Featured Some of my spoons

And here I was wondering if Omaha had orange trees. Until I noticed the shape of the spoon. Can't see anyone spooning out orange slices though, maybe grapefruit but the decoration is an orange, isn't it? Maybe that's why it was made into a souvenir spoon, they meant to decorate it with grapefruits, so overstock. Nevermind.

 

Watson produced two slightly different enamel-handled series (they incorrectly called them 'Cloisonne'), Frank's spoon is #883, Orange Blossom, the other series had a #906, Oranges, with only oranges and leaves - pretty much any full size handle could have an orange spoon bowl.

Orange spoons were big business starting in the late 19th century, with a large variety produced in both silver and silverplate, and all sorts of souvenir spoons, as well as regular patterns. Grapefruit started being commercially grown in the 1870s here in Central Florida, but didn't really start to have any popularity until the 1890s when there were also groves in California, Texas and Arizona, catching on a bit more in the early 1900s (I detest grapefruit). A few makers produced a slightly wider grapefruit spoon along with their orange spoons, but most just marketed their orange spoons as for grapefruit too, they continued to be called orange spoons well into the mid 20th century, but usually marketed as for both oranges and grapefruit, with melon sometimes mentioned as well.

This old thread shows an 1894 article on 'The Eating of the Orange' (scroll down a bit): https://www.smpub.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002783.html


Here's a composite of various orange spoons, with both orange and grapefruit in two patterns, the dating ranges from 1892 to 1909:




A 1912 ad catering to grapefruit dealers:




~Cheryl

 

Cheryl, thanks so much for the link and the info on orange spoons. And I would love to find some orange cups. My orange peeler was made by Tupperware but basically the same principle as the silver version. Sometimes, I can't imagine how food was presented and eaten in the late 19th century. They must not have had a nice sink to eat over, LOL.