posted 03-10-2006 06:21 AM            

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"I'd like to understand, for instance, why it is that there are so relatively many spoons and so few of any other flatware pieces from that period."

Now there is a question that has not come up very often in these forums. I suspect the answer lies partly in the English heritage of many of the colonists and their descendants. Forks and knives were in use on the Continent long before they were introduced into England, where people were still eating with their fingers. Spoons have a long tradition - longer than other utensils - probably because they hold liquids better than bare hands. Aside from the practical uses they also had significance as gifts, souvenirs, and remembrances.

When forks and knives did gain popularity, they were commonly made of harder materials than silver - iron or steel, with handles of wood, bone, or ivory. In England, they were later often close plated (silver on iron or steel, in a manner not unlike Sheffield plate), and knive blades were often set in close plated hollow handles. These types had hard use, were not particularly valued, and did not survive in such great numbers as silver spoons, which were often not used in daily service. Silver forks, when silver services were used, wore down or broke their tines, and did not last as long as the spoons.

The fact that there were fewer silver forks in the Colonies (and the Early Republic) than in England, relative to the number of spoons, may also reflect the economic condition of the classes -- It seems everybody aspired to own some silver, either for status or safekeeping of whatever wealth they had (marked and engraved silver could be traced when stolen, whereas money could not) but relatively few could afford more than a few spoons.

I expect that this little pontification on the social history of flatware will spark considerable discussion from people more knowledgeable of the subject, and perhaps not a little controversy (it is called "seeding the forum"), but the quick and short answer is that there are more spoons because there were more spoons, for whatever reason.

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posted 03-10-2006 12:57 PM            

I quote from my unpublished book manuscript, still in progress:

quote:

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The American colonies declared their independence from the British in 1776, ending the taxation that had drained wealth from the colonies back to England. But many American traditions came from Britain, including one that played a celebrated part in the Independence movement: tea-drinking. In the mid- to late-1700s Britain was swept by the tea craze, and style-conscious colonists followed suit. The Boston Tea Party, a rebellion against the tax on tea, demonstrates the importance of tea-drinking in the colonies. Formal meal service remained confined to the upper classes, but many more aspired to serving tea, and many who ate with wood and pewter utensils had a few finer teacups and teaspoons for the purpose. Pewter spoons might suffice for eating, but tea demanded a more delicate, and finer, utensil for stirring in the sugar and cream. Fine English ceramics (creamware and pearlware) were also developed specifically for formal services, and Chinese porcelain cups were imported along with the tea to put in them. Archaeological sites in the U.S. from the period 1750-1850 commonly have fragments of both Chinese and English teawares.

Because tea was a rare and expensive commodity in the 1700s, it was served in very small cups, and had correspondingly small spoons; early teaspoons are more like modern demitasse spoons in size. The popularity of serving tea is the main reason that teaspoons are the most common piece of coin silver found today—they always were much more common. They were also relatively inexpensive, because they were small. One could also have spoons made in different weights, depending on how much silver you could afford. Even a large teaspoon generally was less than a silver dollar in weight, and the smaller, lighter ones could be made from less than half that amount of silver. Coin silver teaspoons are often very thin and light because so many people who could barely afford them wanted to be able to serve tea with them. It didn't matter much that they were easily bent, since they were not intended for hard use. But wealthier people still had heavier spoons, demonstrating their wealth in social functions.

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The other observations about the frequency of spoons relative to other implements are also true, of course, but I think this point is crucial in the US and some other areas.

posted 03-10-2006 03:09 PM            

Very intresting.

One point on the famous tea party. The tea being shipped into Boston was actually cheaper even with the new tax than the tea had been previously. Under mercantile law, East India Tea had to be transhipped through London. In order to cut costs and make the new tea tax more acceptable, Parliament allowed the East India ships to sail directly to the Colonies. Even with the new tax they were selling cheaper tea.

So why the "tea party?" Tea smugglers (not a few of whom were also patriots)had done a lively business under the old system, but the new arrangement made the legal tea cheaper than their contraband. Hence their patriotic furor.

Tom

posted 03-11-2006 10:11 AM            

Spoons are a useful form that date to antiquity, while forks seem to appear first in the late Middle Ages in, if I recall, Italy. Romans and Greeks used spoons and their fingers. Recall that knives were weapons and perceived as such right into the Renaissance. Thus using knives at table was "iffy" in a social setting. (One reason Chinese and Japanese food is always served in bitesize portions is the fact that one would never appear with a knife at dinner in these cultures.) Spoons and knives were the ONLY table utensils until the skewer, used in cooking meat, got bifurcated and became a forked skewer.Get it? The best essay on the evolution of the fork is in "The Evolution of Useful Things," by Henry Petroski (published 1994, now in paperback). Forks spread from the aristocracy in Italy to the French aristocracy, and then to the British. While there are colonial American silver forks, they are scarce as the proverbial hens' teeth. For the most part even elegant colonials used spoons, knives and fingers. Sil