Eating with your Hands around the World
Updated: Sep 11, 2023
If you’ve seen my videos on social media, you’ll notice that I eat with my hands a lot. In Canada this may seem a bit surprising because most people eat most dishes with utensils but what some of you may not know is just how commonplace eating with your hands is around the world. In this post I hope to shed some light on just a few of the countries/cultures that eat food with their hands from every corner of the world!
NORTH AND SOUTH AMERICA
In Mexico, especially certain regions eating with your hands is commonplace. Think about it… we all eat tacos with our hands! And if we all eat tacos with our hands and most tacos contain stewed or roasted meat then why would it be surprising to also eat other stewed/roasted dishes with your hands using a tortilla!
Another region in North America where you can find eating with your hands as commonplace (traditionally) is Hawaii! Here you will find people consuming a wide range of dishes along with poi, a starch made of pounded taro that was historically the preferred carbohydrate with meals. There are also numerous other dishes such as empanadas and pupusas that are also generally consumed with your hands in South America. This partially lends to the street food culture in these countries (and Mexico) where eating food in front of street food stalls with your hands is customary.
Also, there’s one country where people eat certain dishes with their hands that I am completely forgetting about… oh yeah, the USA! Sandwiches, hot dogs, burgers, and pizza are all eaten with your hands! Although this isn’t quite the same as eating a dish with your hands that can get all over your fingers it still surprises me how uncomfortable many Americans are with eating stewed or roasted dishes with their hands! I tend to get a lot of comments from these people about how I eat with my hands which seems a bit silly to me which is why I wanted to mention this!
AFRICA
If you have experienced the joy of eating Ethiopian or Nigerian food, you know that these African cuisines are all about eating with your hands! Starting with Ethiopian food, a combination of dishes is often served on a platter called a gebeta which is covered with a layer of injera. Injera is an Ethiopian fermented flatbread that can be quite sour and pairs perfectly with the rich, savoury, Ethiopian stews.
You can then rip pieces of the injera off and eat the stews with your hands, usually sharing the same platter with others as well, although if you prefer all of the Ethiopian restaurants I have been to also serve individual dishes with a side of injera. If you have never had Ethiopian food this is an amazing foodie experience that I highly recommend and Ethiopian cuisine is actually one of my favourites in the world!
Nigeria on the other hand opts for starchy vegetables to be consumed with their food. Most commonly, pounded yam or pounded cassava (fufu) is made into a smooth consistency that can then be molded and used to eat a variety of delicious Nigerian stews. This sounds similar to the Hawaiian poi to me but I am not entirely sure because while I have had fufu before I have never had poi… definitely on my foodie bucket list though! In any case I think that its an ingenious form of eating with your hands because you can perfectly mold the pounded starches to scoop up food with ease!
THE MIDDLE EAST
I couldn’t find too much information on the specifics of eating with your hands in the Middle East for individual countries but I think the general principles apply to the region as a whole so what I will say here is a gross generalization.
In my experience, it is not uncommon for people to eat dips or other dishes in the Middle East with their hands using pita, a local flatbread. This is also generally done using the right hand only for religious reasons. There is also the now worldwide famous shawarma/donair meat in pita which is also of course eaten with your hands and is an absolute must try if you ever need some food on the go!
SOUTH ASIA
Now comes my region of the world, and perhaps the most famous region of the world for eating with our hands, South Asia! In South Asia although the cuisines vary wildly by region (as I briefly discuss in my previous blog post) most people still eat with their hands! For myself and most of Pakistan and North India this takes the form of eating dishes with any number of flatbreads… we have so many!
For breakfast you may enjoy halwa puri in Pakistan which is consumed with a greasy but airy flatbread called puri, for lunch you may have a paratha with chai or a stuffed paratha, and for dinner you may have naan or roti with your favourite curry/stew! These are all consumed by scooping up the food using the flatbread and once you get used to it it’s super easy and my favourite way to eat! I have a whole post on South Asian flatbreads so make sure to check that out here!
Alternatively, many South Indians and Bengali people eat their stews/curries with their hands accompanied by rice! This will often be seen with a variety of dishes on a large leaf (for example a banana leaf) and rice which can then be picked up and mashed with each dish and eaten. I think this is such an amazing concept for trying small portions of many dishes and then being able to discard a compostable plate! This can also be seen in other Asian countries like the Philippines, where the traditional method of eating with hands and rice often served on a banana leaf is called Kamayan.
I hope you guys learned a little bit more about eating with your hands around the world! I think this is a great topic to learn more about in order to de-stigmatize eating with your hands because a lot of Western cultures have created a stigma around eating with your hands that can be really uncomfortable for foreigners.
Not to mention, many groups of people who were colonized were forced to use utensils and give up eating with their hands as this was often viewed by colonizers as “barbaric”. People have also commented about it to me but in the current age of information I hope that we can all learn more about each others cultures and respect as well as embrace what each culture has to offer!
Key takeaway: eating with your hands is normal and important to a lot of cultures!
Checkout my other blog posts to read more about food from around the world and checkout my TikTok to see all the delicious food I eat here in Canada that comes from all around the world. If you enjoyed this post, also consider subscribing to my mailing list to get notified about not only what’s new with the blog but also what’s new in my life in general! I hope you all have an amazing day!
References: https://onolicioushawaii.com/poi/ https://traveledearth.com/2012/04/08/ode-to-the-pupusa/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injera https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/05/dining/fufu-recipe-swallows.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/recipes/0/middle-eastern-mezze-platter-lamb-skewers-recipe/ https://tribune.com.pk/story/2390445/5-karachi-eateries-that-offer-the-best-halwa-puri https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/food-news/this-is-the-real-reason-why-people-eat-on-a-banana-leaf/photostory/90824235.cms
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