The solitary consumption of marrow

Coffee on the Porch has the same attitude toward collecting kitchen and tableware as me. Random and eclectic.

This marrow-spoon was an almost impulse purchase after I had gone to an antique shop a couple of weeks ago, having made up my mind to buy a sold silver one dating from 1740 for £140. I  did not see it in the window so I enquired, and was told it had sold a matter of hours beforehand.

So I bought this 1890, silver-plated one as a consolation to myself.

Eating the marrow from roasted veal bones has begun to come back into fashion since the BSE crisis a few years ago. There is a restaurant in Spitalfields which specialises in them, and they buy their bones from the famous London meat-market in the same borough, where they have been sold for hundreds of years.

I have only eaten roast marrow once, and it is extremely delicious. I placate any misgivings about eating calf by reasoning with myself that if I felt that strongly about it, I would not drink cow's milk.

The design of these spoons was settled on by the Romans. They may have fallen out of production for a few hundred years during the Dark Ages, but then manufacture in places like London, Sheffield and Birmingham (where this one was made by the Barker Brothers) began again around the late medieval times. I sound like an expert, but I am just guessing.

They - like knives, forks and other spoons - are tableware, so I really should have a set of six. If I don't find a set at an auction, I will quietly and unhurriedly acquire five others as a mis-match. I do not intend this quest to turn into an obsession.

I will then order the sawing of about twelve , six inch lengths of marrowbone and invite four sickly and elderly invalids around for dinner. It should be a fun night.