Cutlery. And stuff.

In My Humble Opinion
1

In this thread here, Sigmagirl tells us of the existence of “ice cream spoons”. A bunch of us commented on never having heard of 'em and what made them special.

For some reason, this troubled me for most of last night. I know - get a hobby. In any event, I did a little research this morning, and have come to find out lots and lots about spoons and their various types.

I give you:

Your everyday teaspoon. I guess this is the one we’ll compare all the other ones to. Gotta have a benchmark, don’t ya know!

Tablespoon! Also called a serving spoon - it’s basically your teaspoon on steriods.

Slotted spoon. This works real good when I am trying to get carrots and onions out of my roasting pan. They come in metal too!

Soup spoon. It’s all roundy.

Egg spoon. It’s like, egg shaped. Kinda. And really small.

Sugar spoon. I actually HAVE one of these. It fits in my sugar bowl and the handle goes right in the little cut out of the lid of the sugar bowl. That’s the sugar bowl. The little cut out is on the other side. I think. I frankly don’t use it. Husband does. Maybe the sugar bowl with the cut out is the little tiny one that’s shaped like a pumpkin. I don’t remember. It’s immaterial anyway.

Grapefruit spoon. See the little teethy things? I guess that’s to get the sections out. Frankly, I’ve found a paring knife, five minutes, and a little patience works a whole lot better, but that’s just me.

Iced tea spoon. It’s long. To stir sugar or something.

Bar spoon! My dad had one of these - it was all twisty in the handle too! I liked it.

Mixing spoon. I know. Kinda boring. They come in metal, too. And plastic! If you want the plastic ones, you can get four (or was it three?) of them in a package at WalMart for $.89. Yes, they’re worth about as much as the $2 oven thermometer (useless - we returned it) but they work good in cheap non-stick pans! I want some metal ones. I have wooden ones - but I don’t really like them much. Except for one - it was my grandmother’s and must be 70 years old or something like that.

Ice Cream Spoon! It looks like they’re like little shoveley things. But they are COOL and I wish I had some. Sigmagirl, you are lucky!

Oooh - there are also soda fountain spoons!! You know, Sur LaTable has just about everything, doesn’t it?

Now this just goes to show that the human spirit and imagination is limitless! It’s a GAME TOO!!!

And a MUSEUM!!

And now this is just getting silly. Fishing spoons. Right. Like I believe THIS is real.

My, my, my - the world of spoons is a fascinating one.

So. Does anyone else have ice cream spoons or other amazing/odd/hard to be believed cutlery (or card games or fishing lures)? (Yeah, that’s what started this. Spoons.)

2

Oh, my mother’s sterling service has what we always called pickle forks, but what Replacements is calling cocktail/seafood forks. They also have pickle forks, which is something else entirely. Now I have another web site to spend all day on. Here’smy mother’s pattern. She was born in 1924 and graduated from high school in 1942. The pattern was introduced in 1940; when she moved to Ravenna, Ohio, to start working as a secretary, the silver wasn’t actually available.

She put part of her meager salary every week toward buying coupons that would, when the war was over, entitle her to a certain number of pieces of silver cutlery. I don’t know how long it took her, but sometime between Peace and her marrying my father in 1957, she had amassed a complete service for 12.

That leap of faith has always impressed me – both that she was sure enough that America would prevail that she’d invest in little coupons that might end up being irredeemable, and that she would someday have a husband to make it worth her while. From what little I know of my mother, the silver was no good without the man.

I inherited half the silver, so I have service for 6. I’ll have to see if I can pick up two more place settings.

Who am I kidding? We don’t have eight chairs.

3

I know of one type you didn’t list… a beverage spoon for tea that’s part spoon, part straw (all metal, the handle is a straw that extends fully underneath the spoon part.) You stir your tea with the spoon and then sip it through the straw… but I think, given the difficulty of cleaning such straw-like things, it’d be preferable to just use a separate disposable straw, or have a spoon like this with brackets for clasping a straw that you press into place and then toss after use. Or just drink your tea without a straw at all, the sensible and least-fussy way to go.

My Mom has an ice-cream scoop that’s, I believe, aluminum encasing Freon (which makes it non-stick) and which supposedly was enshrined in the Museum of Modern Art for its state-of-the-art design. Here’s a similar one, but it’s very expensive… knowing my mother, I’m sure she didn’t pay anywhere near that for hers decades ago. But if you want to serve ice cream like a pro, that’s the type of scoop you need.

