posted 09-10-2001 08:55 PM            

Today, I use old tablespoons like these for soup or for serving. But they're not exactly well-adapted for use as soup spoons -- the bowls are too large and awkwardly shaped. And if they were only used as serving spoons, this would hardly explain the tip wear on many of them, which suggests heavier duty stirring or scraping.

Perhaps someone watching these forums knows more about this than I do.

Were pre-1850 tablespoons used more the way we use knives and forks today? This would certainly help explain why they were phased out (or at least changed form) just as knives and forks became more widespread. Also, in an era of boiled, salted meat, overcooked vegetables, and lots of porridges and puddings, I'd imagine there wasn't too much served at dinner that you couldn't manage to eat with a big, hefty tablespoon. I can even imagine someone holding a piece of boiled corned beef, say, with his left hand or with a fork while he sawed off a piece of it using a tablespoon held in his right hand. (I don't think they were eating many medium-rare t-bone steaks in 1830.) This would explain the heavy wear to the left tips of many early tablespoons.

posted 09-10-2001 09:17 PM            

• Most serving bowls were salt glazed or rough slipped, nothing like the smooth finish we are used to. I have a pair of family serving dishes from the era, salt glazed and rough as sandpaper inside from use.
  
• Food was, as a portion of income, very expensive and not to be wasted; every bit in the bowl was scraped out and eaten.
  
• Forks are a recent (relative) addition to the table of the general populace. As late as the 1860s, American etiquette books warned against the affected English habit of using forks when a placespoon and good knife would suffice.
  
• 180 years is enough to take the edge off the best of us.

posted 09-10-2001 11:08 PM            

As a side point, I guess we can assume that in the days before germ theory, people (even well-bred ones) would eat with the tablespoons and then dig them into the serving bowl for another helping.

Do the etiquette books say anything about this?

posted 09-11-2001 10:35 PM            

1. Tip wear is usually associated with stirring. As I understand it, when spoon styles changed a lot of older spoons were put on "kitchen duty". In other words, the "help" would get the old spoons to use as cooking utensils. Based on the extreme wear you see on some spoons, this must have been the case.

2. Tip wear is almost always found on the same side of the bowl because everyone used to be "right-handed". In the past, left-handedness was considered a major behavioral flaw that had to be corrected. As a result, most people did everything right-handed, even if it wasn't natural for quite a few people.
   
3. If you look closely at the underside of old tablespoon bowls, you can usually see a pattern of distinct scratches perpendicular to the bowl on the worn side. These were made by people's teeth, and are a great clue to age and authenticity.

4. People did eat just about everything with a tablespoon, including soups, stews and porridges.

5. As far as I know, a tablespoon is still part of a standard 5 piece place setting. Am I wrong?

Brent

posted 09-20-2001 01:30 AM            

"People did not go to the local bakery and just buy a baguette, which they would eat immediately. Although the baguette is just invented around this time, actually in the middle of the 18th century, they typically bought this four- pound loaf of bread. They would boil water and they would then chop up bits of bread into it. Sometimes they would rub garlic or lard around the kettle when they boiled it. And they would make it into a kind of broth, hence in Mother Goose, you know, you say "Pease porridge hot, Pease porridge cold, Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old." Nine days old. I mean, you took this loaf of bread, made it into porridge, and for nine days you were eating it."