How Should You Be Eating Your Ice Cream?
Everyone loves ice cream. And no matter what kind you prefer, no matter what toppings you like to adorn your sundae with, one thing among all ice cream eaters is universal: we all use spoons to eat our customized, delicious treats.
So where do spoons come from, anyway? As far as history is concerned, the origins of the first spoon are all but a mystery. However, there are archaeological findings that place some ornamental and religious spoons as early back as 1000 BC.
Fast forward thousands of years to when spoons became a mainstay in the home -- particularly in America. After World War II, plastic spoons had become a common household item, as plastic was used more and more in the home. And by the 1960s, plastic had replaced a majority of kitchen materials, such as wood, metal, and glass.
But when it comes to tasting, believe it or not, the material of spoon really does matter! As we age, our taste perceptions fade, and we gradually lose more and more taste receptors. In fact, by age 20, almost half of our taste receptors are gone!
So what’s the best way to sample ice cream? If you ask professional tasters, they’ll tell you that the kind of spoon used to sample frozen treats truly matters. According to research, people will rate the same frozen yogurt as 15% more delicious and high-end if it’s sampled with a silver spoon rather than a plastic spoon or a spoon of lighter weight.
Whether this tasting predilection is psychological or truly does affect the taste, tasting aficionados only use the highest quality spoons to taste ice creams. In a given tasting, professional ice cream testers will sample over 60 packages of ice cream, doing so with a unique, one-of-a-kind designer gold spoon. The gold spoon enables the tester to sample the ice cream without experiencing any aftertaste from the spoon itself.
And the nuances of spoons don’t just end there. In fine dining restaurants and similar settings, the ice cream spoon -- which is also known as an ice cream scoop -- looks uncannily like a miniature shovel. The ice cream scoop is around 5-inches in length and is made with a wide, shallow bowl that enables those who indulge to have generous bites of their tasty treats!
Now that’s some delicious information that you can really dig into! Â
