"The Spoon and it's History"

Being at the Spoon Carver’s Gathering has been a bit inspiring for David too. He doesn’t really have a desire to learn to carve spoons for the sake of carving spoons. If he did learn to carve, I think it would be for the learning itself.

On the way back to Upstate NY we were talking about the Gathering. For some reason David thought it would be fun if I did research on the history of spoons to add to the web page. I told him that it was all fine and good, but I’m not really interested in the history. I figure Adam or Even figured it out quickly enough when they were cooking. I’m sure Jacob had some type of spoon or scoop to dish out stew for his brother, Esau. So I told him I have no objection to him doing a bit of research, but I prefer learning about the different styles that current carvers have now.

So, David, still being curious to find out how many other people have written on the history of spoons, did a bit of web research himself. Lo and Behold, he found a book titled, “The Spoon and it’s History.” By C.J. Jackson, dated 1890. Not only that, but the web page that he found it on said that there are only two copies in all the libraries that it has in it’s system. One was in England, which is appropriate because it was primarily a study of English spoons, and the other is at Cornell University! Exciting for us because David has been studying at Cornell for the past two years and we still have library privileges.

The other exciting part is that it is part of the rare books collection. David and I have been wishing for an excuse to check out a book from there. So, last Friday we went to the Cornell Library to check it out.

In short, it is a rather interesting book, primarily looking at the style of the silver spoon throughout the years in England. It did cover wood spoons a bit, but because wood spoons are often not dated, it is hard to do a lot of research on them.

There were a few fun quotes in the book too, one taken from Don Quixote. “‘Oh!,’ said Sancho Panza, “what spoons! what neat wooden spoons will I make when a shepherd.’” (presumably adding on the end and “I be”)