# tablespoon



## chienblanc

Bonjour!    Je veux dire "tablespoon" en français.  Je veux l’utiliser pour une mesure dans une recette.  I found cuillère à soupe in Word/Reference, but it says soup spoon.  Is this the word you would use as a measurement, also?
 
Merci pour votre aide.


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## Avignonaddict

It is certainly used as a measurement, but I'm no cook, so I can't confirm the quantity represented.


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## geve

chienblanc said:


> Is this the word you would use as a measurement, also?


Well it depends what quantity you want to measure.  In recipes you could read (from the biggest to the smallest) une _cuillère à soupe de farine, une cuillère de sucre, une cuillère à café de canelle_. I hope I'm not forgetting any cuillère!

What size is a tablespoon? Is it the one you would use to eat ice-cream for instance? If so I think _cuillère_ on its own would be more accurate. That would be our "default spoon".


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## JSand4325

I looked this up on Google and found this:


> Well, are you talking about the French _cuillère à soupe_ or the _cuillè à café_? Because the first corresponds almost exactly to the US tablespoon and the second almost exactly to the US teaspoon


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## giannid

A tablespoon is bigger than a spoon you use to eat ice cream, unless you have a big mouth


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## geve

Thanks for the reference JSand4325! So _cuillère à soupe_ it is, then.


giannid said:


> A tablespoon is bigger than a spoon you use to eat ice cream, unless you have a big mouth


Or unless you're very hungry  
Ok, so the spoon you use for ice-cream is just-a-spoon then?


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## tilt

The real question is: what do you eat with a tablespoon?

I'm fairly sure WR dictionnary is right. You can say either _cuillère à soupe_ or _grande cuillère_.
For teaspoon, _cuillère à café_ and _petite cuillère_ are possible.

Nonetheless, I must warn about _grande cuillère_. Some friends of mine say _grosse cuillère_, and even after years of debate, we never agreed on which one is the best!


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## polaire

giannid said:


> A tablespoon is bigger than a spoon you use to eat ice cream, unless you have a big mouth



Americans must have enormous mouths, then, because a tablespoon is much smaller.


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## Avignonaddict

As far as I know, in BrE a tablespoon is quite big, the kind of thing you use for serving vegetables. You wouldn't be able to put it into your mouth comfortably. Below that is a dessert spoon - does what it says. Then tea- and coffee-spoons.


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## polaire

Avignonaddict said:


> As far as I know, in BrE a tablespoon is quite big, the kind of thing you use for serving vegetables. You wouldn't be able to put it into your mouth comfortably. Below that is a dessert spoon - does what it says. Then tea- and coffee-spoons.



What I'm talking about is smaller than a serving spoon, but much larger than a teaspoon.  The spoon usually doubles as a cereal spoon in a silverware set.  It's relatively shallow.


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## geve

tilt said:


> For teaspoon, _cuillère à café_ and _petite cuillère_ are possible.


 
I beg to differ. There are tiny spoons with which you would have trouble to eat anything, but suffice to stir the sugar in your coffee. Kind of like a fancy _touillette_.  Whereas une _petite cuillère_ is the spoon we use for yoghurt and ice-cream - the default spoon as I called it (meaning if one says "cuillère" alone it probably means "petite cuillère").

But I agree with you about _grande cuillère_!


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## Moon Palace

polaire said:


> What I'm talking about is smaller than a serving spoon, but much larger than a teaspoon.  The spoon usually doubles as a cereal spoon in a silverware set.  It's relatively shallow.



Then it would be the equivalent to our 'cuillère à soupe'. (although it is actually a bit smaller in size, but we don't have cereal spoons anyway )


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## JeanDeSponde

I remember there has been a thread on these measuring vs. eating spoons.
But the US burger spoon was missing...


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## geve

So to add the cuillères I had forgotten...
_Cuillère de service _
_Cuillère à soupe / grande cuillère / grosse cuillère_ for some of tilt's friends __
_Petite cuillère_
_Cuillère à café_

I may be missing other cuillères. They seem to be quite a crowd.


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## polaire

Moon Palace said:


> Then it would be the equivalent to our 'cuillère à soupe'. (although it is actually a bit smaller in size, but we don't have cereal spoons anyway )



That's what I was thinking.  Unless it's a big silverware set, we use the same spoon for soup, too.


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## chienblanc

Oh dear!  Thank you for all the help and the interesting discussion!!!   I think _cuillère à soupe_ would probably work for my recipe.

Would I say "quatre _cuillères à soupe_ du lait"? (4 tablespoons of milk)

Merci!  now I shouldn't ask about cups?  Would it be tasse for one cup?


