Dexam 28cm Wooden Porridge Spirtle/Stirrer

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When answering the question: What is the best wood for a spurtle, it is important to point out that the best wood would be a solid hardwood. Your spurtle may be produced from Acacia, Oak, Beechwood, Maple, etc, the main thing is that it should not be a soft wood, but a natural hardwood and that your spurtle tools are made from one piece of solid wood without glue and chemical varnish. Old Scots spurtell is recorded from 1528. The Northern English dialect had a word spartle that meant "stirrer". The modern West Germanic and North Germanic languages, as well as Middle English, also have spurtle cognates that refer to a flat-bladed tool or utensil – so more akin to the couthie spurtle (see below) in shape. Latin spatula, as used in medicine and pharmacy, is their shared ancestor. Spatula is a diminutive of Latin spatha, a broad, flat tool or weapon, which in turn is from Ancient Greek σπαθη ("spathe"), the broad, flat tool used in weaving, or a paddle. The ultimate source of σπαθη is hypothesized to come from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language *spe-dh- for spade and its root *spe- for a long, flat piece of wood. According to this theory, spade and spoon are also suggested as having derived from the same hypothetical PIE *spe-, potentially making those words distant cousins of spurtle. [1] [4] Couthie spurtle [ edit ]

Today, spurtles are used for stirring soups, gravies, and stews, as well as vegetables or even cake batter, helping to scrape the bottom of the pan without melting and without scratching your cast iron skillet. How Do You Care For a Cherry Wood Spurtle? A spurtle is a wooden kitchen tool from Scotland that is used primarily for stirring porridge oats whilst cooking. Traditionally it is considered to be better than a spoon when it comes to mixing.

The Spurtle: An Essential Kitchen Tool

The Scots, who claim the authorship of the porridge, use a special kitchen utensil called “spurtle” to stir the porridge, which has been handed down since the 15th century. A spurtle is a stirrer made from wood. Preference is given to spurtles made of beech, maple or cherry wood. Unlike a spatula or putty knife, the spurtle does not have a spoon or shovel-like end, but only a rounded tip. This stirrer sits well in the hand and with its rounded end it is easy to work into the corners and edges of pots. Finished with a protective coat of food safe organic hemp seed oil. Can be washed up safely in the sink. Don't put in the dishwasher. To revitalise just rub in some oil of your choice, olive oil is fine, to recondition the wood. This can be done to all wooden kitchen utensils, boards and bowls. Due to their multipurpose use and versatility, today cooking spurtle utensils become very popular and are found in many kitchens, although it is still very new to us kitchen accessory. Therefore, when you are looking to buy spurtle spoons it is easy to get confused in the variety of options and you may have a few questions. In the headlong pursuit of fidelity to events, he could be unremittingly cruel (not least to Vivien Leigh, to whom Tynan’s relentless and often savage critiques caused endless, unconscionable distress). Yet anyone who reads his description of Ralph Richardson’s disastrous 1952 Macbeth gets a vivid idea of why it was disastrous. When he describes Richardson’s Macbeth “stumping across the broad stage as if in need of a compass to find the exit” or of possessing an “unfocussed bluffness, like a teddy-bear snapped in a bad light by a child holding its first camera”, you know, 70 years on, exactly what it looked and felt like. When the British Sun puts his hat on and comes out to play, we are often so excited that we neglect the basic safety precautions we automatically take when abroad. But take it from Spirtle on this World Sun Awareness Day, our elusive sun can still cause horrific damage to the skin and tissues beneath if not enjoyed in moderation and with respect for the harmful power of those all-too-soothing sunbeams.

A spurtle spoon can serve a variety of functions in your kitchen.For example, a large spurtle is very helpful when mixing and stirring heavy dishes, you can use a small spurtle to conveniently mix a salad.When you are cooking frying fish, for example, using a spurtle may help you leave all the fat in the pan and safely replace the fish from the pan leaving it full and unbroken.Cooking spurtles of different sizes and shapes are affectively used for serving cakes,for frying fish, large pieces of meat or pancakes. The ring below the handle allows the spurtle to rest easily on the edge of the cooking pot. It won't slip into the food no matter how big your pan is. However, Equity is on the warpath now, emboldened by recent events. When “making amends” to actors of colour whose casting critics have been so insolent as to question, they must “apologise for getting it wrong and be willing to learn from their experiences”. To “play a more active role in combating racism,” they can “volunteer to mentor a person of colour who is interested in writing criticism”. Quentin LettsSightings and monitoring throughout the following two years witnessed a remarkable recovery as Spirtle’s sun-damaged skin lesions slowly healed to scar tissue – the deep raw pink gradually granulating and fading into white. Perhaps it was because she beat the odds; perhaps people admire a survivor whose scars bear witness to the suffering they have withstood; perhaps her horrendous experience touched the hearts of anyone who has ever suffered from sunburn or been caught out by the elements and had to endure physical hardship as a result, but Spirtle became somewhat of a superstar among the cetacean community of the Moray and Cromarty Firths and beyond. When it comes to cleaning your spurtle, you want to hand wash it with soapy water, rinse thoroughly, and let air dry. The traditional material for a spurtle spoon is hardwood, but you can find silicon and bamboo spurtles as well. The second reason for stirring is mixing the ingredients. Through stirring, solid substances in liquids such as milk or water dissolve faster. Furthermore, the speed of chemical reactions between ingredients or during the heating of ingredients increases.

Monstrous or not, this is what the best critics can do: preserve what’s essentially transient. Those who despise Tynan’s worst barbs might well read his diaries. The critic’s real brutality, they will find, is reserved for himself. A critic’s first responsibility is to audiences deciding where to spend their money, not to the sensitivities of a play’s practitioners Wooden tools in the kitchen, such as cooking spoons, chopping boards or even spurtles, are debated for hygienic reasons. Therefore, care is required when cleaning. A spurtle is best cleaned immediately after use by brushing and rinsing under running water. After cleaning, the spurtle should be able to dry well. Under no circumstances should the spurtle be washed in a dishwasher, as the wood of the stirrer would be exposed to the rinse water for too long and swell up. It is also recommended that wooden kitchen tools are occasionally rubbed with a little vegetable oil to keep the wood smooth. Our first sighting of ID#1143 Spirtle in 2017”– Barbara Cheney, University of Aberdeen Lighthouse Field Station 30/05/2017

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Kerr's version of the spurtle was soon adopted by non-porridge-making Americans, like former Martha Stewart Living food director [Lucinda Scala Quinn] who created her own heirloom design that's "not quite a spoon, not quite a spatula." She uses it for stirring eggs, folding chives into mashed potatoes, making tuna salad, and yes, even for oatmeal. One wonders what the late great critic Kenneth Tynan might have made of it all. Tynan, The Observer’s star reviewer in the 1950s and 60s, would surely have been torn. The Marxist in him — for so he declared himself — might perhaps have relished the onward march of social progress. The writer would have considered it a declaration of war. You can use a spurtle in so many ways. A spurtle set can perform almost everything you usually do with your old wooden spoons and spatula.