Remnants of the coloniser loom over us like a shadow, etched into the very fabric of our daily lives across Middle Eastern and North African cultures. For centuries, nay, millennia, my people have eaten with their hands. It was not a practice exclusive to us, nor was it stigmatised, it was simply the way things were.
Then came the coloniser.
“It’s unclean”, they said. “It’s uncivilised”. But, what they really meant to say, was that our eating practices could not possibly supersede that of the coloniser.
In the colonial imagination, to accept the validity of the colonised people’s way of life would simply serve to undermine the very foundation of their own supremacy. As Frantz Fanon proclaimed, “In the colonial context the settler only ends his work of breaking in the native when the latter admits loudly and intelligibly the supremacy of the white man’s values.” This is the crux of it. Colonialism is not merely the assertion of physical dominance, it is the systematic imposition of a cultural hierarchy in which European customs were the epitome of so-called civilisation, and Oriental cultures only a juxtaposition.
Conveniently enough, this notion did not extend to European and Western cuisine. No one blinks twice when pizza, burgers, or hors d’oeuvres are eaten with hands. So, why must the ethnic origins of food determine the social acceptability of eating with your hands? It seems that a classic principle is at play here: as long as a white man is doing it, it’s not just accepted, but celebrated.
Yet when we approach Middle Eastern and North African cuisines, the practice becomes controversial. Issues of hygiene and manners are plastered over Orientalist and colonialist tropes. Suddenly, the act of tearing bread or scooping rice is met with judgement, and double standards become entrenched.
In Syria, our traditional breakfast is 7awader: a spread traditionally consisting of zaa’tar, zeit (olive oil), zaytoon (olives), jibneh (cheese), labneh (savoury yoghurt), makdous (pickled eggplant) and assortments of fresh vegetables. When translated literally, ‘7awader’ means ‘present’, simply whatever is there; a beautiful concept that emanates the resourcefulness of my people. Every morning, without fail, we get up to adorn the table with our spread. Before long, the sound of tearing khubs (bread) perforates the morning air. As I dip the khubs into the zeit (olive oil) w zaa’tar , the scent of the freshly picked oregano leaves follows me, an origin story waiting to be explored through taste. The act of scooping my food with khubs is a visceral experience. It is grounding. Eating with your hands is not simply convenient or functional, it’s a way to connect, to slow down, to engage all of your senses and appreciate every aspect of your meal. It’s a deliberate, mindful act – one that predates the invention of cutlery.
Historically speaking, the first concoctions of ‘cutlery’ were rudimentary, with seashells for spoons, two-pronged forks, and blades for knives – tools used across various ancient civilisations. Even after the evolution of cutlery, people continued to eat with their hands, with the occasional exception of a knife or ladle. Rather, this is a call for introspection.
Winston Churchill once famously suggested that Dr. S Radhakrishnan use cutlery to be more “hygienic”, to which the Dr retaliated simply by exclaiming that unlike cutlery, nobody had ever used his hands to eat before. Thus, the coloniser’s rewriting of the narrative should come as no surprise, as our cultures continue to be delegitimised. Cutlery can be steel, silver, gold, or even crystal… but hands, well, they stay hands, and their worth exceeds any currency or material value.
This cycle is relentless. What’s really at play here is the intersection of colonialism and capitalism, which then thrives off the need to erase and repackage culture for profit. Practices that white society once deemed uncivilised – eating with hands, bidets, henna or mehndi – are eventually, and at this point, inevitably appropriated and rebranded as groundbreaking discoveries. In an intriguing turn of events, the same people who once scoffed are now asking, “Why isn’t everyone eating with their hands?”.
Not only does this cycle rob us of our traditions, but it distorts their meaning. Once practices are stripped of their cultural roots, or hyperexoticised, they are then repackaged for Western consumption. Eating with your hands is no longer about connection to your community or land; instead, they are divorced from their origins and rich histories. This mirrors the colonial project itself, exploiting not only our lands, but erasing our ways of life, subsequently appropriating them on their own terms.
In the end, it’s not just about how we eat, and this is not to say we must abandon cutlery. It’s about decolonising the mind, decentering the coloniser’s attitudes, and how the very things that make us us are treated as commodities to be consumed, rather than lived experiences to be respected.