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## Moon Palace

Yes you're right, Polaire, the odd thing being that you adapt *your cereal spoon *to soup, whereas we adapt our *soup spoon* to cereals. This is when culture gets entangled with language 
And yes, it would be tasse for 'one cup'


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## geve

chienblanc said:


> Would I say "quatre _cuillères à soupe_ du *de* lait"?  (4 tablespoons of milk)


You would need to open a new thread for cups, but yes, _tasse_ also works as a measurement in recipes.


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## tilt

chienblanc said:


> Oh dear!  Thank you for all the help and the interesting discussion!!!   I think _cuillère à soupe_ would probably work for my recipe.
> 
> Would I say "quatre _cuillères à soupe_ du lait"? (4 tablespoons of milk)
> 
> Merci!  now I shouldn't ask about cups?  Would it be tasse for one cup?


_Quatre cuillères à soupe *de *lait_ will work.


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## polaire

According to the handy-dandy* conversion chart I saw on the web, 1 U.S. TBSP = 0.014786 l (liters).


*Handy (informal)


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## chienblanc

Merci encore!


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## tilt

geve said:


> I beg to differ. There are tiny spoons with which you would have trouble to eat anything, but suffice to stir the sugar in your coffee. Kind of like a fancy _touillette_.  Whereas une _petite cuillère_ is the spoon we use for yoghurt and ice-cream - the default spoon as I called it (meaning if one says "cuillère" alone it probably means "petite cuillère").
> 
> But I agree with you about _grande cuillère_!


You are right, indeed. Or You have been right.
Initialy, the _cuillère à café_ was this very small one, and the one we call _petite cuillère _was the _cuillère à thé_ (just like in English).

But nowadays, the usage is to say _cuillère à café_ (_cuillère à dessert_ is also used) for _petite cuillère_, and _cuillère à moka_ for the former _cuillère à café_.


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## geve

polaire said:


> According to the handy-dandy* conversion chart I saw on the web, 1 U.S. TBSP = 0.014786 l (liters).


Stand still, I'll go measure how many liters is our _grande cuillère_!  (kidding, eh? Don't hold your breath on that!  )

But I've just found the perfect website for bilingual cooks: équivalences et conversions.


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## polaire

geve said:


> Stand still, I'll go measure how many liters is our _grande cuillère_!  (kidding, eh? Don't hold your breath on that!  )
> 
> But I've just found the perfect website for bilingual cooks: équivalences et conversions.




That's a UK table.  US measurements may be different.

For us, precision isn't important; for a baker, it's essential.   The "a little pinch of this..." approach can be fatal.


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## geve

tilt said:


> You are right, indeed. Or You have been right.
> Initialy, the _cuillère à café_ was this very small one, and the one we call _petite cuillère _was the _cuillère à thé_ (just like in English).
> 
> But nowadays, the usage is to say _cuillère à café_ (_cuillère à dessert_ is also used) for _petite cuillère_, and _cuillère à moka_ for the former _cuillère à café_.


I am sorry to disagree once again (je jure que ce n'est pas juste pour t'embêter !!) but I never use nor hear _cuillère à moka_. The most common term for me is _petite cuillère_ - the one used for desserts. And I use _cuillères à café_ to stir my coffee.  Y aura-t-il une bataille de la petite cuillère comme il y a eu celle de la grande/grosse ?


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## geve

polaire said:


> That's a UK table. US measurements may be different.


Well this website does say that a _*tablespoon/cuillère à soupe*_ is "16 ml aux USA et 15 ml au UK". It seems US Americans have bigger mouthes.


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## VictaHeri

I don't know exactly what a cuillère à soupe is, but if it is a soup spoon, then it is not the same thing as a tablespoon.  They are usually rounder and deeper so that (for my purposes!) if you blow on your soup really hard, it doesn't all pour out of the spoon. : )


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## tilt

geve said:


> I am sorry to disagree once again (je jure que ce n'est pas juste pour t'embêter !!) but I never use nor hear _cuillère à moka_. The most common term for me is _petite cuillère_ - the one used for desserts. And I use _cuillères à café_ to stir my coffee.  Y aura-t-il une bataille de la petite cuillère comme il y a eu celle de la grande/grosse ?


I know Wikipedia is not gospel, but...

Another site, which sells 12 cm long spoons as _cuillères à moka_ and 16 cm long spoons as _cuillères à café_. And their default spoon is the tablespoon (which is the default one for recipes indeed).


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## tilt

VictaHeri said:


> I don't know exactly what a cuillère à soupe is, but if it is a soup spoon, then it is not the same thing as a tablespoon.  They are usually rounder and deeper so that (for my purposes!) if you blow on your soup really hard, it doesn't all pour out of the spoon. : )


I think both would be called _cuillère à soupe_ in French. Actually, we do refer to only two kinds of spoon in all-day life.


