The first mentions of the spoon as an item for meals are found in ancient manuscripts, which are more than three thousand years. In Europe, this all known device for a drinking meal brought from a trip to England Knyaz Vladimir Vsevolodovich Monomakh in 998 of our era. In order to increase culture to the European level, peasants and versators in Russia were tested under the threat of beating the first dishes at the table, and the cutlets, porridge, meat and other food are not hands, but solely with the help of cutlery (spoons, knife or fork).
Peculiarities
Each of us takes a tablespoon, sitting at the table at least 3 times a day, without thinking about the origin of this ancient "tools of labor for eating food at the table." This usual kitchen accessory for the last thousand years has firmly entered our consciousness. , Therefore, many, making up a list of essentials for a multi-day tourist trip, primarily refer to a tablespoon.
The lack of a feasting tool in the pocket of the backpack, which was discovered by arrival at the cottage, in a tent on the banks of the river or lake, on a privala in the forest or on a yacht in the open sea causes memories of Robinson Cruzo on a desert island. This creates a strong psychological discomfort due to the real perspective to eat fishing ear, porridge with meat or pea soup from a hiking kit with a cup, mugs, a glass found in the bushes of Rusty Canning cans and other remedies.
Historians, linguists and archaeologists give the following scientific description of this simple device for a drinking meal: "The spoon is a cutlery that looks outwardly as a small flat elongated cup (screaming) with a handle attached to it or a handle."
In the explanatory dictionary V. I. Daly, the tablespoon is described as "a weapon for bread, for food liquids."
A rather large amount of bulk or liquid (more than 500 grams) for cooking on a recipe or for home blanks for the winter is very simple: there is a glass or electronic desktop scales.
A little more difficult to accurately measure a small amount (up to 50 grams) bulk or liquid products. Depending on the consistency of the ingredients, which are included in the recipe, for measuring a small amount of bulk or solid food and liquids (oil, vinegar, syrup, brine) According to the recipe, home cooks use the following girlfriend weights and volumes for different types of products:
- Solid products (butter, margarine, slices) - weighing a piece of sliced a piece of scales;
- Bulk products (salt, sugar or other substances) - a pinch (the amount of substance between three tightly compressed with the right hand), glass, weighing, dining room, dessert or teaspoon;
- Liquid products (syrup, brine) - a faceted glass, a liter can, a dining room or a teaspoon, the number of drops.
Professional cooks use a dining room, dessert and teaspoon when cooking for a recipe, like a girlfriend to measure the amount of bulk and liquid foods, along with a pinch, glass and electronic scales.
Housewives, professional cooks and cooks, which with their own hands regularly prepare food and preserve mushrooms, fruits, vegetables for the winter, well know a tablespoon, like a girlfriend kitchen device for measuring the weight of individual bulk or liquid ingredients (salts, sugar sand, table vinegar , oils of sunflower or olive, spices and many others) according to the recipe.
Three varieties of spoons use in European countries for meals. Along with the largest - dining room, during the feast, a dessert and teaspoon is used. They are also designed to eat dessert, mousse, jelly, broth, meat and liquid dishes.
Varieties
In addition to a familiar one since childhood, an ordinary tablespoon made from stainless steel or alloy MNC (Melchior, Nickel, Zinc), which all people eat a daily liquid and hard food, sitting at the table, For the centuries-old history of mankind, quite a lot of varieties of this ancient device were invented and made for other auxiliary purposes:
- dining room - for the first and second hot dishes;
- Soup - made of stainless steel 18/10 stainless steel, has a round shape of a deep scoop and a handle with a length of 18 centimeters to protect your fingertips from the burn when drinking hot soup;
- Tea - with a removable pitch for brewing tea;
- Musical - to extract sounds from vintage string tools;
- portion - for packaging ice cream in wafer cups;
- Bar - with a long handle for cooking cocktail;
- Coffee - for dosage of ground natural coffee;
- Decorative - varnished-covered with a pattern or ornament;
- To spit on a red and black caviar sandwich;
- silver silver;
- Gold plated, covered with a thin layer of gravity gold;
- For the preparation of pickled and saline olives for a side dish or cocktail;
- For eating boiled boiled and sick of chicken eggs;
- dimensional - for dosage of ingredients when preparing culinary recipes;
- Figured - in the form of a blade with rare figured teeth for cutting and feeding on the table of cake, mousse and pudding;
- To prepare alcoholic cocktails of the type of absinthe;
- The souvenir, covered with varnish, with a pattern or ornament (for meals is not used).
