How Fashion Dictated Utensil Design

Portrait of a Dutch woman wearing a “ruff” collar, by Jan Antonisz van Ravesteyn (1570-1657). From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Henry Goldman, 1912, in the 1987 book, “From Hand to Mouth”

Apostle spoons first appeared in the 1400s, when the Christians of Europe were deeply religious, and images of Christ, His apostles, and the saints of the Roman Catholic Church could be seen everywhere. It was a time when Christian families said special household prayers before and after every meal, and believed that the apostles had the power to influence their lives.

The spoons were found in all parts of Europe, including France, Germany, Italy, the Low Countries, and Britain. Some were made of silver and were available only in complete sets. Others were made of cheaper metals, such as pewter, and were sold individually. Families handed down their treasured Apostle spoons from generation to generation, and people often gave an Apostle spoon to a newborn baby as a birth present. These spoons were engraved with the child's name and the date and place of birth.

Changes in fashion sometimes dictated the design of spoons. In the late 1500s, both men and women started to wear big, stiff lace collars called “ruffs.” Before then, most spoons of the Middle Ages had fairly short stems. Now the stems had to be made longer so that people could get food safely past the ruffs and into their mouths. At the same time large soup spoons came into wider use, because people wearing ruffs couldn't risk lifting their bowls and drinking the soup. – From James Cross Giblin’s book, “From Hand to Mouth”, 1987

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