Bad news for anyone born with a silver spoon in their mouth

March 29, 2015 5:06 PM

How does your choice of spoon material impact your dining experience?
posted by Blue Jello Elf (44 comments total)

Oh, gosh, there was a podcast (I think?) I listened to very recently about how the different materials we use for spoons significantly changes our experience of eating with them. Can't for the life of me remember which one it was, though! Foo!
posted by Lexica at 5:21 PM on March 29, 2015

My Aunt Sis (now departed) would only drink tea from a bone china cup. She said tea didn't taste right out of anything else. She could also smell a mouse behind a wall in another room, so we just thought she was overly sensitive (or maybe a little bit odd), but she must have known what we're just discovering!
posted by xingcat at 5:34 PM on March 29, 2015

Lexica, was it perhaps related to this NPR story? It has long been accepted as truth in my family of enthusiastic eaters that the utensils you use affect the taste of your food. Hot dogs in the back yard taste best with plastic utensils (for the sides, not the wieners), but sterling silver is best for ice cream. Not so much because of taste, but because its thermal conductivity transfers the cold to your mouth efficiently.
posted by TedW at 5:39 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

So ceramic frit, tempered glass and polycarbonate should also pass the gold standard.
posted by the Real Dan at 5:42 PM on March 29, 2015

I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:47 PM on March 29, 2015 [13 favorites]

Lexica - it was probably the first episode of Gastropod.
posted by kmkrebs at 5:48 PM on March 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

What? no discussion of shape?
posted by zinon at 5:50 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

When 16 Handles (serve yourself yogurt + toppings) first opened in the East Village, they gave out wooden spoons as part of their pledge to be green. That did not last long at all. Eating frozen yogurt with a wooden spoon really stinks.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:56 PM on March 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

No mention of using your hands?
posted by arcticseal at 6:04 PM on March 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

No mention of using your feet?
posted by oceanjesse at 6:09 PM on March 29, 2015 [4 favorites]

I carved my own spoon out of wood. A well finished wooden spoon is the ideal spoon for just about everything
posted by cubby at 6:18 PM on March 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

They say he carved it himself… from a bigger spoon.
posted by migurski at 6:24 PM on March 29, 2015 [11 favorites]

I've read that silver used to tarnish more slowly in the past because there was less sulfur in the air for it to react with before the industrial revolution; silver flatware didn't require so much polishing. Wonder how much things like that affect taste.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:37 PM on March 29, 2015 [4 favorites]

As long as it doesn't have the little pokey things from having been through the garbage disposal, I'm good.
posted by tamitang at 6:53 PM on March 29, 2015 [5 favorites]

I hear eating in a hermetically sealed environment totally changes the way you taste food. Nothing is better than eating in deep space.
So, we should have a specific container and utensil for every single food and drink?
posted by ivandnav at 6:54 PM on March 29, 2015

Unsurprised that gold was the best. Considering how cheap gold plating, might be a decent option.
posted by Blackanvil at 7:06 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

So, we should have a specific container and utensil for every single food and drink?

This is the sort of thing that gets written up in science websites as "You've Been Eating Ice Cream Wrong!," but I really think it's only relevant for high-end restaurants and that sort of place. For years people have talked about how sous-vide is the best way to cook meats, but that doesn't mean all other ways are suddenly obsolete - unless maybe you're a Michelin-rated chef or a copywriter who needs pageviews.
posted by teponaztli at 7:06 PM on March 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

Gold is pretty non-reactive, as is glass. Why would a gold spoon be any different to a glass one?
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:07 PM on March 29, 2015

ivandnav: "So, we should have a specific container and utensil for every single food and drink?"

I mean, just the ones that matter a lot to you. Like, if you really like wine, it's not that weird to have different glasses for different wines. Or maybe if you make a lot of meringues, you'd want a copper bowl. Or maybe if you have anemia, you want to cook more with cast iron and less with non-stick.

Probably special-material utensils will become a gimmick for a very spendy restaurant and your most annoying food-snob friend, but it's not that weird to have special containers/utensils for a few things you really like and care about.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:08 PM on March 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

We have both glass and a variety of plastic storage containers for the pretty fundamental reason that some foods (like curries or tomato sauces) are going to stain the plastic but not the glass. So that stuff goes either in glass (because it's easy to clean) or the cheap plastic deli containers (because it's easier mentally to throw out deli containers than plastic storage containers that aren't really disposable, even if they're sold as disposables).

> Gold is pretty non-reactive, as is glass. Why would a gold spoon be any different to a glass one?

Different thermal conductivity in a metal spoon, or maybe just the less-problematic consequences of mindlessly chomping down on a spoon that's not made of freakin' glass.
posted by ardgedee at 7:17 PM on March 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

Silver spoons are the WORST. My family doesn't really have "good silver" (or if we do it's hidden away somewhere and we never use it), but my parents have one inexplicable silver teaspoon that I always forget is silver. It's small, though, so I always grab it to put sugar in my tea, stir my tea, and BURN MY DANG HAND because it's so goddamn heat-conductive that you're just innocently going stirstirstirAAAAHHHGGHHH

Silver is my favorite jewelry metal and it makes me sad that we make so much of into SUBPAR SPOONS THAT ARE TERRIBLE FOR STIRRING TEA. Every time this happens to me (I forget what spoon it is, so it is at least 3-4 times a year), I get all annoyed at the social constructions around silver being associated with richness and people spending a bunch of money on it to show people that they can even though it is CLEARLY A SUBPAR MATERIAL. i am fairly sure both my parents are really sick of this social constructionism rant but tbh they shouldn't have started teaching me concepts like "conspicuous consumption" in adolescence if they didn't want this to happen to their child. YEAH MOM, YOU HELPED TEACH ME THAT THE LABELS ON THE JEANS MEAN NOTHING, BUT WAIT TIL YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I USE THE WRONG SPOON FOR MY TEA
posted by NoraReed at 7:21 PM on March 29, 2015 [13 favorites]

Mother of pearl for caviar. Or gold.
posted by BWA at 7:30 PM on March 29, 2015

Man, this is cool! One thing it doesn't get into is how expectations alter our perception of taste (among other senses). For example, if you flavor a soda with cherry and then dye it orange, people say it tastes of orange juice. So I have to wonder--how much of the effect of the gold spoon is an effect of expectations and how much is an effect of the metal itself? Did they blindfold tasters before they tried the foods?
posted by sciatrix at 7:39 PM on March 29, 2015 [4 favorites]

This is the sort of thing that gets written up in science websites as "You've Been Eating Ice Cream Wrong!"