The most famous varieties of ancient "gun", which was invented by a person in the process of evolution, are considered to be several major groups of products.
From food aluminum (without impurities of mercury and molybdenum hydroxide)
Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky, the famous revolutionary and the philosopher-utopian, seeing the aluminum spoon for the first time, said the prophetic phrase that the great future was destined to this metal.
Stalinist gentlemen and repression filled prisons in any innocent people who are in deep mines, standing on the belt in cold water, pickled and the shovel mined aluminum ore (bauxites). From bauxite in electrolysis furnaces, cheap electrolytic aluminum was paid, from which the lightweight parts of the machines and mechanisms were made, as well as spoons, forks and dishes for themselves and for millions of Soviet citizens, the vast majority of which were fed in cheap Soviet canteens. According to statistical data, about 10 million aluminum spoons and as many aluminum forks were issued during 1937.
For reference: 4,137 million people lived in the city of Moscow as of January 1, 1939.
Stainless steel
The revolutionary technology of oxygen converter smelting steel from iron ore has greatly reduced the cost of steel products. Aluminum plugs with curved and twisted in the spiral of the teeth in the 70s of the last century in the Soviet canteens replaced steel cutlery with stigm "stainless" on the handle.
For corrosion resistance and mechanical influences (representatives of the working and peasant intelligentsia, sitting in the dining room, opened with handles of spoons and forks made of stainless steel caps on floor-liter glass bottles with lemonade and beer) in the part of steel, from which spoons and forks were made, a small The number of melchior, nickel and zinc. On a long handle of spoons, knives and forks from the "improved" steel, it was possible to consider the oblong stigma with small letters "MNT".
Plastic
In shape and sizes copies steel spoon. Made of heat-resistant plastic with the addition of bactericidal components into plastics. You can not use for hot products and drinks (tea, coffee, borsch, soup, ear, harcho, azu). Used in restaurants, cafes, bistro and other speeds of fast food as a single dish.
Reusable
Multi-spoon made of steel or heat-resistant plastic every daily uses at home. By hygienic standards, this tool for food must have a number of properties:
- Do not react with organic acids;
- have a high mechanical bend strength;
- to withstand the temperature of boiling fat, tea or coffee and processing in the dishwasher;
- resistance to the effects of organic acid, alkali, synthetic detergents;
- No excretion of harmful substances (phenol, toluene, benzene) when contacting food products.
Reusable spoon should also have a low cost.
Disposable
It has a simple primitive design, made of thin thermoplastic. Low price does not provide for sanitary processing in the dishwasher and reuse. One-time spoon cannot be used for hot coffee or tea.
At high temperature (about 100 ° C), thermoplastic can be released to hot liquid toxic compounds of phenol and acetaldehyde.
Capacity
Capacity of the tablespoon (in contrast to the glass) is determined by the country where it is produced. A spoon of a European sample dining room (20 gram) contains up to 18 ml (milliliters) fluid (the amount of liquid in a spoon depends on the density), 30 grams of small kitchen salt, 25 grams of sugar-sand, about 12 grams of dry bakery yeast.
Important information: Canadian or American tablespoon contain 15 grams of shallow salt. A spoon 20-gram-made in Australia contains 20 grams of salts "Extra".
The necessary proportions of products and their number in each recipe are indicated in grams or in the amount of tablespoons. A homemade cooking is more convenient to use a 100 gram glass or tablespoon as a measure due to the fact that the tablespoon and wine glass is almost always at hand, in contrast to accurate electronic scales with a small measurement range.
Based on the situation, many "home cooking" use the weight table of bulk products in 1 tablespoon and measure the necessary number with tablespoons with top or without vertex. Extract from the table for the main types of products is given below. The numerator indicates the weight of the product in the gamma in one tablespoon without top, in the denominator - with top.
