Wooden kitchen utensils - What do you use/like?

[panda]

MUCH prefer wooden spoons for stirring.

[Sambal]

I use wooden paddles and have for yonks.

Stirring and scraping a pan with metal ones is very grating and it scratches my steel pans as well. I like the ones made from very large bamboo (from China I think). They're very efficient, hard, as well as hard wearing. These are getting increasingly difficult to find for some reason. My beautiful bamboo rice paddle recently cracked after about 7 years of use and I haven't yet found a suitable replacement. I'm using a Japanese plastic one with a tiny bubbly texture at the moment. Works well, the rice doesn't stick to it but I love the feel of a natural wooden/bamboo one better.

[JHunter]

I love my Yew wood spoons and Spatulas and am lucky enough to have a father whom makes em pretty much any size and shape i want em

[EdipisReks]

I use wooden paddles and have for yonks.

Stirring and scraping a pan with metal ones is very grating and it scratches my steel pans as well. I like the ones made from very large bamboo (from China I think). They're very efficient, hard, as well as hard wearing. These are getting increasingly difficult to find for some reason. My beautiful bamboo rice paddle recently cracked after about 7 years of use and I haven't yet found a suitable replacement. I'm using a Japanese plastic one with a tiny bubbly texture at the moment. Works well, the rice doesn't stick to it but I love the feel of a natural wooden/bamboo one better.

have you thought about repairing them? Many epoxies are food safe (they get used in home-brew all the time), and the bond between epoxy and wood is usually stronger than the wood itself. I repaired a Berard olive wood spatula that broke with epoxy, and it worked perfectly. In fact, when the spatula was later broken again (the thing was twice crushed in boxes when I moved apartments, just bad luck) it broke around the epoxy, but the epoxy bond itself was still intact.

[Sambal]

have you thought about repairing them? Many epoxies are food safe (they get used in home-brew all the time), and the bond between epoxy and wood is usually stronger than the wood itself. I repaired a Berard olive wood spatula that broke with epoxy, and it worked perfectly. In fact, when the spatula was later broken again (the thing was twice crushed in boxes when I moved apartments, just bad luck) it broke around the epoxy, but the epoxy bond itself was still intact.

Thanks for the suggestion ER but this particular paddle had truly gone past its use-by date by a long shot. So, I'm still looking for that 'one' special bamboo rice paddle where the grain is straight, the curvature just right, and the node (where it's strongest) falls towards the the tip of the paddle.

With other flat paddles I actually prefer softer wooden ones because they scrape the bottom of the pan better. Great when making thick stews or soups where there's a tendency to stick and burn on the bottom.

[Sambal]

I love my Yew wood spoons and Spatulas and am lucky enough to have a father whom makes em pretty much any size and shape i want em

Excuse my ignorance but isn't Yew poisonous?

[Bill13]

Love wooden spoons! Olive wood is my favorite for it's beautiful grain.

[Burl Source]

I was wondering actually if I could make some utensils out of your burl. Was it too much a pain to work in shape or was it too fragile?
Apart from the cost, would there be any reason to avoid making utensils in very dense woods like ebony?
I would have thought that something like that might last the longest.

I use a wooden spoon most when mixing ingredients for baking. So I need the wood to be able to flex without breaking.
With burl the grain is turning all over the place and is prone to breaking.
Straight grain wood will have a lot more strength and is able to flex without as much chance of breaking.
When wood cracks or breaks, it usually breaks along the grain. With burl the grain can be going across a 1/2" or less wide handle. So you have only about 1/2" of strength. VS a piece of straight grain wood the grain runs the length of the spoon giving several inches of strength. I am not sure if I am making sense.

[split0101]

I use wooden spoons all the time. I have a few that I have had for years. I would agree that bamboo seems to last the longest (and cheapest) while an olive wood spoon that I had was gorgeous but broke after a few uses.

[EdipisReks]

Excuse my ignorance but isn't Yew poisonous?

I'd suggest not eating the spatulas, but I'd be highly skeptical to claims that yew cooking utensils are going to poison anybody.