Folding spoon / Martin Luthers Reiselöffel

When I translated a brochure for the Wartburg including a description of the collections, I had problems finding a term for Martin Luther’s Reiselöffel. This just shows how hard things were before the Internet, because today I can find all kinds of folding spoons, but then, the term didn’t occur to me until it was too late.

Martin Luther’s spoon:

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Not only are there plastic spoons:
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but there are even fake medieval spoons for your medieval table:

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Then again, one could go straight to a lawyer whose hobby is spoons (lots of spoon links).

(Via Udo Vetter – see also this link, given in the comments, with a picture of the largest spoon carved by Horst Wesemann)

5 thoughts on “Folding spoon / Martin Luthers Reiselöffel

  1. Ah, now I was afraid you were going to ask that. I thought I’d been saved because I can’t find the published version of my translation. But I think it was ‘traveller’s spoon’. On the one hand, I have now read on the Internet that pilgrims used their scallop shells as spoons, on the other hand ‘travellers’ is a British term for gypsies.

  2. Now there’s a name from the distant past. Not another lawyer interested in spoons? The Oldenburg one is more interesting than the wooden one, if I dare say it. Here’s your first link: Oldenburg spoon – the second one doesn’t seem to work.

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