The Romani People have always been able to make things from almost nothing and from natural materials and by doing so earning a crust, as one says in English.
Before the advent of the (metal) fork the spoon, wooden spoons, for the poorer folks at least, and the knife (which almost everyone carried), were the only eating utensils and hence there was a market for such spoons. Everyone had their own wooden spoon in a household, from the youngest to the oldest. The kitchen anyway demanded wooden utensils, whether ladles, or stirrers, or what-have-you, and everyone, at least the poor, ate with a wooden spoon.
So there was a market there for well-made wooden spoons and despite the fact that there were makers already the fact that the Gypsy made them and brought them to the customer's door rather than expecting the customer to come to the village or town to the shop, as most resident makers expected, his business took off.
Obviously the Gypsy's success in his business ventures did not please the sedentary spoon and woodcarver on bit because the Gypsy spoon carver's products were of equal quality, if not better even, but he sold then at a lower rate and direct to the customer at the doorstep. The other advantage for the Gypsy carver was that he was, more often than not in the old days, itinerant, took is raw materials from one place, made the products on the road, dried and finished them, and sold them at the next place, thereby never being dependent on just one area as a source for his raw materials or as a market for his goods.
But even when he became sedentary, with a fixed base from which to operate, a little house or even a small “farm”, he still did not take his raw materials just from one area and also did not restrict his selling activities to just a very local area. Instead he would load up his wagon with the goods he – and his family – had produced during the winter months, loaded up a fair many members of his household, with some staying behind such as the very young, often and the old, and traveled the countryside with his wares from market to market, from town to town, from village to village.
In those days many households would use a simple carved stick for stirring the pot, whether for porridge, stew or such, and coming to realize that the stick had serious limitations the Gypsy spoon carver “invented” the stirring paddle and it is this tool, in various sizes, that we now (still) find in use in the kitchens, private and commercial, in Eastern Europe. The cooking spoon for stirring the pot, such as in the West, is rarely seen in Eastern Europe.
Until the first quarter of the twentieth century, even into the time of the Great Patriotic War, soldiers, especially the common soldier, generally did not carry any other eating utensil, with the exception for forces in the West, bar a wooden spoon and some carvers, just like those making tent peg, got contracted to make wooden spoons for soldiers and utensils for the military kitchens. The stamped metal personal eating utensils of the military put an end to that one though.
The spoon carver did not just carve spoons. He carved all manner of products for the use in the (peasant) kitchen and household, such as bowls of various sizes for eating porridge, soup and stews. Some of the carvers can make a porridge bowl with just hatchet, adze and spoon knife faster than many a turner on the lathe.
In addition to that other wooden products also were on the menu, though spoons and kitchen ware was the mainstay of the spoon carver's activities. The entire family generally was, and still is, involved in the production. It is rare to see a carver, especially a “production” carver, to work on the pieces entirely on his own, from start to finish. It is common procedure for the men and the older boys to ax out the blanks by using hatchets, the somewhat younger boys and the women to carve the spoon bowls and the handles, and the the girls and small boys to to the final finishing in the form of sanding.
Many Romani spoon carvers still, to this day, especially in Eastern Europe, make spoons on a daily basis for sale, selling them on markets or, more often than not to middlemen. Those middlemen are, today, however, unfortunately, the cause why the Gypsy spoon carver cannot make a proper living from his craft and trade. But those products are, once again, in demand, especially also in the West where the environmentally conscious people are prepared to pay good prices from handmade quality products of this nature and this is where, today, the middlemen make their huge profits at the expense of the Romani maker remains poor and can't make ends meet because he gets paid only a few percent of the sales price of his products, though in advance. The middleman buyer who then resells those spoons and other products may say that he is taking all the risk but he knows full well that he will make a killing on each and every piece in the West.
2026 © Michael Smith