Tablespoons: description, volume and types

The first mention of a spoon as a subject for eating was found in ancient manuscripts that are more than three thousand years old. This well-known device for a table meal was brought to Europe by Prince Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh from a trip to England in 998 AD. In order to raise culture to a European level, peasants and commoners in Russia were ordered, under the threat of beating with rods for not fulfilling the prince's decree, to eat first dishes at the table, as well as cutlets, porridge, meat and other food, not with their hands, but only with the help of cutlery (spoons, knife or fork).

Each of us picks up a tablespoon, sitting at the table, at least 3 times a day, completely not thinking about the origin of this ancient "tool for eating food at the table." Over the past thousand years, this familiar kitchen accessory has firmly entered our minds., therefore, many, when compiling a list of essentials for a multi-day hiking trip, are primarily called a tablespoon.

The absence of a table tool in the pocket of the backpack, which was discovered upon arrival at the cottage, in a tent on the banks of a river or lake, on a halt in a forest or on a yacht in the open sea, evokes memories of Robinson Crusoe on a desert island. This creates a strong psychological discomfort due to the real prospect of eating a fish ear, porridge with meat or pea soup from a camp pot using a cup, mug, glass found in the bushes of a rusty can and other improvised means.

Historians, linguists and archaeologists give the following scientific description of this simple device for a table meal: "a spoon is a cutlery that looks like a small flat elongated cup (scooped) with a handle or handle attached to it."

In the explanatory dictionary of V.I. Dahl, a tablespoon is described as "a tool for baking, for eating liquids."

It’s a little more difficult to accurately measure a small amount (up to 50 grams) of bulk or liquid products. Depending on the consistency of the ingredients that are included in the recipe, for measuring a small amount of loose or solid food and liquids (oil, vinegar, syrup, brine) according to the recipe, home cooks use the following improvised standards of weight and volume for different types of products:

1. solid products (butter, margarine, lard) - by weighing a piece cut with a knife on the scales;
2. bulk products (salt, sugar or other substances) - a pinch (the amount of substance between the three tightly compressed fingers of the right hand), a glass, weighing, tablespoon, dessert or teaspoon;
3. liquid products (syrup, brine) - a faceted glass, a liter jar, a tablespoon or teaspoon, the number of drops.

Professional culinary specialists use a tablespoon, dessert and teaspoon when cooking according to the recipe, as a handy standard for measuring the amount of bulk and liquid foods, along with a pinch, a glass and electronic scales.

Housewives, professional chefs and culinary specialists who regularly cook their own food and preserve mushrooms, fruits, vegetables for the winter for recipes, well know a tablespoon as an improvised kitchen tool for measuring the weight of individual loose or liquid ingredients (salt, granulated sugar, table vinegar , sunflower or olive oil, spices and many others) according to the recipe.

In European countries, three kinds of spoons are used for a meal. Along with the largest canteen, dessert and teaspoons are used during the feast. They are also intended for eating dessert, mousse, jelly, broth, meat and liquid dishes.

In addition to the usual tablespoon that is familiar to everyone since childhood, made of stainless steel or an ISC alloy (cupronickel, nickel, zinc), which all people eat liquid and solid foods daily, sitting at the table, over the centuries-old history of mankind, quite a lot of varieties of this ancient device were invented and manufactured for other auxiliary purposes:

1. dining room - for the first and second hot dishes;
2. soup - made of stainless steel grade 18/10, has a rounded deep scoop and a handle 18 centimeters long to protect your fingers from burns when using hot soup;
3. tea room - with a removable strainer for brewing tea;
4. musical - for extracting sounds from ancient stringed instruments;
5. portioned - for packing ice cream in waffle cups;
6. bar - with a long handle for making a cocktail;
7. coffee - for the dosage of ground natural coffee;
8. decorative - varnished with a pattern or ornament;
9. for spreading red and black caviar on a sandwich;
10. silver from table silver;
11. gilded, covered with a thin layer of gold leaf;
12. for the preparation of pickled and salted olives for a side dish or cocktail;
13. for eating hard boiled and soft-boiled chicken eggs;
14. measured - for the dosage of ingredients in the preparation of recipes;
15. curly - in the form of a scapula with rare curly teeth for cutting and serving cake, mousse and pudding;
16. for the preparation of absinthe alcoholic cocktails;
17. souvenir, varnished, with a pattern or ornament (do not use for eating).

The most famous varieties of the ancient "tool", which was invented by man in the process of evolution, are several major groups of products.

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, a famous revolutionary and utopian philosopher, having first seen an aluminum spoon, said a prophetic phrase that this metal is destined for a great future.

Stalin's excesses and repressions filled the prisons with innocent people who, in deep mines, standing waist-deep in cold water, mined aluminum ore (bauxite) with a pick and shovel. Cheap electrolytic aluminum was smelted from bauxite in electrolysis furnaces, from which lightweight parts of machines and mechanisms were made, as well as spoons, forks and dishes for themselves and for millions of Soviet citizens, the vast majority of whom ate in cheap Soviet canteens. According to statistics, during 1937 about 10 million aluminum spoons and the same number of aluminum forks were produced.

The revolutionary technology of oxygen-converter steelmaking from iron ore has greatly reduced the cost of steel products. In the 70s of the last century, aluminum forks with bent and twisted teeth in Soviet cutlery replaced steel cutlery with the stainless steel mark on the handle.