Mass of products in one tablespoon:
- Wheat flour of top grade - 20/30 g;
- Sugar sand of the first or top grade - 20/25 g;
- powder sugar - 22/28 g;
- Salt "Extra" (small) - 22/28 g;
- Stone Salt - 25/30 g;
- Food soda (sodium bicarbonate) - 22/28 g;
- Polished rice - 15/18 g;
- Hammer coffee - 15/20 g;
- Honey liquid - 25/30 g;
- Granular gelatin - 10/15 g;
- Dry bakery yeast - 8/11 g;
- Cocoa powder - 20/25 g;
- Hammer cinnamon - 15/20 g;
- citric acid (crystalline) - 12/16 g;
- Spring water - 18 g;
- vinegar 9% - 16 g;
- whole milk - 18 g;
- Vegetable oil - 16 g;
- Margarine Folded - 15
Difference from other types of spoons
Modern tablespoons for food intake are smelted from the MNC Alloy (nezilber - copper-nickel-zinc alloy). The thickness of the silver spraying of products from the MTC is 24 microns. Alloy composition:
- Ni (nickel) - 15%;
- Zn (zinc) - 20%;
- Cu (copper) - up to 100%.
From other types (tea, dessert, large and small) tablespoon of classic shape is characterized by dimensions and capacity. The empirical (experienced) path was obtained the dependence between the tea, dining room and a dessert spoon from the MNC alloy for pure tap water:
- thin-walled glass 200 ml - 16 tablespoons (in 1 tablespoon 12.5 ml of water);
- A glass of thin-walled 200 ml - 20 dessert spoons (in 1 dessert spoon 10 ml of water);
- The thin-walled 200 ml cup is 40 teaspoons (in 1 teaspoon 5 ml of water).
For other liquid food products (vegetable oil, oil olive, vinegar, sugar syrup), depending on the density of fluid, the capacity of the tablespoon in milliliters (ml) can differ significantly from the above.
The capacity of the tablespoon of aluminum is 192 mm long is 10 ml of water (25% less than steel), its own spoon weight is 32 grams.
According to sanitary standards, silver 875 ° samples and its alloys (Melchior) can be used for the manufacture of native decorations and products for storing food without applying coating from the amalgam zinc, nickel or gold. Sterling cutlery 925 ° (technical silver) is mandatory coated with a thin layer of gold, chromium, nickel or zinc to prevent oxidation in air and the formation of water-soluble compounds as a result of a chemical reaction with acid, which is contained in food products.
Storage and care
To prevent darmentation (oxidation) of the surface of spoons, knives and forks from table silver or melchior The following simple rules must be followed:
- Cutlery and dishes from cutlery of silver or IRT store in tightly closing bins with velvet upholstery to protect silver from sweating;
- In each box with cutlery, put the packaging of silica gel to absorb moisture, or wrap it with aluminum foil;
- The sweat products need to be smeared with a thin layer of toothpaste or a mixture of dental powder with alcohol and polish the soft wool or flannel cloth;
- When removing darkened places, it is impossible to use pex, emery skirt or abrasive paste - this may disrupt the finest external coating and lead to a large number of silver salts in food;
- A fully darkened object can be cleaned of surface oxidation with a mixture of a tooth powder and salt with the addition of ammonia alcohol;
- To preserve the gloss of a spoon, forks and knives from table silver, it is necessary to regularly wipe the soft wool or flannel cloth, and after use, cutlery must be laundered from food residues and wipe with a soft cloth.
An old way of cleaning products from silver and its alloys is also deserved with a dental powder and a woolen or flannel napkin. A small amount of dry dental powder is poured onto a napkin and silver cutlery is tightly without pressure. After restoring the lost glitter, the cutlery was washed with tap water and wipe dry with a napkin.
Attention! It is strictly forbidden to use for cleaning products from silver and its alloys chalk, plaster, alabaster, powder abrasives. To polish the scratched surface, it will take expensive polishing paste and a special washer from felt.
On how to clean the cutlery from silver, see the next video.