Silverware: Spoons

The book of Exodus tells that God commanded Moses to make gold spoons for the tabernacle containing the Ark of the Covenant. Numbers 7 relates that the twelve princes of Israel each offered a golden spoon filled with incense at the dedicating of the altar. From the twelfth century, English sovereigns have been anointed with the pearl-encrusted Coronation Spoon. Godparents have gifted their charges with spoons at christenings since at least the early sixteenth century. The custom was imported to the American colonies, as was that of giving funeral pallbearers spoons engraved with the name and death date of the deceased. Welsh brides received spoons upon their betrothal, giving rise to the colloquial term “spooning,” which meant making love. Nineteenth-century Americans gave friendship spoons as tokens of affection. Spoons commemorate human events from birth until death, just as they feed us from infancy through enfeebled old age. They are the stuff of nursery rhymes: “The dish ran away with the spoon.” And they guard against evil by distancing us from others: “Marry, he must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil,” says Shakespeare in The Comedy of Errors.