Since the dawn of human civilization,
various eating utensils were created to help us
prepare, serve and eat various types of food. From the simple sharped rocks,
carved wood sticks, clay dishes, and invention of metallurgy, spoon managed to
prove itself as the most perfect tool in all areas of food preparation and
serving. It’s simple design consisting of small shallow bowl (shaped to be oval
or round) that is connected to an end of a handle was used over millennia by
many ancient civilizations, finally reaching the modern state and design that
we all know today. Currently, spoons dominate our modern way
of preparing and serving food. Over 50 variations of spoons are
used for many specific tasks in eating, preparing and other activities, and
many more types were used in the past.
Preserved examples of
various forms of spoons used by the ancient Egyptians include those
composed of ivory, flint, slate and wood; many of them
carved with religious symbols. During the Neolithic Ozieri civilization in Sardinia,
ceramic ladlesand spoons were already in use. In Shang
Dynasty China, spoons were made of bone. Early bronze spoons in China were
designed with a sharp point, and may have also been used
as cutlery. Ancient Indian texts also refer to the use of
spoons. For example, the Rigveda refers to spoons during a
passage describing the reflection of light as it "touches the spoon's
mouth" (RV 8.43.10). The spoons of
the Greeks and Romans were chiefly made of bronze and
silver and the handle usually takes the form of a spike or pointed
stem. There are many examples in the British Museum from which
the forms of the various types can be ascertained, the chief points of
difference being found in the junction of the bowl with the handle.
In the early Muslim
world, spoons were used for eating soup. Medieval spoons for domestic
use were commonly made of cow horn or wood,
but brass, pewter, and latten spoons appear to have been
common in about the 15th century. The full descriptions and entries
relating to silver spoons in the inventories of the royal and other
households point to their special value and rarity. The
earliest English reference appears to be in a will of 1259. In
the wardrobe accounts of Edward I for the year 1300 some gold and
silver spoons marked with the fleur-de-lis,
the Paris mark, are mentioned. One of the most interesting
medieval spoons is the coronation spoon used in the anointing of the English
sovereign.
The sets of Apostle
Spoons, popular as christening presents in Tudor times, the handles of
which terminate in heads or busts of the apostles, are a special form to
which antiquarian interest attaches. The earlier English
spoon-handles terminate in an acorn, plain knob or a diamond; at the
end of the 16th century, the baluster and seal ending
becomes common, the bowl being fig-shaped. During The
Restoration, the handle becomes broad and flat, the bowl is broad and oval and
the termination is cut into the shape known as the hind's foot.
In the first quarter of
the 18th century, the bowl becomes narrow and elliptical, with a tongue or
rat's tail down the back, and the handle is turned up at the end.
The modern form, with
the tip of the bowl narrower than the base and the rounded end of the handle
turned down, came into use about 1760.
Spoons
are primarily used to transfer edibles from vessel to mouth, usually at a
dining table. A spoon's style is usually named after a drink or food with which
they are most often used, the material with which they are composed, or a
feature of their appearance or structure.
· Bouillon spoon
— round-bowled, somewhat smaller than a soup spoon
· Caviar spoon
— usually made of mother of pearl, gold, animal horn or
wood but not silver, which would affect the taste
· Chinese
spoon a type of soup spoon
· Coffee
spoon — small, for use with after-dinner coffee cups, (usually smaller
than teaspoon)
· Cutty
— short, chiefly Scot and Irish
· Demitasse spoon
— diminutive, smaller than a teaspoon; for traditional coffee drinks
in specialty cups and for spooning cappuccino froth
· Dessert
spoon — intermediate in size between a teaspoon and a tablespoon, used in
eating dessert and sometimes soup or cereals
· Egg
spoon — for eating boiled eggs; with a shorter handle and bowl, a
more pointed tip and often a more rounded bowl than a teaspoon
· Grapefruit
spoon or orange spoon — tapers to a sharp point or teeth, used for citrus fruits
and melons
· Horn
spoon — a spoon made of horn, used chiefly interjectionally in the
phrase By the Great Horn Spoon!, as in the children's novel of that
title by Sid Fleischman
· Ice
cream fork — sometimes called a "spork", this implement has a bowl
like a teaspoon with the point made into 3 stubby tines that dig easily into
frozen ice cream
· Iced
tea spoon — with a very long handle
· Marrow
spoon or marrow scoop — 18th century, often of silver, with a long thin bowl
suitable for removing marrow from a bone
· Melon
spoon; often silver, used for eating melon
· Parfait
spoon — with a bowl similar in size and shape to that of a teaspoon, and with a
long slim handle, used in eating parfait, sundaes, sorbets or similar
foods served in tall glasses
· Plastic
spoon — cheap, disposable, flexible, stain resistant, sometimes biodegradable;
black, white, colored or clear; smooth, non-porous surface; varied types and
uses
· Rattail
spoon — developed in the later 17th century; with a thin pointed tongue on the
bottom of the bowl to reinforce the joint of bowl and handle
· Runcible spoon
— non-existent object referenced in the nonsense poem The Owl and the
Pussycat by Edward Lear; various suggestions for its definition have
been put forward (see Runcible#Attempts to define the word)
· Salt
spoon — miniature, used with an open salt cellar for individual
service
· saucier
spoon — slightly flattened spoon with a notch in one side; used for
drizzling sauces over fish or other delicate foods.
· Soup
spoon — with a large or rounded bowl for eating soup.
· Cream-soup
spoon — round-bowled, slightly shorter than a standard soup spoon
· Teaspoon —
small, suitable for stirring and sipping tea or coffee, standard
capacity one third of a tablespoon, unit of volume.
· Tablespoon —
volume of three teaspoons. Sometimes used for ice cream and soup, unit of
volume.
· Seal-top
spoon — silver, end of handle in the form of a circular seal; popular in
England in the later 16th and 17th centuries
· Spork, sporf, spife, splayd etc.
— differing combinations of a spoon with a fork or knife
· Stroon
- a straw with a spoon on the end for eating slush puppies etc.
