Development history of spoon

The archaeological evidence that ancient Chinese people first used spoons to eat belongs to the Neolithic age, 7000 years ago. The invention of spoons by ancient Chinese people is directly related to the emergence of agricultural culture. In the Neolithic age, the main crop varieties in China were rice and millet. The cooking of these two kinds of grains was relatively simple, and they could be eaten directly in grains, and then boiled into porridge with water. Hot porridge, especially semi liquid porridge, is inconvenient to eat directly by hand. It needs to borrow intermediary equipment, so the simplest spoon was invented. Because of the urgent need, people picked up pieces of animal bones or clam shells at random. At first, they may have eaten them without repairing them. Later, people were no longer satisfied with the natural state of long and short bone slices, so the real spoon was made.

After entering the bronze age, the Central Plains still inherited the tradition of eating with spoons in the Neolithic age. Not only did they continue to use bone spoons, but also copper spoons appeared. Since the emergence of copper smelting technology, spoons used for meals have also begun to be made of copper. In the bronze age, the bone spoon in the Central Plains was still a widely valued eating appliance. By the Western Zhou Dynasty, the use of bone spoon was not as common as in the past.

The first copper spoon appeared, and its shape was mostly modeled on the long bone spoon. Since the Western Zhou Dynasty, a bronze spoon shaped dinner spoon has been popular in the Central Plains. This kind of spoon has a pointed leaf shape, and its handle is flat and relatively wide. Two spoon shaped bronze spoons were unearthed in a cellar in Fufeng, Shaanxi Province. Their age is relatively early among similar spoons. The handles of these two food spoons are decorated with geometric patterns, and the name of the owner is engraved on the spoon body, with an inscription named "dagger".

In the Warring States period, a kind of spoon with long handle and tongue shape appeared. In a Qin tomb in the early spring and Autumn Period in fulinbao, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province, such a spoon was unearthed. Its handle is thin, and its body has been changed to an oval tongue shape. Narrow handle tongue shaped spoon, about in the late spring and Autumn period has been finalized and produced. Since the Warring States period, narrow handled tongue shaped spoons have become the mainstream form of ancient Chinese food spoons, which have been used for more than 2000 years. The Warring States period spoons also adopted lacquer wood technology, resulting in a beautiful lacquer wood dinner spoon. Like the bronze spoon, the lacquer wooden spoon is also shaped like a tongue shaped spoon with a narrow handle. It is painted as a whole and usually painted with exquisite geometric patterns.

In the song and Yuan Dynasties, in addition to a large number of copper spoons, there were also many spoons made of silver. During this period, the shape of the spoon basically inherited the tradition of the Tang Dynasty's thin handled tongue shaped spoon, with the only difference being that the handle tail was slightly widened. Later, with the diversified development of times and catering, the technological level gradually improved, and the spoon became more practical, more exquisite, and more diversified in shape.

Today, most spoons are mainly stainless steel.