Today, through an unplanned series of events, I ended up having lunch in a rather nice Japanese restaurant (with a special discount cos my friend's stepdaughter was waitress!). I managed to eat the whole meal with chopsticks, in as far as I ate everything and didn't use any other implements, though I'm sure a Japanese person would have winced. But it made me wonder on the extent to which cuisine drives utensils and vice versa. Clearly there's a relationship, but which is more important? Obviously there are other factors to consider, like natively available (or assimilated) foodstuffs, and probably various other cultural aspects too. My friend, who's been to Japan (his partner lived there and his stepdaughter was born there), said it certainly influenced Japanese rice, ie that it's sticky, in contrast to that preferred in eg India.
