African Entrepreneurship Record

Dar es Salaam.

A public cafeteria.

The new immigrants are undergoing a thoroughly challenging lesson.

"Extend your middle finger, bend it slightly, like I'm doing here, see this part above!" Leiden pointed to the first joint of his middle finger with his left hand as he spoke to the European immigrants.

"This part is crucial; it determines your application of this utensil. Now, let's extend the index finger and thumb too.

Watch my actions carefully: first, place the first wooden stick on the ring finger, then the second one on the first joint of the middle finger, and pinch the top with the thumb and index finger.

Be mindful; the pad of the thumb should also press on the first wooden stick. At this point, the first wooden stick remains stationary.

The thumb, index finger, and middle finger jointly exert force to manipulate the first wooden stick, like this. If you master this skill, in all of East Africa, you can handle pretty much any food." Leiden said to the German immigrants while holding chopsticks in his hands.

As he spoke, Leiden began to demonstrate the entire process of using chopsticks to these immigrants, a ceramic bowl filled with rice and vegetables.

Leiden adeptly held the bowl and used chopsticks to pick up rice and vegetables and bring them to his mouth.

"Of course, this can also be done with a spoon, but the East African government provides only chopsticks to save costs. If you don't learn to use chopsticks, it'll be quite inconvenient." Leiden said.

Of all the utensils in the world, none are easier to produce than chopsticks; even two sticks can temporarily serve as chopsticks.

The cafeteria, being sizable, naturally requires a large number of utensils. However, the impoverished East African colony cannot afford to provide knives, forks, and spoons to these European immigrants.

In this era, Europeans, especially in the German region, primarily used spoons.

In rural German families, meals were typically around the dining table, a communal bowl filled with porridge-like wheat meal, and everyone directly scooped from the bowl or pot using spoons to eat.

If it was bread or other foods that needed cutting, a communal knife was used for dividing.

Such items as knives and forks weren't very common in Germany during this era.

Europeans in the Middle Ages were still eating hands scooped meals, with the earliest use of forks (with two prongs) being in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, around the tenth century. It quickly spread to Italy, becoming an essential utensil for eating pasta.

Previously, people would also use their fingers to grab the saucy pasta, licking clean the sauce-covered fingers afterward, producing a blissful sucking sound.

To improve this unseemly dining habit, they adopted the Byzantine Empire's fork—rolling the noodles around the prongs, then delivering them, one bunch at a time, into the mouth.

However, forks faced opposition from medieval churches. For example, a German missionary of the Middle Ages directly denounced forks as "the devil's luxury," saying, "If God wanted us to use such tools, he wouldn't have given us fingers." Advising everyone to maintain the tradition of eating "hands scooped meals."

With the church's gradual decline, forks started to spread from Italy to other regions.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, European upper-middle-class fully embraced this fork-eating style. The Sun King Louis XIV's French court was the first to initiate the dining mode of one hand wielding a knife and the other holding a fork and produced a multitude of exquisitely crafted silver utensils. Additionally, the French improved the fork from two prongs to four, fundamentally shaping the fork.

At this time, forks were still popular mainly among the upper class in France, with most ordinary Europeans continuing to eat "hand-scooped meals."

Napoleon was the one who truly promoted the widespread use of knives and forks. During Napoleon's era, France was keen on exporting French culture throughout Europe, and forks took root along with Napoleon's army across Europe.

Knives and forks were quite common in German cities but hadn't yet spread widely to rural areas, where many rural people maintained traditional eating habits.

Yet, German commoners weren't exactly backward in dining; at least they used spoons.

Compared to forks, spoons were relatively easy to make, but chopsticks were even simpler and conveniently cleaned, which led to chopsticks being prepared as cafeteria utensils in East Africa.

The use of chopsticks in East African cafeterias was not a decision made by Ernst but rather a spontaneous choice by the cafeteria coordinators in East Africa.

After all, this trivial matter of which utensil to use can be decided by the East African cafeteria coordinators themselves as long as they don't embezzle funds, itemize every expense in the account book, and report it with reasons.

The choice of chopsticks in East African cafeterias was mainly influenced by the Chinese immigrants, coupled with Ernst's substantial hygiene movement and chopsticks' low production costs.

If not for Ernst's hygiene policy, immigrants probably wouldn't care about eating hand-scooped meals, not even needing chopsticks.

Actually, immigrants can bring their own utensils for meals at cafeterias. While direct hand eating is strictly forbidden, they can choose what utensils to use, although East African cafeterias only provide chopsticks.

But, not all European immigrants arrive in East Africa with their dining gear; there are always some careless individuals. On the way to East Africa, the supplies were mainly dry food, so they didn't need utensils, resulting in them being clueless upon arrival.

East African cafeterias implement a meal-sharing system, stipulating that meals cannot be directly eaten with hands to prevent food waste. Immigrants can opt to bring their own utensils or use those provided by the cafeteria.

The cafeteria coordinators are very satisfied with chopsticks, as they've reduced costs while meeting hygiene standards. As for some European immigrants feeling uncomfortable, nothing can be done. After all, the coordinators themselves are equipped with complete utensils, knives, forks, spoons, and the like.

Moreover, the majority of immigrants arriving in East Africa would certainly bring their dining gear, but it doesn't exclude some impoverished individuals without even a bowl or those still adhering to medieval "hand-scooped meal" habits.

Of course, cafeterias using chopsticks mainly are concentrated in the eastern coastal areas and the Great Lakes Region, the major rice-producing areas of East Africa.

In the breadbasket areas, the staple foods in cafeterias are primarily baked goods, bread, etc. Since the breadbasket areas are mainly inland, immigrants have opportunities to fashion their accustomed utensils on their way inland, reducing the need for chopsticks.

For most newly arrived European immigrants in East Africa without dining gear, chopsticks are merely transitional tools.

Once they have time to craft their own sets of utensils or leave the cafeteria, they can decide whether to continue using chopsticks.

Of course, some might grow fond of chopsticks as utensils, and the numerous Chinese community in East Africa might also influence some European immigrants.

However, it's quite challenging for European immigrants to influence the Chinese immigrants to use European utensils due to the nature of their background. A majority of European immigrants, especially German immigrants, come from rural areas where their utensils are just spoons, and spoons aren't exclusive to Germany or Europe either.

It represents a facet of the integration between two civilizations where Chinese immigrants have the upper hand, despite East African policies favoring Europe.