If you want to stir up online controversy, wooden spoons are the perfect tool with which to do so. Every few years, influencers go viral with warnings about how the wooden spoons in your kitchen are covered in disgusting gunk and if you don’t boil them immediately you will poison yourself and everyone you love.
In 2023, for example, a woman called Lulaboo Jenkins posted a TikTok video of her boiling spoons. Millions of people watched the water turn brown and it triggered a deep-cleaning craze. The Guardian’s Tim Dowling had a go, detailing the results in an article that prompted more than 1,000 comments. Who knew spoons could inspire such a feverish response? (Well, Jenkins, I suppose.)