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## Moon Palace

VictaHeri said:


> it is not the same thing as a tablespoon.  They are usually rounder and deeper so that (for my purposes!) if you blow on your soup really hard, it doesn't all pour out of the spoon. : )



The tablespoon you mean, round and deep, used to serve soup, is in fact a dipper, une _louche_, and is never used for measurements. 
Now if you need 'une cuillère de service' to serve dishes of all kinds except for liquids, then we are at a loss, because there are all kinds of sizes of these spoons. And again, they don't appear in our recipes for measurements. 
At any rate, recipes in French are usually expressed in grams and kilograms. So that we don't need to battle it out to know which spoon to choose. 
In this precise case, I would personally stick with '_cuillère à soupe'_.


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## tilt

Moon Palace said:


> The tablespoon you mean, round and deep, used to serve soup, is in fact a dipper, une _louche_, and is never used for measurements.


I don't think so! Even Americans wouldn't blow on a dipper !


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## Moon Palace

Yes, Tilt, I agree about blowing, but on the other hand, our tablespoons are not round, they are oval. English tablespoons are indeed round. 
As you said, we only have two tablespoons. Big or small. There is no other size.


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## geve

tilt said:


> I know Wikipedia is not gospel, but...
> 
> Another site, which sells 12 cm long spoons as _cuillères à moka_ and 16 cm long spoons as _cuillères à café_. And their default spoon is the tablespoon (which is the default one for recipes indeed).


Well, Wikipédia seems to agree with me  also adding cuillère à dessert as an alternative to petite cuillère.

In any case I only said what terms I use in everyday speech, and how I use them. I am not saying that spoon professionals don't use different or more precise terms, or that they aren't any other possible ways to name these things.


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## profrt

Ne dirait-on plutôt une cuillerée (à soupe) lorsqu'il s'agit d'une mesure? Une cuillère à soupe est une ustensile, n'est-ce pas?


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## tilt

profrt said:


> Ne dirait-on plutôt une cuillerée (à soupe) lorsqu'il s'agit d'une mesure? Une cuillère à soupe est une ustensile, n'est-ce pas?


Strictly speaking, you are right. But using the object name as a measurement is common too (_une cuillère de..., une tasse de..._).


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## polaire

Moon Palace said:


> The tablespoon you mean, round and deep, used to serve soup, is in fact a dipper, une _louche_, and is never used for measurements.
> Now if you need 'une cuillère de service' to serve dishes of all kinds except for liquids, then we are at a loss, because there are all kinds of sizes of these spoons. And again, they don't appear in our recipes for measurements.
> At any rate, recipes in French are usually expressed in grams and kilograms. So that we don't need to battle it out to know which spoon to choose.
> In this precise case, I would personally stick with '_cuillère à soupe'_.




We call it a _*ladle*_.  

A dipper is something that you see only in an old Western.  A wizened old cowboy rides up and asks for a drink of water.  He sips from a dipper.


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## tilt

polaire said:


> We call it a _*ladle*_.
> 
> A dipper is something that you see only in an old Western.  A wizened old cowboy rides up and asks for a drink of water.  He sips from a dipper.


Pictures on google say you're right, but amazingly, WR dictionnary translates _dipper_ to _louche_, and _ladle_ only to _pochon_.


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## VictaHeri

Moon Palace said:


> The tablespoon you mean, round and deep, used to serve soup, is in fact a dipper, une _louche_, and is never used for measurements.
> Now if you need 'une cuillère de service' to serve dishes of all kinds except for liquids, then we are at a loss, because there are all kinds of sizes of these spoons. And again, they don't appear in our recipes for measurements.
> At any rate, recipes in French are usually expressed in grams and kilograms. So that we don't need to battle it out to know which spoon to choose.
> In this precise case, I would personally stick with '_cuillère à soupe'_.


 
No, I'm not talking about une louche!  A soup spoon is rather small, but more round and circular than a tablespoon.  I think it might also be called a bouillon soup spoon in English, but it's a term less commonly used.


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## A day in Eireann

That it's "à soupe" in France is a definite fact ( and you can try this link too http://ts.nist.gov/WeightsAndMeasures/household.cfm
But several years teaching bilingual cordon bleu cuisine doesn't make me hesitate on that.

Generally speaking, you can either say cuillère( that's the colloquial way, it means a sponn) or cuillerée (the correct way, it stands for spoonful, you eat or cook its contents, not the spoon itself afterall).


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## Moon Palace

polaire said:


> We call it a _*ladle*_.
> 
> A dipper is something that you see only in an old Western.  A wizened old cowboy rides up and asks for a drink of water.  He sips from a dipper.



Then we need to change the WF dictionary definition, this is where I took it from.


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