Spoons

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.