The Spoon - Remembering our Ancestors

Funny how some small thing can take your mind back to childhood - and before.

For me it is the spoon - an old silver tablespoon. Well, it used to be silver, but now it's only partially silver, because it's been used so much that the plating is worn off the bottom and the edges of the bowl.

It doesn't look like the new spoons in my drawer, because it's a funny shape - sort of squared off on the the right hand side. My Mom used that spoon, my Grandmother used it too, and now I use it and think of them. But of course I don't use it often because I use teflon spoons on my non-stick cookware.

But tonight I cooked in the cast-iron dutch oven, so I used the spoon and thought of my family.

The funny shape is from wear - and I think of how many days and nights my Mom and my Grandmother stood stirring a pot over a wood stove - and then later over an electric stove - until the side of the spoon wore down. I don't know for sure, but maybe my Great-Grandmother used that same spoon. If not, she used one just like it. When I was a little kid, I thought that was the shape of stirring spoons - because my Grandmother had several of them.

How many pots of soup, or stew, or sauce must you stir to wear off the side of a spoon? I don't know, but it's plenty.

I think of the stories Mom told about her Grandma standing at the stove stirring with one hand and holding a book in the other - and of how I do the same thing. I think of being a kid and sitting on the tall stool next to the stove, talking and watching Mom or Grandmother stirring. I wonder if they wished I'd go find something to do so they could hold a book in the other hand?

If they did, I'm glad they didn't shoo me off. Those talks are good memories. And when I use the spoon, I feel like they're all here with me. So I put down the book and spend some time with them...

I wish you good memories,
Marte