Asia forged ahead with chopsticks? from Quora , and Learn How to Eat Like a Local With These Table Manners for Thailand . Answers offered in the first link have more informative and more reliable explanations. Mon Querubin particularly gave an interesting answer which partially explained the connection and similarity between Thailand and Philippines:
The Philippines and Thailand are part of the Indian sphere of influence. As a rule, people who eat with chopsticks (Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, and Mongolians) are within the Chinese sphere of influence, and those who eat with hands were influenced by India.
The use of cutlery was western influence to the region. For the Philippines, Spain introduced the whole set of Forks, Knives, and Spoons. The use of spoon instead of knife is for practical utility of eating the indigenous food which are often eaten with rice . The spoon can better scoop rice than any utensils.
And Joey Guadalupe offered an answer as to why Filipinos don’t use chopsticks very well compared to their other Southeast and East Asian counterparts:
The Philippines have never eaten meals with chopsticks in any period of their history. Filipinos eat either with their hands (like Indians) before the Spaniards arrived, and later used spoon and fork by 16th century (during the Hispanic era) up to the present…. Also, if you wonder why Filipinos eat with spoon and fork rather than knife and fork is because spoon is more useful and efficient if your meal always constitutes rice. You can also use the spoon to slice meat the same way a knife would if your meat is cooked properly anyway.
In short, knife & fork and chopsticks were never adopted by Filipinos because spoon & fork have more utility given their diet and their preferred way to consume their meals. Eating with your hands is also acceptable in proper occassions where using your hands to eat is more efficient than using utensils, like when you do some island hopping, picnic by the beach, or when meals heavily involve seafoods.
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Im Italian and have lived in the philippines in total between stays for over 2 yrs and i have to say that most likely the use of cutlery is due to the spanish colonization as someone else also pointed out. But i also have to say that the spanish (who colonized the Philippines for over 300 years) and all other europeans use fork and knives, spoon is just for soup…. some europeans including me even eat rice with a fork. Im starting to think that some spanish king or person must have
1) forgotten to the knives back home in its first trip in the 1500’s & spanish were lazy and never went back to pick the knives back home or
2) some kind of superstition started by the natives who were scared by the knives or similar
3) the rest is history
4) result?: an expat living in the philippines has to cut steak with a spoon lol
5) well i know i can always buy one knife or eat in fancy makati restaurants… They have knives
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Can’t really cite any written sources regarding this answer since our history was shared with only the stories from our elders but, as a history lesson from my self defense teacher, we filipino’s were only given the spoon and the fork as our utensils because the spanish were afraid of us using the knives as weapons for revolt. They also banned any practice of combat arts during their reign. We were able to preserve some of them by integrating/hiding them in our dances. A few examples would be hiding our footwork in our “tinikling” dance, balance and arm techniques w/ pandanggo sa ilaw, etc. Just take this answer with a grain of salt as history through word of mouth may not be 100% accurate.
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I eat lugaw, arroz caldo (congee) and knife, fork and chopsticks won’t pick any of the food. So spoon is the best way. My traditional barehanded eating practice is not viable too due to burning temperature of the food.
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In the Indian sub-continent, most people use their hands and fingers to eat food. Soups and macaroni etc., are western dishes. Paratha, roti, rice, naan, pav, idli and dosa are the typical Indian dishes which are eaten with hands. Even chicken, fish etc are managed well with fingers.I was at a dinner table with two British Doctors in 1985 at a five star hotel.
I was eating Biryani and they were struggling with forks. There was a discussion where these two doctors said that they attended a seminar in UK where a paper was presented which confirmed that eating food with fingers triggers release of saliva and gastric juices which are ready to receive the food. The same process starts a few seco…
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This is a very good question, I spoke with my social network at work and found that a large number of these Filipino’s in fact use chopsticks as opposed to a spoon and fork, or knife and fork. For some odd reason, I found that a large number of my co-workers are infact from Chinese descent and could highlight the differences in the ethnic diveristy contained within the Philipines. Notewithstanding, one should interpret the use of utensils as being indicative of the type of food the user typically eats and in this case, my only clue would be that the food(s) may likely be better serve with a spoon then knife. Lastly, you may try to speak directly with the Filipinos within your city as this may be more useful in determining why they use spoons as opposed to knifes.
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