Sugar tongs


The sugar tongs are small serving utensils used at the table to transfer sugar pieces from the sugar bowl to the tea cups. The tongs appeared at the end of the 17th century, and were very popular by 1800, with half of the British households owning them. The decline of the formal tea party led to the disappearance of the sugar tongs, in the 21st century they are considered an oddity at the table in their original role, but had acquired a new meaning: the tongs now represent Englishness. Also, these tongs still can be used to serve small candy, string beans, slices of cucumber, celery sticks.

Terminology

Terminology is inconsistent. Egan Mew follows the evolution of the utensil through:
  • sugar nippers. While these tools shared the name with sturdy sugar nips, they were very different in nature: the latter were used to cut pieces off the sugarloaf in the kitchen, while the former were used at the table, were decorative and frequently made of silver; David Shlosberg asserts that this term was not contemporaneously applied to this utensil and the term "tea tongs" was actually used instead in the 18th century.
  • sugar bows with highly decorative handles appear in 1750s for a short time;
  • sugar tongs with more plain designs appeared in the 18th century and gradually evolved into "bold, bad design" of the 19th century. By the early 20th century, the "fashion... has dismissed the sugar-tongs from society".

    Construction

The early tongs were scissor-like, occasionally in fancy shapes like storks with long beaks or puppets grabbing the sugar with their hands. The majority at the time were "sugar bows" with two elaborately decorated hands with openwork that were joined by a flexible arc hammered into a spring, so that the hands opened when no pressure was applied to the arms. The latter part of the reign of George II and early reign of George III exhibited a very large variety of patterns pierced and chased onto the tongs. In the late Georgian era piercing popularity had declined, and the tongs were made to match the contemporary spoon designs.