Some time ago on my blog we had a great time talking about how something as simple as a tablespoon had become a family heirloom.

I had reason to reach for my heirloom tablespoon this week thanks to a recipe for jam sponge roll, which had me measuring in spoons rather than cups. And I realised that I never had gotten around to measuring the difference between the modern day tablespoon and the old fashioned one that I’d been given by my 92 year-old-great aunt.

SO … (and I realise this is hardly riveting stuff for non-cooks, but stick with me, there is a point …)

I took my ‘Heirloom’ tablespoon (top), a Maxwell Williams tablespoon I bought recently (middle), and a tablespoon that came in a cutlery set (bottom) I was given sometime in the 90’s … probably for my 21^st when it was the thing to give people things for their ‘glory box’ (why oh why did the 90’s disappear?) 

I then grabbed my new you beaut ‘dry measure’.

My mum had one of these things when I was a little girl and I have never seen one since. Mum’s went missing long ago so imagine my excitement at discovering this one in Myers when I was recently in Melbourne! I was beside myself calling for my girlfriend Pam to come take a look. Her squeal of ‘my mum has one of those!’ followed by, ‘I have to get one too,’ had us both walking out of Myers holding our dry measures and grinning like idiots. (Cue ‘TImewarp’ music)

But back to Glenmaggie and my farm kitchen. I dragged out my handy electronic Breville scales. Zeroed the dry measure.

And then proceeded to measure an exact, LEVEL …

… tablespoon of cornflour using each spoon.

And what do you know …

While my ‘glory box’ and Maxwell Williams tablespoons measured 8gms per level tablespoon … 

My levelled ‘heirloom’ tablespoon measured nearly TWICE as much at 15gms! 

So which one is ‘a tablespoon’? We might have to call in the bloke from weights and measures. (I always thought that would have to be the most boring job on earth.) That’s assuming there still is a bloke from weights and measures? Maybe he dropped off the face of the earth with the advent of everything being made in China or the Phillipines?

Anyway back to Glenmaggie … (pretty isn’t it)

From my homestead to yours, there you have it. A tablespoon doesn’t  necessarily mean a tablespoon! Shocking isn’t it?!!!

It kinda reminds me of this saying … 

Maybe the reason why the jam sponge roll didn’t work out was because I used the wrong tablespoon?!

Then again, maybe I just plain old ‘stuffed it up’.