Folk crafts persisted in the isolated rural farms across Norway, where spoons made of wood or horn were a daily necessity and skills were passed down the generations. Spoons with detailed carving on the handle such as this might have been carved at home as gifts or purchased from professional carvers. This example has the floral and scrolling decoration influenced by the Baroque style, which became embedded in the Norwegian folk tradition. Wide-bowled spoons were a traditional shape for eating porridge or gruel, although only the tip of the spoon was used. A Norwegian saying was that one would become a 'big-mouth' or 'loud-mouth' from eating with a wooden spoon.