Spoons - A Human Experiment

       

      Recently we left our teenage daughters at home for the weekend.  They were invited to join us for the little get-away, but as the semester had just finished and they were exhausted from finals week, they chose to sleep-in at home and laze around watching Netflix all weekend.  Before departing I took their grocery list and stocked them up with their favorite goodies to assuage my Mommy Guilt.  Then I put the dog in charge and left.

         My only request was for them not to go brain-dead on screens and to keep the kitchen reasonably sanitary by rinsing and putting dishes into the washer I had just emptied.  They pretty much pulled that off – at least to their own slovenly standards.

         What stuck with me upon our return, though, was not how they have become independent human beings and were able to cook and clean up after themselves.  Not the thought of how close they are to leaving our nest and becoming real adults out on their own.  What struck me was how many spoons they used! 

Not so many forks or knives, but every single spoon from the drawer was now soiled and in the dishwasher waiting for a steamy spa treatment.  The long-handled, delicate dessert spoons, the regular meal spoons and even the fat soup spoons were all used up.

If this had been just my junk-food daughter, I would get it.  She would just go from ice-cream container to yogurt cup to cereal bowl – I could totally see her subsisting on scooping food from container to mouth.  But this weekend included my health-conscious daughter who enjoys eating whole foods and creating healthy dishes.

Could it be that spoons are the only necessary instrument for eating and everything else is finger-food?  Are forks only required when eating with others and we need to appear to be civilized by gingerly piercing food rather than scooping it – in other words, when parents insist?  I do remember that my own childhood job was to set the table – eight complete settings that included forks, knives, spoons and napkins for 8 people.  On nights when we had chili or some other definite spoon-shoveling food, my mom would demand that I lay out the other utensils, even though there was nothing to cut, spread or stab on the table.

Let’s all try an experiment.  For the next week we will only put spoons on the table at meal time.  We will watch and see.  Will our families be able to eat all foods by scooping?  Will they even notice the lack of other tools?  Will we all decide to clear out our utensil drawers to make more room for scooping devices?  I’m beginning to understand that nursery rhyme a little better.  It is now obvious why the Dish ran away with the Spoon!