4

Fishing spoons are real. The concaveness of it makes it wiggle back and forth when it reeling it in or trawling it through water. I’ve used them but I never had much luck with them.

I think you’re missing souviner spoons, the collectible kind, just search for some on eBay and you’ll see what I mean. edit: I see them in the museum, yup, they’re there.

5

Ooh - kinda like these thingies that you get with Cherry Icees? I have never seen them in a non-plastic form. Wait - I take that back - it looks like they have them at Amazon. I think Amazon may have more stuff than Sur LaTable now that I think about it. And these spoons are groovy! I may buy some. Someday.

Sigmagirl, great story! I can lend you a few chairs if you need…I’d go with the additional place settings!! And I love that replacements.com website - I have been looking at all kinds of stuff! And dayum, did we have some ugly dishes when I was a kid! :smiley:

Emily, I think it was Dave Barry who kinda said that the reason fishing lures don’t work all that well is because the fish are laughing too hard. I do not fish so I do not know this for a fact, but if a fish DID laugh, I’m sure he’d laugh at fishing spoons! Unless they had built in straws like scrivener talks about. Then those fish wouldn’t be laughing! They’d be drinking iced tea.

6

It is also a superhero battle cry.

7

I did not!

:smiley:

8

Now, about straws – for pimped-out straws, you want to talk to the Pope. We went to a “Treasures of the Pope” museum exhibit a couple years back, and among all the chalices and vestments and priceless art, there was the papal drinking straw. No lie.

Picture if you will a drinking straw stuck through a paper plate. Now picture it all made of gold, with enamel and filigree and precious gems. I think it was made by Cellini or something. The deal was, if the Pope has taken communion, and might have some tiny crumbs of the communion wafer on his lips, and then goes to drink from the chalice, the crumbs might accidentally fall into the chalice or even on the ground, and that would be bad. So somebody said, “Let’s make a straw with a special shield so the crumbs will fall on the shield, and then we can retrieve them.”

I just looked for a picture of it and couldn’t find it. I don’t think it’s in use anymore, but really, no home is complete without one. Replacements is deficient in this area.

9

Would you believe I grew up in a household that had (and used) all of the spoons from teaspoon to bar spoon. I never thought anything of the vast number of spoons we had until this moment. Ice tea spoons were great for mixing Ovaltine.

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Missy–I published a paper on silverware and what’s-what and what’s it’s called on both sides of the pond. If you want it, I’ll dig it up and send it to you. Ping me your email address, if you do.

11

Mint julep spoon. I’m eyeing a set of them on eBay, right now.

12

I believe those types of straws are primarily used for mint juleps and other drinks that involve crushed ice. You can use the scoopy thing to get the ice from the bottom.

Oops - Sattua beat me to it.

13

I am the Spooninator. I know it all, and I’m always first.

Hey. A girl’s gotta have a niche.

14

The Evolution of Useful Things is a neat read for anyone interested in why our silverware looks the way it does.

15

To be more specific, that’s a Cream Soup Spoon.

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I did just that! Sent my email address to you. THANK YOU!!! How cool is publishing a paper on silverware?? :smiley:

Labrador Deceiver, I did not know this. I was unaware of different types of soup spoons. Now I must go back to google and find out even more!

What an afternoon this is turning into! More and more spoonage!

17

Oval soup spoon (called a serving spoon, in America)
Cream soup spoon
Gumbo spoon
Bouillon spoon

(ordered largest to smallest)

What Americans call a tablespoon is the European dessert spoon. We agree on the teaspoon. Even teenier is the five o’clock spoon, and teenier yet, the coffee or demitasse spoon.

18

My mother has a set of those in silver. IIRC, the straw is about as big around as a coffee stir-stick, so it’s a genteel sipping straw, rather than a large-bore Big Gulp straw.

And nobody’s mentioned getting into bed and spooining yet?

19

Because it’s more fun to get into bed to fork?
And nobody has mentioned playing music with spoons yet. :slight_smile:

20

Don’t forget absinthe spoons! I’m in the market for one, and there is a mediocre brand of absinthe that comes with one, so the next time I’m at BevMo, I’ll have one!