For resistance to corrosion and mechanical stress (representatives of the working-peasant intelligentsia, sitting in the dining room, opened the handles of spoons and forks from stainless steel lids on half-liter glass bottles with lemonade and beer), a small amount of steel was made from which the spoons and forks were made amount of cupronickel, nickel and zinc. On the long handle of spoons, knives and forks of “improved” steel, one could see an oblong brand with small letters “ISC”.

In shape and size copies a steel spoon. It is made of heat-resistant plastic with the addition of bactericidal components to the plastic. It can not be used for hot foods and drinks (tea, coffee, borsch, soup, fish soup, kharcho, azu). It is used in restaurants, cafes, bistros and other fast food outlets as disposable dishes.

A reusable spoon made of steel or heat-resistant plastic is used at home every day. According to hygienic standards, this food tool should have a number of properties:

1. do not react with organic acids;
2. have high mechanical bending strength;
3. to withstand the temperature of boiling fat, tea or coffee and processing in a dishwasher;
4. resistance to organic acid, alkali, synthetic detergents;
5. lack of emission of harmful substances (phenol, toluene, benzene) in contact with food.

It has a simple primitive design, made of thin thermoplastic. The low price does not include dishwasher sanitation and reuse. A single spoon should not be used for hot coffee or tea.

The capacity of a tablespoon (as opposed to a glass) is determined by the country where it is produced. A European-style tablespoon (20 grams) contains up to 18 ml (milliliters) of liquid (the amount of liquid in a spoon depends on the density), 30 grams of fine salt, 25 grams of granulated sugar, and about 12 grams of dry baker's yeast.

The required proportions of products and their quantity in each recipe are indicated in grams or in the number of tablespoons. It is more convenient for a home cook to use a 100 gram glass or a tablespoon as a measure because the tablespoon and glass are almost always at hand, unlike accurate electronic scales with a small measuring range.

Based on the situation, many “home cooks” use a table of the weight of bulk products in 1 tablespoon and measure the required number of tablespoons with or without top. An extract from the table for the main types of products is given below. The numerator indicates the product weight in gamma in one tablespoon without top, in the denominator - with the top.

The mass of products in one tablespoon:

1. premium wheat flour - 20/30 g;
2. granulated sugar of the first or highest grade - 20/25 g;
3. icing sugar - 22/28 g;
4. Extra salt (small) - 22/28 g;
5. rock salt - 25/30 g;
6. baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) - 22/28 g;
7. polished rice - 15/18 g;
8. ground coffee - 15/20 g;
9. liquid honey - 25/30 g;
10. granular gelatin - 10/15 g;
11. dry baker's yeast - 8/11 g;
12. cocoa powder - 20/25 g;
13. ground cinnamon - 15/20 g;
14. citric acid (crystalline) - 12/16 g;
15. spring water - 18 g;
16. vinegar 9% - 16 g;
17. whole milk - 18 g;
18. vegetable oil - 16 g;
19. melted margarine - 15 g.

Modern tablespoons for food are smelted from the ISC alloy (nickel silver - copper-nickel-zinc alloy). The thickness of the silver coating of products from the ISC is 24 microns. Alloy Composition:

1. Ni (nickel) - 15%;
2. Zn (zinc) - 20%;
3. Cu (copper) - up to 100%.

From other types (tea, dessert, large and small), a tablespoon of a classic shape differs in size and capacity. Empirically (empirically), the relationship was obtained between the capacity of a teaspoon, table and dessert spoon from the ISC alloy for pure tap water:

1. a thin-walled glass of 200 ml - 16 tablespoons (in 1 tablespoon 12.5 ml of water);
2. a thin-walled glass 200 ml - 20 dessert spoons (in 1 dessert spoon 10 ml of water);
3. thin-walled 200 ml glass - 40 teaspoons (in 1 teaspoon 5 ml of water).

The capacity of a tablespoon of aluminum with a length of 192 mm is 10 ml of water (25% less than steel), the own weight of the spoon is 32 grams.

According to sanitary standards, 875 ° silver and its alloys (cupronickel) can be used for making body jewelry and items for storing food products without coating from amalgam of zinc, nickel or gold. Cutlery made of silver 925 ° samples (technical silver) is obligatory coated with a thin layer of gold, chromium, nickel or zinc to prevent oxidation in the air and the formation of water-soluble compounds as a result of a chemical reaction with the acid that is contained in food products.

To prevent darkening (oxidation) of the surface of spoons, knives and forks made of silver or cupronickel The following simple rules must be observed:

1. Store cutlery and tableware made of silverware or ISC in tightly closed drawers with velvet upholstery to protect silver from tarnishing;
2. put silica gel packing in each box with cutlery to absorb moisture, or wrap objects in aluminum foil;
3. tarnished products should be smeared with a thin layer of toothpaste or a mixture of tooth powder with alcohol and polished with a soft woolen or flannel rag;
4. when removing darkened places, do not use pumice, emery cloth or abrasive paste - this can disrupt the finest external coating and lead to the ingress of a large amount of silver salts in food;
5. a completely darkened object can be cleaned from surface oxidation with a mixture of tooth powder and salt with the addition of ammonia;
6. To preserve the brilliance, silverware spoons, forks and knives should be regularly wiped with a soft woolen or flannel rag, and after use the cutlery should be washed from food debris and wiped with a soft cloth.

Also noteworthy is the old-fashioned method of cleaning silver and its alloy products using tooth powder and a woolen or flannel napkin. A small amount of dry tooth powder is poured onto a napkin and the silver cutlery is gently rubbed without pressure. After restoration of the lost gloss, cutlery is washed with tap water and wiped dry with a napkin.

See how to clean silver cutlery in the next video.