Wooden spoon

A wooden spoon is a utensil commonly used in food preparation.

History

The word spoon derives from an ancient word meaning a chip of wood or horn carved from a larger piece. Wooden spoons were easy to carve and thus inexpensive, making them common throughout history.

The Iron Age Celts (C. 250BC) of Britain used them. This is evidenced by an example of a small ladle discovered during archaeological excavations at the Glastonbury Lake Village. Roman period spoons have been recovered from excavations in the City of London. The Anglo Saxons were great workers of wood, as were the Vikings, and both these groups of settlers to the British Isles produced wooden spoons for domestic uses.

Uses

Practicality

Cooking

Today, wooden spoons in western cultures are generally medium to large spoons used for mixing ingredients for cooking or baking. They may be flat or have a small dip in the middle.

Before electric mixers became common, wooden spoons were often used to cream together butter and sugar in recipes such as shortbread or Victoria sponge cake.

Wooden spoon (award)

A wooden spoon is a spoon made from wood, usually given to an individual or team which has come last in a competition, but sometimes also to runners-up. Examples range from the academic to sporting and more frivolous events. The term is of British origin and has spread to other Commonwealth countries.

Wooden spoon at the University of Cambridge

The wooden spoon was presented originally at the University of Cambridge as a kind of booby prize awarded by the students to the man who achieved the lowest exam marks but still earned a third-class degree (a junior optime) in the Mathematical Tripos. The term "wooden spoon" or simply "the spoon" was also applied to the recipient, and the prize became quite notorious:

Whose value all can feel, the weak, the wise;
Displays in triumph his distinguish'd boon,
The solid honours of the Wooden Spoon

The spoons themselves, actually made of wood, grew larger, and in latter years measured up to five feet long. By tradition, they were dangled in a teasing way from the upstairs balcony in the Senate House, in front of the recipient as he came before the Vice-Chancellor to receive his degree, at least until 1875 when the practice was specifically banned by the University.

Wooden Spoon

Wooden Spoon may refer to: