When we were little, my father taught me and my brother how to eat with our hands using roti, an Indian flatbread. He was very clear and specific with his instructions, showing us how to tear a piece of roti with one hand and how to wrap it around a medium-sized mouthful of food (big enough to be efficient, small enough to not land on my shirt on the way to my mouth). He taught us how to be neat and tidy, reminding us that the roti?s job was to keep our fingers from touching the food and that our fingers shouldn?t get messy beyond the line of the first knuckle (because we were kids, he said that we could go to the second knuckle, but absolutely nothing beyond that!).
Later on, I learned how to eat food with rice with my hands from someone else. This process involved using my fingertips (again, not beyond the first knuckle) to pull a mouthful of lentils, vegetables and meat with rice toward me on my plate. I was taught to use my fingers to work the mouthful together so that I would have a reasonably portable, mashed-up nugget. Then I was instructed to bring the nugget to my mouth and use my thumb as a sort of catapult to send it in. It?s both tidy and effective. As I grew up and found myself eating with other Indians in Canada and India, I realized that we had all been given this same lesson from our parents because everyone of all ages would do it the same way. I?ve always believed that food tastes better when it?s delivered to your mouth by your hands, regardless of what y...