A teaspoon
In my kitchen drawer I had a teaspoon. A very plain, ordinary teaspoon like this one. I used it when I required a teaspoon of something in a recipe. I have no idea whether it was an accurate teaspoon measure in size, but it's what I used even thought I do indeed have at least two different 'official' sets of measuring spoons.
But it has disappeared. I think I lost it sometime in the pre-Christmas party time. Maybe somebody who had brought a plate of something to contribute, had mistakenly thought it was theirs and took it home. It is so ordinary that I have not been game to ask about it. For a while I thought it had just been misplaced - my husband often puts things away in weird and wonderful places. But if he did I have yet to come across it. My hopes of it just turning up have disappeared.
For I loved that spoon. I used it virtually every day, whether I required an accurate measuring spoon or not. I can't replace it with one from my everyday set because my everyday teaspoons are, I think, what would more accurately be referred to as coffee spoons. They are smaller than a teaspoon anyway so not nearly as useful when you want a good dollop of paprika for example. And my best set of cutlery has both coffee spoons and teaspoons (grapefruit spoons too) and both of those also seem smaller.
But I fear it has gone for ever and I shall just have to seek out a new set of measuring spoons. Currently I have two. One which is heart-shaped and the other which is adjustable, an all-in-one kind of thing.
I think I must have thought the heart-shaped ones were cute or something, but now that they are in my drawer I rarely use them. They are too wide for lots of jars, and somehow no longer cute. Tinny, grubby and distasteful almost. The adjustable one is quite good though. You slide the middle bit up and down according to what measure you want to use. But maybe I should just go out and buy a cheap and cheerful set like this one. Though I think I prefer a longer and thinner profile.
So how did we come to standardise on the various spoons? Truth to tell I can't really find out. The clearest explanation I found was from Wikipedia talking about apothocaries' measurements.
"When tea-drinking was first introduced to England circa 1660, tea was rare and expensive, as a consequence of which teacups and teaspoons were smaller than today. This situation persisted until about 1710, when the East India Company began importing tea directly from China. As the price of tea declined, the size of teacups and teaspoons increased. By the 1730s, the teaspoon as a unit of culinary measure had increased to 1⁄3 of a tablespoon, but the apothecary unit of measure remained the same. Nevertheless, the teaspoon, usually under its Latin name, continued to be used in Apothecaries' measures for several more decades, with the original definition of one fluid dram." Wikipedia
On second thoughts though it doesn't really tell you how they came to standardise the measurements. According to Taste the standard is this:
1/4 teaspoon 1.25ml
1/2 teaspoon 2.5ml
1 teaspoon 5ml
2 teaspoons 10ml
1 tablespoon (equal to 4 teaspoons) 20ml
And now that I look at that, it seems to me that the modern day measurement came first - the millilitres, and the spoons were then made to fit. Because you can imagine that a spoon was indeed used as a measure way, way back, just like cups or feet - if you are talking length. The only problem of just sticking to the original spoon being that this is a very imprecise measurement. And why is there a difference between a coffee spoon and a teaspoon anyway? I suppose it's because coffee (as in Italy for example) may have initially meant a very small cup of espresso so a small spoon was required.
Let me digress just a moment to silver spoons. We all know about the being born with a silver spoon in your mouth saying. Well this apparently derives from the fact that only the rich could afford silver spoons, and in the days when the spoon was the only eating implement (we are talking medieval to tudor here), people used to bring their own spoons to banquets and other meals. And so the silver showed how wealthy you were - and this was taken up by the middle-classes to show how wealthy they were too. It was a status symbol.
One of my ancestors, Joseph Beckwith was a silversmith in the eighteenth century and doubtless made lots. Alas I have not found any examples of spoons as yet, but there is this rather lovely skewer. Skewers may also have been used as eating implements. I'm not sure about that. But it's food related anyway. And I just wanted to brag a little bit.
Then another possibility of the silver spoon in the mouth theory is the practice of giving newborn babies a silver apostle spoon. I am sure we even have one somewhere - given by my mother-in-law to our firstborn son. I must look for that too. It's probably valuable, unlike my teaspoon which may just have been acquired from my sister-in-law when we married. Somehow we acquired a few things from her kitchen. I think my husband shared a flat with her in his university holidays, and somehow or other he acquired some of her stuff. My garlic press is, I think, one of those things.
But back to apostle spoons. They began back in the early fifteenth century for use at table. They were a set of spoons whose handle was decorated with the head of an apostle. So twelve in a set, except some were thirteen and included Jesus. Later, they became a traditional christening gift. Nowadays they are valuable and collected. Lots of baby boys were named after an apostle of course. A set, of course, being even more valuable than an individual.
And they do tend to be small. I'm pretty sure the one we have is even smaller than my coffee spoons.
Then there's those souvenir teaspoons that people collect as well. Mostly they are souvenirs of a place and probably are decorated with a coat of arms or some symbol of the place - a Venice lion perhaps, but they can also be souvenirs of an event - I think my grandmother had one for one of Queen Victoria's jubilees or something. Long lost.
Collecting things is a whole other topic of course. When I was looking for pictures of silver spoon collections I saw collections of wooden spoons, slotted spoons - just about every kind of spoon you can think of. I wonder why we do collect them?
Anyway I have lost one of my favourite things and am somewhat bereft. I must go and have another look. And here are two, not very apposite, but amusing, quotes that I found in the course of writing this blog. Enjoy.
"No matter how you have searched, there will always be one teaspoon left at the bottom of the washing-up water." Irene Thomas
So true - how many times has that happened to you? In my case it's usually the coffee spoons, or my smallest knife.
"Just because you have the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have."
J. K. Rowling
Well a teaspoon is such an ordinary, unnoticed thing isn't it? And yet I feel a great loss. It has memories attached and it was so, so, useful.
POSTSCRIPT: I have found it! I decided to have one last search on the basis of my husband putting things in weird places. And there it was in with my 'best' cutlery which it resembles not at all. He denies it of course and blames it on some 'helpful' individual. Let's just say it's a mystery. But I'm so happy it is found.
