Soup To Dessert:  8 Different Types Of Spoons

By Niveditha Kalyanaraman

November 12th, 2023

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How often do you pause and consider if you're using the right spoon for eating a specific meal or dish? If you're particular about your crockery (and table manners) you'd know that there are different types of spoons for different purposes. Here are 8 different types of spoons.

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Dinner Spoon

This is the most common one and a multipurpose piece on a dinner table. This is usually a tablespoon with a shallow, oval-shaped design. You may use it to eat rice or twirl long strands of pasta around it.

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Serving Spoon

This is particularly used to scoop out food from a main dish to individual plates. Unlike regular spoons that are used for eating, these are significantly larger, have longer handles, deeper bowls and ensure that you can easily serve out generous portions.

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Soup Spoon

Designed specifically for soups and stews these have a larger bowl. There are many different styles of soup spoons, but the two main ones are the British soup spoons and the Chinese soup spoons. The former are rather small and the bowl is circular. The latter is a flat bottomed one found in varying sizes.

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Demitasse Spoon

You may have seen this small spoon at your local coffee shop. A demitasse (a.k.a. espresso) spoon is used to stir in sugar and milk into espressos, teas and other beverages.

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Iced Beverage Spoon

This one is easily identifiable because of the incredibly long handle. Also known as the soda spoon, this is the tallest one in a set of flatware and has a small bowl with a handle that is approximately 7 to 10 inches in length. The long handle helps to stir drinks served in a tall glass, such as iced tea or iced coffee.

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Dessert Spoon

Similar in size to a soup spoon but with an oval rather than round bowl, a dessert spoon typically has a capacity of around twice that of a teaspoon. This allows people to fit a healthy portion of dessert into each spoonful.

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Amuse Bouche Spoon

This elegantly shaped spoon is technically a combination of a plate and a spoon and is ideal to serve up small bites, such as hors d'œuvre, amuse bouches, appetisers and tapas in the most elegant way.

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Cocktail Spoon

You can't fix a great Old Fashioned, Martini or a Manhattan without this important tool. These spoons are designed tall because of the cocktail glasses they are used for. The spiral/twisted handle helps the bartender to stir the cocktail. On one end of the spoon is a small bowl to measure out ingredients like bitters, syrups, liqueurs, etc.

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