Soup spoon

A soup spoon is a type of spoon with a large or rounded bowl, used for consuming soup. The term can either refer to the British soup spoon or the Chinese spoon. Round bowled soup spoons were a Victorian invention. Canteens of silver made prior to about 1900 do not have round soup spoons; a tablespoon was used (and still is in some British houses where the silver predates 1900).

Chinese

Main article: Chinese spoon

Typical Chinese soup spoons

The Chinese soup spoon, usually ceramic and of a distinct shape, can vary in size from normal soup spoon size to near-platter size.

Western

Western soup spoon

The British soup spoon is the size of a dessert spoon (i.e., smaller than a tablespoon) but with a deeper, more circular bowl for holding liquid. Modern soup spoons are usually stainless steel or silver-plated, but in the past wooden and horn spoons were more common. The idea of including a separate soup spoon in a table setting originated in the eighteenth century, when the bowl shapes varied widely, deep or shallow, oval, pointed, egg-shaped or circular. Spoon shapes became more standardized in nineteenth-century silverware.[1]

The rounded form of soup spoon is not generally used in continental Europe, where an oval-shaped spoon is traditionally used.

Notes

1. Bee Wilson. Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat. (New York: Basic Books, 2012 ISBN 9780465021765), pp. 182-188.