Spoon heresy

that is the question you need to answer.

I hunted down a folding Ti spoon from China via eBay. Strange as it sounds, you can find folding Ti sporks easily, but I could not find a distributor of folding spoons anywhere in the USA. I considered distributing them myself.

The goal was to have something with a bowl big enough for soups that would fit in a 450ml mug. The long handled spoons are great for getting to the bottom corners of a dehydrated dinner bag, but the bowls are small and worthless for liquids. Sporks are good for pasta, but the bowls are borderline for liquids.

Long handled utensils are always in the way and ready to jab some thin bit of UL cloth when jammed in a pack filled to capacity. I tried the Light My Fire Ti spoon/fork and that was a pain to pack; it needed a sheath to be pack friendly.

Other than that, a good old plastic spoon like the Campware models sold at REI for $1 are light (0.3oz) and will deliver the load. They are good for cooking and non-stick friendly. I see they are offering an 8.5" version $2 in case you need a backup paddle ;)

Apparently the balance and curvature of a typical teaspoon holds appeal for me. (I can't believe I'm analyzing this). The UL spoons I've tried have a flat profile, a wierdly shaped bowl, or both.

Dale, could you say more about the LMF spork? I was actually looking at that one b/c of the curve of it. Apart from the packing issue, did it work well?

"Dale, could you say more about the LMF spork? I was actually looking at that one b/c of the curve of it. Apart from the packing issue, did it work well?"

It's just a spoon and fork mated together. You do get more of a real fork and a real spoon. The knife feature is so-so. The Ti version is of course much more reliable than the plastic model, but isn't non-stick friendly. It is a beast in a pack full of SUL fabrics and too long to fit in most solo-sized cook pots. I still have some plastic ones I got free at an event and they live in the car camping/picnic kit.

All said and done, you need to get the stuff from the dish to your mouth without wearing it. I like spoons vs. sporks and chopsticks are handy for stuff like pasta and can be used for emergency tinder too :)

My kitchen toolbox:

A spoon is the only utensil I carry. I've never needed a fork for any of my freezer-bag cooking so the Light My Fire Spork was out as overkill. Also – I never could figure out why they put a knife on one edge of the fork when you clearly would need another utensil to hold whatever it is that you're cutting. Besides, my mother taught me to never put a knife in my mouth.

I have a couple of Ti spoons, but my favorite is a long-handled version that's polished. Ti is a great substance, but it's a bit "gritty" unless it's polished. One of the qualities I look for in a spoon is how smoothly it slides out of my mouth once I've relieved it of its contents.

I used a metal tea spoon from the kitchen for decades. Somehow I survived the excess weight….
Then Lexan spoons hit the market and I haven’t looked back, but I have learned to be careful with Lexan, one morning I partially melted the tip of a Lexan spoon when flipping fry bread.
My current spoons are Coghlans like this one –

http://www.redflarekits.com/3040

Cost me all of 48 cents at WalMart. I haven’t weighed it yet, but they are quite light. Maybe even a little too light, it doesn’t seem as robust as my old Lexan spoon ( the one with the slightly melted tip ) that I somehow lost recently.

You could slowly heat a Lexan spoon and reshape the handle to your taste, but I think you’re stuck with the bowl shape.

Dale, I don’t know how a feller could manage with a short and possibly even folding eating utensils. How the devil do you dig out and spread peanut butter from a jar in freezing weather with such a flimsy, short tool?

Hey Dale, I want one of those knives/sheath you show in the pic. Please post info!

Dean,

I have one of those knives in my "Car Camping" bin – I bought it at a kitchen store (not Williams-Sonoma, but the kind that you find in a strip mall).

Note – if you find one you'll want to sharpen it before taking it with you.

http://www.rei.com/search?query=little+vickie+knife

+1 on Kevin's long-handled polished titanium spoon.

"The long handled spoons are great for getting to the bottom corners of a dehydrated dinner bag, but the bowls are small and worthless for liquids."

The spoon's bowl is a little small, but it holds more than it looks like it would, and if I want to move liquids faster, I can always just drink or pour right from the food bowl.

Cheers,

Bill S.

