Where all the gott-dang spoons is?

Above: The aftermath of a Thai dinner.....

The Thais eat predominately with a spoon, and it is the most logical tool to use for eating anything. The side can be used to cut through all but the toughest of meats. It corrals peas and beans with ease. Using the fork as a pusher, you can bulldoze even the most ungainly of foods onto a spoon. There are no sharp tines to stick you in the pie hole like with a fork, and if you should eat with your knife (like some uncouth miscreant), no serrations to cut lips. Chopsticks don't contain foods very well, unless it's noodles. But if you really admit it, a spoon works better for noodles, and it's the ONLY utensil to use for soups, stews, ice cream, banana pudding, chile con carne, chicken fried steak gravy, and all the rest.

This brings us to the real problem. I have seen spoons disappearing from restaurant table set ups with much, much greater frequency of late. More and more often I find myself having to ask for a spoon when I go out and eat anywhere other than an Asian restaurant. It's gotten so bad that I immediately stake my claim on the salsa spoon at Mexican restaurants the second the chips arrive, and THOSE spoons are even disappearing.

Are we living in a world gone mad? What happened in our culinary culture to cause one of the most vital of eating tools to be so carelessly tossed aside? It can't be cost...spoons usually cost less than forks and knives. It could just be bad breeding, or total disregard for Emily Post, or the general decline of society, with a younger generation of half-wits gaining control of the bussing of tables and the wrapping of silverware set ups.

Whatever it is, KNOCK IT OFF! Put some damn spoons on the table, like you're spozed to!

Mick Vann ©