Archaeological evidence of the earliest use of spoons by ancient Chinese people belongs to the Neolithic period, 7,000 to 8,000 years ago, and the invention of spoons by ancient Chinese people is directly related to the emergence of the farming culture. Chinese Neolithic crop varieties are mainly rice and corn, suitable for cultivation in the humid south and arid north, respectively. These two kinds of grains are relatively simple to cook, and can be eaten as direct grains, plus water boiled into congee and rice can be eaten. Hot porridge, especially the semi-liquid porridge food, it is not convenient to directly grasp the food, need to borrow the intermediary apparatus, so the simplest spoon was invented. Because of the urgent need, so people picked up animal bone bone or clam shells, at first perhaps did not carry on the trimming of the food with it. Later, people were no longer satisfied with the natural state of the bone fragments, and spoons were made in the true sense of the word.
After the Bronze Age, the Central Plains continued the Neolithic tradition of eating with spoons, not only using bone spoons, but also copper spoons. Since the emergence of copper smelting technology, spoons for eating have also been made of copper. In the Bronze Age, the bone spoon was still a popular eating utensil, but in the Western Zhou period, the use of bone spoons was not as common as in the past.
The first bronze spoons appeared in the form of long bone spoons. Central Plains from the Western Zhou Dynasty, began to popularize the use of a bronze spoon shaped spoon. These spoons were pointed and leaf-shaped, with a flat and wide handle. Two spoon-shaped bronze spoons were unearthed in a cellar in Fufeng, Shaanxi, and they are relatively early among their kind. These two spoons have geometric decoration on the handles, and the name of the owner is engraved on the body of the spoon, with an inscription naming itself "Dagger".
To the Warring States, a long-handled tongue-shaped spoon spoon, in Shaanxi Baoji City, Fulin Fort belongs to the early Spring and Autumn period of a Qin tomb, was unearthed a such a spoon, its handle is thinner, the spoon body has been changed to an elliptical tongue shape. The narrow-handled tongue-shaped dinner spoon was produced in the late Spring and Autumn Period, and five such spoons were found in the copper coffin tomb of Dabona in Xiangyun County, Yunnan Province, all of which were made of copper sheets with different sizes. Starting from the Warring States period, the narrow-handled tongue-shaped spoon became the dominant form of the ancient Chinese table spoon, which has been in use for more than 2,000 years. The Warring States spoons also adopted the lacquer wood craft, and there appeared the beautiful lacquered wood dinner spoons. Lacquer wood spoon with bronze spoon, the shape also take the narrow handle tongue spoon style, the whole lacquer, usually also depicts a beautiful geometric pattern.
In the Liao, Song, Jin and Yuan dynasties, in addition to a large number of bronze spoons, there are also a lot of silver made spoons. In this large period of time, the shape of the spoon basically inherited the tradition of the Tang Dynasty thin handle tongue-shaped spoon dinner spoon, the difference is only in the end of the handle is slightly wider. Later, with the diversification of the times and catering, the level of craftsmanship gradually improved, and the spoon became more practical, more refined, and more diverse shapes.
Today, most spoons are mainly stainless steel.