best wood for a wooden spoon

[Paul Wheaton]

A friend of mine and I watched "Alone in the wilderness" last night and got jazzed about the idea of converting some of our local wood into useful stuff. So we thought the first thing to do would be to make wooden spoons from green wood and then dry it.

So which sort of wood to use?

Googling comes back to say cherry is the best. What? A week ago we learned that every part of a cherry tree is toxic except for the actual fruit. It seems that cherry would be a really bad choice.

More googling ... cherry, cherry and cherry.

So confused ....

I would guess apple or alder or maple would be the best.

Anybody know about wood varieties for use with food?

[Cabin Fever]

I’d recommend green basswood or ash. After you’re through carving it, the green wood must be dried at 105ºF for three hours. I suggest you heat up your whole house to do the drying.

[kitaye]

I've used Apple, basswood, and butternut for working spoons. Cherry makes pretty spoons but they are for looking at only, in my opinion. Apple is the best because it is fruit wood and therefor very sturdy. Also the wood itself is very pretty were basswood is just beige.

[mpillow]

I have some handmade ones...spoon and pot scraper.... in Maple

[snowshoehair]

My first thought is .... in your house .... maybe a good choice would be something less flammable than wood!

[longshot38]

birch is always a good choice for carving spoons, cups, etc. the wood is non toxic and ususally costs less than maple. at least in my AO

dean

[YuccaFlatsRanch]

Don't use alder - too easy to split the very straight grain as the spoon gets wet and dry and wet and dry, etc.

I think Maple would be great because of its very tight grain. Birch too, same with apple.

If Cherry is so toxic, then why do we use it for smoking meat. Seems odd.

[michiganfarmer]

Originally Posted by Cabin Fever

I’d recommend green basswood or ash. After you’re through carving it, the green wood must be dried at 105ºF for three hours. I suggest you heat up your whole house to do the drying.

HAHAHAHAHA!!!!

[stranger]

any tight grained hardwood like maple, don't use oak as the grain lets bateria in the grain

[Ohio Rusty]

I get hard wood pallets from work for firewood, and some of the wood is really nice. The last implements I made were from white oak boards (spatulas, pot scrapers). Basswood and buckeye are much easier to work with. Maple makes excellent woodent bowls and kitchen tools.
I want to get some sort of power carver so I can hog out wood to make burl cups and bowls and the depressions in deep spoons or ladles.
Ohio Rusty ><>

[Valiantone]

Originally Posted by YuccaFlatsRanch

Don't use alder - too easy to split the very straight grain as the spoon gets wet and dry and wet and dry, etc.

I think Maple would be great because of its very tight grain. Birch too, same with apple.

If Cherry is so toxic, then why do we use it for smoking meat. Seems odd.

Very good question. Cherry smoke smells so wonderful too. I hope I'm not poisoning myself!!!

[Paul Wheaton]

After you’re through carving it, the green wood must be dried at 105ºF for three hours. I suggest you heat up your whole house to do the drying.

Does it help to tie the wood to a cat?

kitay, when you say cherry would be only for looking at, would this be because of your concerns with toxicity?

Thanks everybody, this is some first class info.

It sounds like maple might be our best bet since we have loads of it around here.

[fordson major]

pressure treated wood is toxic as well but they do not say how many 2x4 you have too eat! apple would be a very nice choice, cut some trees down the other day that i have too keep for the resident wood carver.

[Tiempo]

Of all my wooden spoons, my olive wood one is my favorite, but I'm thinking you might not have much olive wood lying around?

[Old Vet]

Osage orange makes a nice spoon and when dry you can't break it. Just make sure it is green when carving the spoon.

[MELOC]

i wonder how red bud would be? it is hard as a rock. is red maple too soft or do you need silver, black or sugar maple?

[highlands]

I carved wooden eating utensils, mostly chops sticks, about 25 years ago out of sugar maple and am still using them. They have lasted very well. Sugar maple is not toxic - after all, we make maple sugar from the sap. It is quite strong - the chop sticks are very long and thin - the way I like.

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/blog/
http://HollyGraphicArt.com/
http://NoNAIS.org

[CIW]

There are two kinds of cherry wood.
Furniture cherry that is a toxic wood. And fruit cherry, which has been talk about as being used for smoking.

[Wildcrofthollow]

There is a lot of info here already, let me see if i can help at all.

The woods that are most used for food utensils are: maple, Tulip poplar, fruitwoods (apple, cherry, peach), sassafrass, birch, oak, ash. There are others of course, but these are the ones most used to my knowledge.

Maple and Tulip poplar are used the most and fruitwoods a close second, birch probably third.

Maple and tulip poplar because they will not impart any taste to the food. If you leave an oak spoon in the soup while it is cooking it will impart the oak flavor to it. This is a good thing when you have an oak cask for wine, but perhaps not such a good thing for soup. fruitwoods can and do impart flavors. when speaking of cherry, we are talking about using the one that you eat cherries off of, not the one you make furniture out of.

Osage orange is toxic. the spoon will discolor when used in boiling water, since the yellow constituent and other alkaloids in the plant are water soluble. It will make the food bitter if you only have a little bit of food. However, After the spoon has been used a few times the toxic alkaloids will have mostly gone away. It should also be noted that toxic is a relative thing. Table salt is toxic in large enough doses. you would have to eat a lot of osage to hurt you, so I'm not worried about old Vet, in fact I have several osage spoons myself, I like them very much and use them frequently.

Birch is a great wood for spoons and such because it will not splinter.

Tulip poplar was most used for bread bowls etc. Most of my kitchen treenware is made of tulip poplar.

Oh, all wooden kitchen tools are called treenware or just treen. don't remember why something to do with trees I reckon.
anyway , making spoons, bowls and other kitchen implements is fun, just sit down with a knife and carve it out, or make a springpole lathe and turn out a bowl or two. There was a good book out on working with green wood for making chairs and such, british author, Ill see if i cant find it in my shelves and let you know if you are interested.

[Pigeon Lady]

If you do a search on Youtube there are some really great videos showing spoon carving. I started to post a link but noticed there was some not so child friendly stuff advertised on the same page.

Just search "spoon carving".

Pauline