In Praise of Wooden Spoons

The king of the kitchen utensils. And a villanelle in memory of my mum, who passed on her love of cooking and wooden spoons to me.

I wanted to write something today about just one thing. Something uncomplicated. I thought it would be a relatively simple exercise to pick one object from the whole house but it turned out to be more difficult than I thought. At first I tried to find something interesting, like the fossil I found in the garden, or a painting from a bootsale but after an hour of wracking my brains, looking in drawers and rummaging about in cupboards I gave up and went to make a cup of tea. And there it was, as is usually the case when looking for something, right in front of my nose all along.

Standing on the work top next to the cooker, in between the knife block and the big enamel pot of kitchen utensils, is a large mint green Woods Beryl Ware jug, perhaps my favourite shade of green ever. It is home to 13 wooden spoons of various sizes and condition, a few wooden salad servers and when I looked this morning, an out of place ice cream scoop that has somehow migrated from a kitchen drawer.

Most of the wooden spoons are very old, in fact when I thought about it I couldn’t actually remember ever buying a wooden spoon although being 63 and an avid cook I must have bought at least a handful over the years, but I cannot remember anyone ever giving me a wooden spoon as a gift either. It’s a kitchen mystery where they have all come from.

There are a few that used to belong to my mum although I now wouldn't be able to tell you which ones they were, all of them get used so often that most of them look remarkably similar. There is one particularly large spoon, not as dark in colour as the smaller ones, a thicker spoon, still perfectly spoon shaped, unlike some that have been used so often they have started to wear on the left hand side, the wood worn down over the years by continuous stirring by right handed cooks. This large spoon, the matriarch of the wooden spoon family, rarely gets used these days. When I was a baker it was this spoon I used to stir my fruit cakes, it is big and strong and could cope with the heavy cake mixture, it wouldn’t bend under the strain, a workhorse that could be relied on to do the job properly. I like to think it is enjoying the slower pace now, having a well earned rest, coming out of retirement just a few times a year for the odd Dundee cake or pudding.

Searching through my old food photos, I was surprised to see so many wooden spoons!

A few of the spoons are almost black at the tips, stained by regular encounters with sauces and curries, stews and stir fries. Some of the older ones have started to lose their ‘dip’, barely spoons anymore, more like flatter spatulars but that does not stop them being used. When I am cooking I have noticed I never just grab the nearest spoon, I always flick through, searching for the one that I think will be best for the job; a finer flat sided one for a white sauce so it can scrape into the corners of the saucepan, a bigger, well stained one for a curry, a cleaner looking one which doesn’t smell of spices for a sponge cake or to mix up a pancake or Yorkshire pudding batter.

The one thing I can never remember doing with a wooden spoon is throwing one away. Apart from once when I am ashamed to say I took one to mix a can of paint because I couldn’t find anything else to use. Out of the all the kitchen utensils they must be the cheapest and the easiest to replace but I don’t think I could bear to throw a wooden spoon in the bin just because it was a tad worn, it would be like throwing out an old loyal friend.

These spoons have been with me for as long as I can remember. They have made birthday cakes, wedding cakes, anniversary cakes and cakes simply to make someone smile. Biscuits, treats and tray bakes to brighten days, say welcome, say goodbye and good luck. I don’t know how many times they have had a part in making my son’s favourite chocolate cake or my dear late dad’s favourite, bread pudding. So much joy created by such an unremarkable object.

My son stirring up something for school cookery lessons, 2016

A wooden spoon was one of the first things I gave to my son to use in the kitchen, stirring the Christmas Cake was his job on his very first Christmas with us when he was four. And of course after cooking, two wooden spoons make for perfect drumsticks to bash out a tune on the bottom of a saucepan.

I am sure there have been times I have shed tears while holding a wooden spoon, there have certainly been days when I felt like throwing a spoon at the radio, or Michael, while stirring a risotto and I have precious memories of dancing around the kitchen with my mum, wooden spoons in hand, bopping away to Cab Calloway while preparing Sunday Lunch. Many, many dinners have been made with a wooden spoon in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, laughing with loved ones and friends as the pasta sauce was stirred and stories told, memories made.

So hooray for the humble wooden spoon, perhaps taken for granted but I hope not. I know if I had to choose just one utensil for the kitchen, this plain, unassuming, but absolutely essential piece of kit would be at top of my list.

This week I have had a go at writing a villanelle, which until recently I only associated with the anti-hero from the tv programme Killing Eve, but now I know it is a form of poem. To be precise a poem of 19 lines consisting of five tercets and one quatrain with two repeating end rhymes and two refrains. Who said poetry was easy?

I found this quite difficult as well as very time consuming but was pleased I persevered and finished it in the end. For clarity, Elizabeth Ann is/was my beautiful mum who I still miss every day, we had such laughs in the kitchen and she passed on to me her love of cooking for which I have always been very, very grateful.

The Spoon That Feeds

Remember the hand that once held the spoon,
Carved in beech by an unknown man,
Do not forget it will be your hand soon.

She laughed to see her recipes strewn
Across the tiles where my small feet ran,
Remember the hand that once held the spoon.

We danced in time to the same cook's tune,
Talked of the times it all began,
Do not forget it will be your hand soon.

Shorter days and years may loom,
I will follow the path of Elizabeth Ann,
Remember the hand that once held the spoon.

I too was from my mother hewn,
Her voice a constant care "You can."
Do not forget it will be your hand soon.

Stirring memories in the afternoon
Have stretched across my long lifespan. 
Remember the hand that once held the spoon,
Do not forget it will be your hand soon.

As always I would love to hear your stories, your thoughts, whether about wooden spoons or not. The comment section is open to all. All comments are replied to and are very much appreciated.

Thank you for reading my newsletter and your ongoing support, I am immensely grateful for your time and kindness.

The most well known villanelle is probably “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. If you like poetry I urge you to look up the National Theatre recording of Martin Sheen reading this poem, it’s quite something.

Lots of love,

Lindsey x