Bowl with spoon-rest

Flavour Designs' "And the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon" bowls have a place to rest your spoon while you eat, sparing the tabletop/linen napkin between mouthfulls. Link (via Neatorama)

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Xenu

This has nothing to do with convienience, it’s merely a consumer good marketed to folks with a dish collecting disorder.
jennfrank

I want this bowl because I am neurotic. I don’t serve anything with a saucer, I don’t like drippings on my table, I think leaving a spoon in the bowl looks uncouth. Also, it looks like it might work nicely with chopsticks, keep them from rolling off the lip of the bowl and all that.
Thad E Ginataom

And I never knew that I had an unusually large mouth! Or that we could be so easily defined by cutlery!

Mine’s the desert spoon, and I’m ready for anything :) !
montauk

The only time I’ve had my spoon fall into the bowl was when it wasn’t a bowl, it was a saucepan.

I had no idea that it was less decorous to put your spoon back into the bowl. And I can’t believe it’s better to put your spoon on the tabletop or napkin then back into the bowl. Honestly, this was a very surprising post for me. I can understanding the practical reasons behind some cutlery etiquette – I’ve found it’s easier eating soup out of a bowl than a saucepan, for example – but I don’t understand the spoon thing. Am I also supposed to put my fork somewhere else? Can my cutlery ever touch the rest of the dinnerware? Or is it supposed to be a contact-free conveyance from plate or bowl to mouth?

And where did everyone else learn this sort of etiquette? JennFrank, can you advise?
Thad E Ginataom

Maybe neat for serving, but for eating this is a solution without a problem.

Saucers are for spoons, or there’s no reason not to just put the spoon in the dish.

Also those look like teaspoons (but can’t judge the scale). Teaspoons are for tea and babies — useless for feeding an adult-sized mouth.
loveandsqualor

Perhaps cooler:
A similar solution designed by Ineke Hans here.
David Harmon

Hmmph. How about using longer utensils, or deeper/narrower bowls? For that matter, I’m eating from a bowl as I browse, but I’m using a fork.
Stacyj

“Useless for feeding an adult sized mouth”? I’ve -always- preferred a teaspoon and I’m, um, fairly sure my mouth is “adult-sized”. I don’t really need to eat my entire bowl in three spoonfuls.

Personally I think these are rather neat – I certainly wouldn’t pay the $21 the site is asking for just one bowl and spoon, but as someone whose spoon handle sometimes -does- slip annoyingly into her bowl I can see where these could be kinda handy …
Anonymous

Great idea. I’m tired of fishing my spoon out of the soup because it’s always messy, my hands are dirty and it burns my fingers. Why didn’t I think of this? I’ll tell you why — because I’m stupid, thoughtless and would rather bitch about stuff. Just like you.

Looks hard to wash. Does it harbor germs?
Anonymous

Finally something useful featured here. Not a new idea, but still…
Thad E Ginataom

Just a bowl and spoon …and a big mouth!!!

Tablespoons are, indeed for serving, and even my mouth is not that big that I can eat with one!

Soup spoons for soup. Desert spoons for desert. Teaspoons for babies (although it does take a long time to eat a whole baby with a teaspoon).

Fish spoons for fish soup.

You may not be amazed; I was. I was introduced to them by a cousin who runs a posh UK hotel — he’s one of these people that knows all this ettiquette!
jennfrank

God why oh why did I pick this username! It’s very unnerving to be called out by full name. (Also, no intercap, thanks.)

Well. Even though you’re making fun of me: when you’re done with your soup you put the spoon on the saucer or plate beneath. Leaving the spoon in the bowl means you’re still eating. I don’t like getting soup on the handle of my spoon, but sometimes the spoon just falls in. Perhaps I am using very small spoons? I already said I’m neurotic.
oldcoach

Much better idea. Use Pyrex measuring cups. They come in 1, 2, 4 cup sizes or larger. They are microwaveable. They have a handle and the spoon/fork fits in the pour spout and doesn’t spin around the rim. Great for eating soup and watching Popeye cartoons. I am old.
LogrusZed

Stacyj: The only way to really be sure if you have an “adult sized mouth” is if you do adult things with it.

So pix or it didn’t happen.
Merc

You people who have spoons that fall into your bowls either need bigger spoons or smaller bowls.
Tenn

I usually put the spoon in the dish. But it would be neat if it isn’t ugly.

StacyJ- It must be because we’re chicks, since I have a big mouth. I eat with a teaspoon too. I don’t like taking huge bites of food (I take small ones SUPER fast though.)
Anonymous

Is there a left handed version?
Avram

I’m a guy, and I use teaspoons too. I guess Thad’s mouth must be unusually large.
Takuan

a very clever contrivance I suppose, though I see no blood gutters or catchment basins for digestive enzymes. Good pedipalp rest though.
Enochrewt

1. I like it. I rest my spoon across the top of regular bowls all the time. I would buy this if I saw it in a store (but not pay $21 to get it shipped from the internets)

2. I use teaspoons to eat. Tablespoons are for serving. When was the last time you went to a decent restaurant and had a tablespoon in the place setting?

3. Some people need to lighten up, it’s just a bowl and spoon….
Jake0748

Well, I’m a guy too and I always thought my mouth was average size. When I was a kid and my mom would give us cereal for breakfast, she would always ask if we wanted a teaspoon or a “big-mouth spoon”, I always opted for the latter.
Damon_TFB

Back in the 80′s when Rich Hall was doing Sniglets, my mom & I created:

Spoonmersion: n, the tendency for a spoon placed against the edge of a bowl to slip fully into it.
RadioGuy

#4

One of the greatest attributes of BoingBoing is the general intelligence and civility of its discussions. On behalf of Stacyj, please cut it out.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Thank you, RadioGuy.

Logruszed, if you’re not personally acquainted with someone, you can’t know whether remarks like that are going to make them uncomfortable; so don’t make them.
Moon

That bowl isn’t big enough for the spoon to completely fall into. So, what’s the point?
Mike8787

This is my new invention:

http://static.mediamatic.nl/f/nptq/image/276-340-241.jpg

Do I get featured next week?