Sunday, March 12, 2017

Spoons and Spoons

Spoons have been around a long time. Spoons with handles were used in ancient Egypt for religious purposes as early as 1000 BC.  When it came to consuming food, the most common material was wood, which was easily available.  The wealthy had spoons made of bronze and silver during the Greek and Roman empires and on into the Middle Ages.  

Spoons have also always been ceremonial.  Before the coronation of every British king,  the monarch would be anointed by a ceremonial spoon.  There were apostle spoons during the Tudor and Stuart periods.  The practice of giving christening spoons started then.  The spoons we use today took on their form in the 18th century.

There is a famous rude spoon in the restaurant joke.  You can check it out by clicking on the link.  As spoons are so common, I thought there would be many spoon jokes, but that doesn't turn out to be the case, and spoon quotes are mostly about the 'silver spoon' metaphor, so seemed a bit tedious to me to read famous people claiming they weren't born with a silver spoon...

Edward Lear's 'runcible' spoon popped up on my searches.  It turns out that "runcible" is a nonsense word invented by Edward Lear. The word appears (as an adjective) several times in his works, most famously as the "runcible spoon" used by the Owl and the Pussycat.

I guess one could use a runcible spoon to eat "the frim fram sauce with oss-en-fay with sha fafa on the side."


Today's train layout has the most remarkable trees.  I know you will enjoy them too.

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