It’s an idea who’s time has come… again.
Back in the dark ages, when we had to dodge dinosaurs on our way to the corner store to get ice cream, you could eat your ice cream using a small wooden spoon. It really wasn’t much of a spoon. It was basically a flat stick. Like a short popsicle stick that had a bit of a swelling at both ends. I never had a problem with the little stick. It worked quite well to get ice cream into my mouth, it was biodegradable and not in any way a source of unwanted plastic in our environment.
But it seems to have disappeared.
Now, to be fair, eating ice cream from a small dish had also sort of faded. The ice cream cone, in all it’s many versions was the thing. Until this year. While some places still will hand over a cone, most have switched to small disposable dishes to serve their ice cream. Things that I like to call a Covid Cone.
I don’t mind the Covid Cone. The ice cream is the most important part. I do not like the little plastic spoon they give you.
First, it is a single use plastic, and I thought the idea was to rid our world of single use plastics. The other thing is, they have sharp edges.
I’d rather not have a little plastic spoon at all, but if they are going to insist we use them, maybe they could also hand out a little piece of sand paper with the spoon? Just so you could smooth out the rough edges.
I know the plastic spoon, because of the actual spoon design. would probably be capable of conveying more ice cream into your face at any one time than just a flat stick. But that just helps to prevent brain freeze, so I’m not sure it’s a plus.
But yesterday I stopped for ice cream. Before I finished my ice cream, the side of my mouth was bleeding because of the shard edge on the plastic spoon. Now, this was ice cream on a hot day, so the damage to my mouth area did not stop me from continuing to shovel ice cream into my mouth.
But it would have been better on a stick.
I have been told these little wooden sticks are almost impossible to find. But if we’re going to have to do away with the cone for health reasons, maybe we should be bringing back the stick?
