A soup spoon is a type of spoon with a large or rounded bowl, used for consuming soup. The term can either refer to the British soup spoon or the Chinese spoon. Round bowled soup spoons were a Victorian era invention. Sets of cutlery made prior to about 1900 do not have round soup spoons; a tablespoon was used (and still is in some British houses where the silver predates 1900).
Western
The British soup spoon is the length of a
dessert spoon (i.e., smaller than a
tablespoon) but with a deeper, more circular bowl for holding liquid. Modern soup spoons are usually stainless steel or silver-plated, but in the past wooden and horn spoons were more common. The idea of including a separate soup spoon in a table setting originated in the eighteenth century, when the
bowl shapes varied widely, deep or shallow, oval, pointed, egg-shaped or circular. Spoon shapes became more standardized in nineteenth-century silverware.
[Bee Wilson. Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat. (New York: Basic Books, 2012 ), pp. 182-188.]
The rounded form of soup spoon is not generally used in continental Europe, where an oval-shaped spoon is traditionally used.
Chinese
The Chinese soup spoon, usually ceramic and of a distinct shape, can vary in size from normal soup spoon size to near-platter size.
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