# Cutlery. And stuff. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 5, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409 "2009-03-05T17:34:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Missy2U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3bc359/32.png) [@Missy2U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Missy2U)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/21 "2009-03-05T22:19:31Z")
Sattua - look at all [THESE](http://www.bexfield.co.uk/02/images/02f/d639-9.jpg) nifty spoons!!! Why oh why ARE there so many different kinds of spoons? And cutlery in general? When you think about it, you can do pretty darn good with one knife, a fork and one spoon - why do we need thirty bazillion renditions? And don’t EVEN get me started on sporks. **Darryl Lict** , what in heaven’s name do you do with those? I don’ t understand them - what are they supposed to do? (I know NOTHING about absinthe). ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/22 "2009-03-05T22:24:57Z")
That looks like a set of serving spoons, to me. They proliferated to a ridiculous degree, in the Victorian age. Most of them don’t date to before it, and are silly after it. Ah, the Industrial Revolution, how I love thee. Look up marrow spoons. They’re straws like mint julep spoons, too, but they’re made to suck the melted marrow out of bones. Very Elizabethan. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/23 "2009-03-05T23:00:57Z")
> [@Celyn](#): > > And nobody has mentioned playing music with spoons yet. 🙂 That was how I got my user name. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/24 "2009-03-05T23:06:54Z")
Really? Aha! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Darryl\_Lict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7cd45c/32.png) [@Darryl\_Lict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darryl_Lict)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/25 "2009-03-05T23:49:07Z")
> [@Missy2U](#): > > **Darryl Lict** , what in heaven’s name do you do with those? I don’ t understand them - what are they supposed to do? (I know NOTHING about absinthe). [Here you go](http://www.oxygenee.com/absinthe-ritual.html)! It’s a fun ritual, although the way I’ve seen it done is lighting the sugar cube on fire, which isn’t even mentioned in that article. I saw it done that way the first time I had absinthe in Slovakia, and since I like fiery drinks, it’s the way I do it. Beware though, the fumes are tremendous, and I’ve seen even my veteran hard core drinking buddies not be able to keep it down. ---
**Author:** ![Chicken\_Fingers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Chicken\_Fingers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicken_Fingers)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/26 "2009-03-06T00:21:16Z")
In the photo of the ice cream spoons there was one with three points. We had small ones, and always called those runcible spoons. We also have a bunch of Chinese spoons for eating pho and other Asian soups. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/27 "2009-03-06T16:18:21Z")
My mother had not only teaspoons, soup spoons, cream soups, iced tea, salt, she also had quite a collection of bonbon spoons. When she died, my mother had 4 completes sets of sterling flatware, plus a mother-of-pearl handled fish set, and nuwerous other specialty items. StG ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/28 "2009-03-06T16:30:27Z")
I suppose no thread on spoons is complete without a reference to [“runcible” spoons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runcible_spoon) – note the linky in the footnotes to Cecil Adams’ article on the subject. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/29 "2009-03-06T17:17:32Z")
I was astonished one day when my mother-in-law told me with great happiness about the tomato spoon she’d just purchased. What? Tomatoes need their own spoons? ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/30 "2009-03-06T18:22:45Z")
> [@Darryl\_Lict](#): > > [Here you go](http://www.oxygenee.com/absinthe-ritual.html)! > > It’s a fun ritual, although the way I’ve seen it done is lighting the sugar cube on fire, which isn’t even mentioned in that article. I saw it done that way the first time I had absinthe in Slovakia, and since I like fiery drinks, it’s the way I do it. Beware though, the fumes are tremendous, and I’ve seen even my veteran hard core drinking buddies not be able to keep it down. Eastern European vs. Western European tradition. The East European way is, as you say, to douse the sugar cube in absinthe then light it on fire, so the melted sugar drips into the glass. The Western European way is to pour water over the sugar, thus sweetening and diluting the absinthe. It’s nasty swill either way 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/31 "2009-03-06T18:34:44Z")
> [@BetsQ](#): > > I was astonished one day when my mother-in-law told me with great happiness about the tomato spoon she’d just purchased. What? Tomatoes need their own spoons? Yes, they have slots or perforations so the juice drips out. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409/32 "2009-03-06T18:38:28Z")
You forgot the [titanium spork](http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/8ace/). 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cutlery-and-stuff/488409.md?page=1)