The bronze script of character Meal is
The shell bone script of character Eat is
The Meal is character Eat + Reverse, meaning the food moving to the mouth. Some people believe it to be pilaf in which people use their fingers to grab rice, then turn the hand to face up (reverse the hand), and send the rice to mouth. The "Reverse" is to reverse the hand.
However, we don't know what the normal way ancient Chinese ate? Of course, not take the food from mouth to utensil, not use fingers grabbing the food with palm down (unable to send the food into mouth).
I think that the most likely the way ancient Chinese ate is to move mouth to the food, the reverse is to move the food to the mouth. The character Eat - 食 above is the normal way: bite the food on utensil, therefore move food to the mouth, no matter use fingers or chopsticks is reverse.
The best food for pilaf is rice, the character Meal also means Rice, which is match my explanation. In Shang Dynasty, the agriculture was not very developed, people hunted more, ate more meat. The meat were cut big chunks, difficult to use hand to grab or use chopsticks to get it into mouth, easily to bite. Rice became main food in later time, people could easily to get rice into mouth with fingers or chopsticks.
The big seal script of character Meal is
The left is character Eat, the right is character Reverse.
The small seal script of character Meal is
The clerical script of character Meal is
The simplified song typeface of character Meal is
The left is Radical Eat, the right is unchanged.
The Pinyin of the character is Fan4.