"You won't believe this amazing Ice Cream Hack!"
posted by stargell at 7:39 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

Really? Nobody?

There is no spoon.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 7:57 PM on March 29, 2015 [3 favorites]

I keep my spoon in my sock, and then when it's chow time I can just flop back in the grass and enjoy my vittles.

And after that I select one of the stogies I have found -- short, but not too big around.
posted by mr. digits at 8:02 PM on March 29, 2015 [5 favorites]

I've never used a silver spoon, but I think I have an old one in a box of old family stuff somewhere. I'll have to find it and try it out (and then finally get around to selling it or melting it into something more interesting, because I clearly do not have a need for a silver spoon.

The worst I have ever used for thermal conductivity it aluminum -- you can't even stir instant coffee before your fingers burn.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:07 PM on March 29, 2015

Then there is a glass bowl covered in rabbit fur, designed to encourage a more tactile experience with your soup.

You know how whenever someone posts a video showing people being casual around heights or caves or spiders and people go NOPE? This right here is my NOPE moment.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:10 PM on March 29, 2015 [12 favorites]

This is why it is important reset your palate with frequent applications of sterilizing alcohol.
posted by srboisvert at 8:23 PM on March 29, 2015 [2 favorites]

I hate eating at my Father's place because he only has silver plate silver wear. Everything I eat there comes with a side of 9V battery.
posted by Mitheral at 10:14 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was expecting something on porcelain and bamboo, since I eat with those spoons a lot.

Ah well. As The Tick says, "SPOOOOON!"
posted by bile and syntax at 10:19 PM on March 29, 2015

Eating frozen yogurt with a wooden spoon really stinks.
An unsealed, dry wood utensil has ruined otherwise pleasant dessert and food truck experiences for me. I can feel it now.
posted by a halcyon day at 10:27 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

Whenever I think about cultery design, I think of this.
posted by Perko at 11:14 PM on March 29, 2015

Despite what this guy says, I'm fairly sure a magnesium spoon would be shithouse.
posted by pompomtom at 11:17 PM on March 29, 2015 [1 favorite]

When she was on the Kitchen Cabinet Zoe Laughlin also said that spoon shape and mouth shape were variables that determined how foods were tasted, so simply getting a gold spoon may not give you the ultimate spoon experience!
I am pretty sure I have seen silver spoons with a gold inlay in the bowl, which might be a confusing combination, depending on spoon orientation.
posted by asok at 2:23 AM on March 30, 2015

Hmmm, I remember reading articles about how silver tasted best a couple years ago.
Like http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/10141361/Yoghurt-from-a-silver-spoon-tastes-best.html
I am a scientist and food lover, and I really don't even care that much to go into the detail of the actual studies that produced these polarized results in the snooz. What you personally taste is what you taste--sure reactive metals react with acids, and that has been known for a long time. So do your own experiments, and gravitate towards what tastes best to you.
(and if it's not just psychological, is there any reason gold would taste better than plastic, or fingers for that matter? Isn't it only yogurt commercial ladies who are putting spoons in their mouths, rubbing them around, and saying mmmm)
posted by ...tm... at 3:10 AM on March 30, 2015

What about glass spoons?
posted by oceanjesse at 5:11 AM on March 30, 2015

Gallium works well. Try Gallium.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 6:08 AM on March 30, 2015 [2 favorites]

On a typically fascinating edition NPR's Science Friday dealing with materials, author Mark Miodownik declared that he'd much prefer to be served with stainless steel than silver, because it's such a marvelous material and much more nonreactive as well.
posted by Gelatin at 7:16 AM on March 30, 2015

Whoa, that gallium spoon is awesome!
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 7:34 AM on March 30, 2015

I listened to that podcast -- which had a whole explanation that silver cutlery was useful for fish only and more details I forgot -- and all I want now is a set of gold cutlery.
posted by jeather at 7:42 AM on March 30, 2015

Ok, now I'm convinced I need a gallium spoon.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 12:35 PM on March 30, 2015

My regular spoons are actually ring shaped bitter electromagnets on sticks that create fields strong enough to levitate almost any food up, toward and into my mouth. That way there is no contact with any material at all and I get to enjoy the full unaltered flavor of my soup.

The only problems so far have been my electrical bill and of course the permits required for the initial upgrade of my main panel from 200 Amps to something capable of delivering 10+ Megawatts per guest to the wall outlets in the dining room.

On special occasions I still use my original set of spoons hand carved from single flawless diamonds. The hardiness of the material and the lack of impurities all but guarantee that the soup will remain free of contamination and unaltered in flavor no matter how long its journey from bowl to mouth. Plus they sparkle nicely in candle light.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 2:24 PM on March 30, 2015 [3 favorites]

Then there is a glass bowl covered in rabbit fur, designed to encourage a more tactile experience with your soup.
I'll put it next to my cup and and saucer.
posted by Miss Otis' Egrets at 9:45 PM on March 30, 2015