When we were on vacation recently, Bob and I toured the Ringling home and museum in Sarasota. There were two pieces of silver I couldn’t identify and had to get a docent to finally tell me. It turns out that the small ax-like knife was a citrus knife and the individual tongs with finger holes were asparagus tongs.
Fast forward a couple of weeks. Bob’s wonderful Aunt Tootie (it’s Tallulah) and Uncle Bill were in town for his birthday and I told her about how it was fun to try to puzzle out the pieces and that I wanted to start a collection of unusual, individual pieces of silver. A few days after she left, these came in the mail.
I’m pretty sure that the spoon is a pierced olive spoon, but not positive. I know they’re Gorham, and although my mother-in-law says she always thought the pattern was Fairfax (they belonged to her mother), these pieces have the same shape as Fairfax, but more embellishment.
The fork (lemon fork? seafood?) is about 5 1/2 inches long; the spoon is 6 1/2.
Put your foodie brains to work and see if you can help me figure this out!
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Responses to “A little mystery”
August 20th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
I would presume the fork to be a crab fork, but if the spoon is a pierced olive spoon, and they’re a set, it might just as easily be a pickle fork.
August 20th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
The slotted spoon is probably an olive spoon, but is also similar to an absinthe spoon. The other could also be a pickle fork.
August 21st, 2007 at 11:21 am
That would be so cool, to have an absinthe spoon! I have a friend from New Orleans who collects old asbinthe ware–I’ll ask him. But I suspect it’s for olives, not absinthe.
Fredric, you put a sugar cube in the spoon and poured the absinthe over it into the glass.
August 21st, 2007 at 5:15 pm
If you can conjure up some absinthe to try it with, let me know…………I will supply the sugar cubes.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:29 am
Ah, you could always try it with Lucid, which is at least both authentic and legal.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:37 am
You can click the name in my previous post to be taken directly to their website, which answers all of those questions completely, but the short answers are New York that I know of but I haven’t checked Buster’s; it’s legal because they’ve taken the thujone content to practically nothing; and if I remember it’s 126 proof, which is in line with normal Absinthe, but I’m pretty sure you can sell anything as long as the alcohol content is appropriately labelled.
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:46 am
Did a little research on absinthe last night–I’ve seen several spoons that closely resemble mine. It’s legal in a lot of countries but not in the U.S.
It’s an anise-flavored liquor, not a liqueur because no sugar is added during bottling. It’s flavored with herbs, included wormwood, which is where the thujone–the dangerous chemical–comes from. But I admit most of my “research” was just reading Wikipedia, so don’t rely on me as an expert. I was mainly checking on the spoon.
Seems to me we could drink pastis or ouzo for something that tastes close. But truly, I’m no fan of either. (A friend had absinthe in Australia last year and said it was awful, by the way.)
Note: Yesterday I was wrong on how the spoon is used. You pour the asbinthe in an absinthe glass, place the spoon over the glass, put the sugar cube in the spoon and pour cold water over it. It was a ritual.
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Interesting. I thought the thujone came from the wormwood, so I was curious as to how it could be legal if real wormwood is used.
I do enjoy the taste of pastis. In small quantities.
The water used with the sugar in absinthe makes it more palatable, I hear. Have traveled and lived in many places, but have never tasted real absinthe.
Let’s have an absinthe party. Maybe a local restaurant would oblige.
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Well, well. Turns out we can buy it right here: Arthur Kahn of Arthur’s just called me with a bottle of “Absente: Absinthe Refined” in his hot little hands.
Here’s the link to find out more about it: www.crillonimporters.com
It’s made with Southern wormwood, which means the drink contains legal levels of thujone and presumbly will not cause us to go crazy. I’ll check around and see if any restaurants carry it.
August 23rd, 2007 at 4:46 pm
I have seen all the stuff about Circa on the blogs and thought I might mention that they are trying to get some absinthe for a special Halloween dinner…Sounds fun.
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