Tablespoons: description, volume and types

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

Each of us picks up a tablespoon while sitting at the table, at least 3 times a day, without thinking at all 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 consciousness., so many, when making a list of essentials for a multi-day hiking trip, first of all call a tablespoon.

The absence of a drinking tool in the pocket of a backpack, which was discovered upon arrival at the dacha, in a tent on the banks of a river or lake, on a halt in the woods or on a yacht on the high seas, evokes memories of Robinson Crusoe on a desert island. This creates severe psychological discomfort due to the real prospect of eating fish soup, porridge with meat or pea soup from a camp pot using a cup, mug, glass found in the bushes of a rusty tin 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 outwardly like a small flat elongated cup (scoop) with a handle or handle attached to it."

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

It is 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 included in the recipe, for measuring small amounts of bulk or solid food and liquids (oil, vinegar, syrup, brine) according to the recipe, home cooks use the following improvised weight and volume standards for different types of products:

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

Professional culinary experts use a table, dessert and teaspoon when preparing food according to a recipe, as a handy reference for measuring the amount of bulk and liquid foods, along with a pinch, a glass and an electronic scale.

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

In European countries, three types of spoons are used for a meal. Along with the largest in volume - the dining room, dessert and teaspoons are used during the feast. They are also designed to be eaten with dessert, mousse, jelly, broth, meat and liquid dishes.

In addition to the usual table spoon, familiar to everyone from childhood, made of stainless steel or an MNC alloy (cupronickel, nickel, zinc), with which all people eat liquid and solid food every day, sitting at the table, over the centuries-old history of mankind, quite a few varieties of this ancient device were invented and manufactured for other auxiliary purposes:

1. dining room - for first and second hot dishes;
2. soup - made of stainless steel grade 18/10, has a rounded shape of a deep scoop and a handle 18 centimeters long to protect fingers from burns when drinking hot soup;
3. tea room - with a removable tea strainer;
4. musical - for extracting sounds from old stringed instruments;
5. portioned - for packaging ice cream in waffle cups;
6. bar - with a long handle for making a cocktail;
7. coffee - for 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 silverware;
11. gilded, covered with a thin layer of gold leaf;
12. for making pickled and pickled 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 culinary recipes;
15. curly - in the form of a spatula with rare curly teeth for cutting and serving cake, mousse and pudding;
16. for making alcoholic cocktails such as absinthe;
17. souvenir, varnished, with a pattern or ornament (not used for eating).

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

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

Stalin's excesses and repressions filled prisons with innocent people who, in deep mines, standing waist-deep in cold water, mined aluminum ore (bauxite) with a pick and a 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 overwhelming 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 BOF technology for smelting steel from iron ore has greatly reduced the cost of steel products. Aluminum forks with bent and twisted teeth in a spiral in the 70s of the last century in the Soviet canteens replaced steel cutlery with the stamp "stainless" on the handle.

For resistance to corrosion and mechanical stress (representatives of the workers 'and peasants' intelligentsia, sitting in the dining room, opened the lids on half-liter glass bottles with lemonade and beer with the handles of stainless steel spoons and forks), a small the amount of cupronickel, nickel and zinc. On the long handles of spoons, knives and forks made of "improved" steel, one could see an oblong stamp with small letters "MSC".

It copies a steel spoon in shape and size. Made of heat-resistant plastic with the addition of bactericidal components to the plastic. Cannot be used for hot food and drinks (tea, coffee, borscht, soup, ukha, kharcho, azu). Used in restaurants, cafes, bistros and other fast food outlets as disposable tableware.

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

1. do not react with organic acids;
2. have high mechanical bending strength;
3. withstand the temperature of boiling fat, tea or coffee and processing in the dishwasher;
4. resistance to organic acids, alkalis, synthetic detergents;
5. no release of harmful substances (phenol, toluene, benzene) in contact with food.

It has a simple primitive design and is made of thin thermoplastic. Low price does not include dishwasher sanitization and reuse. A single spoon cannot 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 table spoon (20 gram) contains up to 18 ml (milliliters) of liquid (the amount of liquid in a spoon depends on the density), 30 grams of fine kitchen salt, 25 grams of granulated sugar, 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, due to the fact that a tablespoon and a glass are almost always at hand, in contrast to accurate electronic scales with a small measurement range.

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

Weight of food in one tablespoon:

1. wheat flour of the highest grade - 20/30 g;
2. granulated sugar of the first or highest grade - 20/25 g;
3. powdered sugar - 22/28 g;
4. Extra salt (fine) - 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. granulated 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 eating are smelted from the MNTs alloy (nickel silver is a copper-nickel-zinc alloy). The thickness of the silver-plated products from the MSC is 24 microns. Alloy composition:

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

A classic-shaped tablespoon differs from other types (tea, dessert, large and small) in size and capacity. Empirically (empirically) the relationship between the capacity of a tea, table and dessert spoon made of MNTs alloy for pure tap water was obtained:

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

The capacity of a 192 mm long aluminum tablespoon is 10 ml of water (25% less than a steel one), its own weight is 32 grams.

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

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

1. store cutlery and tableware made of silverware or MSC in tight-fitting boxes with velvet upholstery to protect the silver from tarnishing;
2. put a package of silica gel in each box with cutlery to absorb moisture, or wrap items in aluminum foil;
3. tarnished products should be smeared with a thin layer of toothpaste or a mixture of tooth powder and alcohol and polished with a soft woolen or flannel cloth;
4. when removing darkened areas, pumice stone, emery cloth or abrasive paste must not be used - this can break the thinnest outer coating and lead to the ingress of a large amount of silver salts into 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 maintain their shine, silverware spoons, forks and knives should be regularly wiped clean with a soft woolen or flannel cloth, and after use, cutlery should be cleaned of food debris and wiped with a soft cloth.

Also noteworthy is the old method of cleaning items made of silver and its alloys using tooth powder and woolen or flannel napkins. A small amount of dry tooth powder is poured onto a napkin and silver cutlery is gently wiped without pressure. After regaining the lost shine, the cutlery is rinsed with tap water and wiped dry with a napkin.

For information on how to clean silver cutlery, see the next video.