I’ll coast on Dale’s picture: a GSI spoon (eg blue at left), reviewed here and a Victorinox knife (at right) but with a straight (non-serrated) edge. Since there are two of us, that’s two spoons, one V knife with a sharp point for cutting bread, sausage, cheese etc, and one V knife with the point rounded off for scraping butter and jam out of the Nalge pot.

Cheers

Hiya

I too have many spoons and spoon types, some good, some epic failures.

At the moment, it's the long handled StS Ti spoon that is winning for me.

It is slightly larger than teaspoon size, which works well for me with my MYOG cozy and keeps my hand away from the tops of ziplock bags and stuff.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/90192962/

I use ikea kids utensils and plates or bowls when hiking with a group. Light weight and dirt cheap and most importantly already lying around my house.

I, too, have tried a variety of spoons, sporks, chopsticks, etc. in a variety of materials, lengths, and foldability.

Finally settled on the REI Campware soup spoon, standard length. I cut it down, and rounded off the sharp end, to just fit inside my Evernew 900 ml pot without falling to the bottom (I hate that!), and life was good.

http://www.rei.com/product/781525/rei-campware-soup-spoon

Then I bought the Trail Designs Sidewinder Ti-Tri (awesome!), but now the rolled-up Ti-Tri and the spoon won’t both fit in the pot at the same time, so my custom spoon rides elsewhere :-(

The REI Campware utensils are made from Acetal (Polyoxymethylene, Delrin, Celcon, Duracon) that softens at 121°C and melts around 162-175°C.

If that Coghlans spoon is made from Lexan (I have my doubts, the package says Duracon and it looks like Duracon), it starts softening starting at 128°C and melts around 155°C.
http://www.coghlans.com/products/lexan-cutlery-set-9450

— Rex

I love my folding Ti spork. It fits nicely in my evernew .9L short pot. I was very bummed when I tried to order another one from REI using my dividend this year and found out they stopped carying them. I like it for doing hot meals.

that said, for cold meals, one of the child size LMF sporks works fine.

For the OP's original question, sounds like you might like one of the "old fashioned" lexan soup spoons. Yep, they used to make all kinds of utensils from that stuff, teaspoons, table spoons, serving spoons, and soup spoons. You might try looking for one of the soup spoons.

I like the jetboil utensils, 1.3 oz for all 3 plus they extend to get all the goodness at the bottom of the pot

I dig my MSR folding spoon. Full length when opened, and .35 ounces.

http://www.rei.com/product/849664/msr-folding-spoon

I seriously did not expect so many replies to a thread about spoons. This place is something else, ha. Thank you all for your suggestions! I think the MSR folding spoon and the folding Ti spoon look the best to me. Backcountry carries the MSR and I need a drybag from them anyway for a project, so I'll add one to my order. If neither of those work, then a Lexan one or the REI campware will be the next experiment. Awesome.

Ultralight Designs has a couple of nice products (including the elusive folding Ti spork). Bob is great to work with. Although it doesn’t appear that he carries them right now, I’m pretty sure this is where I bought my polished Ti long-handled spoon.

I've got the same MSR folding spoon, Travis. I love that it fits in my SP700 with the rest of my kitchen gear. No more letting my spork disappear in the bottom of my food bag or get stuck in with my tent stakes. For everything I eat on the trail a spoon is sufficient, I can't remember ever really needing the tines on my spork.

Adam

Doug,

Jetboil utensils look tempting. Looks like they might be food traps though … have any difficulty getting them thoroughly clean?

…

I saw this reviewed and am intrigued. Thinking of replacing the spork I normally use with it. Only thing, it's a bit heavy, I even wonder if the weight (4.1 oz) could be a typo. Thoughts?

http://www.rei.com/product/830806/gsi-outdoors-titanium-kung-foon-and-chopsticks-set

Leslie, I've seen that in person and its got a pretty bulky metal case that may be included in the weight. I've been on a trip with a guy who has one twice. The first time was right after he got it and he had the whole case and used the chopsticks with the spork to make a super long utensil. The second time I only saw him use the spork part without the chopsticks. I think it would be lighter to pick up an extra pair of chopsticks the next time you eat Chinese food and buy a separate long-handled spoon.

Adam