Reflections | Sharing dishes – and viruses – was not always a characteristic of Chinese cuisine
- Communal dining has been associated with helping spread the coronavirus in Hong Kong and Singapore
- A look back through antiquity shows that, for the upper classes at least, individual dishes were preferred
Despite growing up in a Southeast Asian household, I never liked the style of dining where everybody dips their chopsticks or spoons into a shared dish, which is common practice among the Chinese, Koreans, Singaporeans, Thais and so on. Serving spoons or chopsticks have gained currency in Hong Kong since the 2003 Sars epidemic, but they are less common in Southeast Asia.
Sometimes, when my germophobia gets the better of me (or when I am not feeling well), I pick a morsel from each dish with unused cutlery and never touch the middle of the table again. At other times, especially when there are many dishes, it is hard not to appear rude so I dig inand hope for the best.
Many people, including the Chinese themselves, believe Chinese meals have always been eaten communally around a table with shared dishes in the middle in the way that is done today. This is not entirely true.
In the past, the upper classes ate their meals separately. At a banquet in the palace, for example, the king or emperor and his subjects would sit at their own low tables and dine on a series of individual dishes.