At a recent dinner dessert was accompanied by large coin silver spoons. A discussion broke out about the size of the spoons and several people insisted that these were not dessert spoons, but serving spoons. The host said, “No, they’re dessert spoons”, and produced some even bigger spoons, stating that, “these are serving spoons.”

There was no argument about the really big spoons being serving pieces, but the large spoons were still being discussed so smaller spoons of the same style and material were produced and said to be Dinner spoons or Table spoons. The big spoon is used, the host maintained, for desserts and soups/stews while the small spoon can be used for desserts, but usually wasn’t used much at all and never for soup.

I tended to agree with this assessment as the smaller spoons, although the same vintage as the larger spoon showed very little wear, the engraving was still sharp and the makers mark clear while the bigger spoons have definitely seen some serious trenchering

Someone observed that the big spoons could not be soup spoons because the bowl was oval, not round and the host said that the BSs were in use before the Victorians got all fussy about silverware and started making a different utensil for each and every food and defined the soup spoon as having a round bowl to distinguish it from other spoons.

The big spoons are 22+/-cm long, have oval shaped bowls that are approximately 4.5cm across and 7.6cm long and 1cm deep. The smaller spoon is 18.5cm long and the bowl is 3.5cm wide, 6cm long and .8cm deep.

So the question is – for anyone familiar with the arcania of pre Victorian silverware – what are these spoons called and for what use were they intended?