I took this picture at the kitchen table of my spooncarver friend, Tom Dengler. One is by Ville Sundquist, a couple by myself, and the rest by Tom. If you have never eaten with wood spoons notice how new these tools-of-eating look, yet they get hard everyday service. They get more polished and fine with use, not the other way around. Nothing could be more delightful to eat at every meal with. This is the rich tradition of northern Sweden, that I hope to pass along here.
The first (smallest) is by an old carver in the South of Sweden. The rest are the spoons my wife and I use every day.The 2 center ones show the decorative art of kolrosing shown elsewhere in this website. The new white one is birch, and hasn’t been oiled yet. The oil is edible flax seed oil. Soak for 3 days, dry for a few months, and it becomes polymerized inside the wood, making it nearly impervious to food stains and normal hot soapy water of dishwashing. Of course don’t ever put one in a dishwasher…the heat and steam will drive water into them.