Utensils

Featured review by Chris Sanchez

This was a great buy. It performs exactly as a spork should. It is really useful when separating fish meat from the bones.

This spork is really well made and is built to last. I have had mine for two years. It is much sturdier than the plastic alternatives. Definitely worth the purchase. You can also use it as a scraper on fire steel. 

Read more: Snow Peak Titanium Spork reviews (11)

Featured review by Twig

My trusty Long Handle Titanium spoon is the only eating utensil that I need in the backcountry. It is simple and functional, and does a much better job than any spork.

Ease of Use: A good eating utensil should be one of the simplest pieces of gear. Done right, most backpackers will find that they only need one utensil for fast and effective food delivery. But this is a piece of gear that people often get wrong, IMHO. For years I had it wrong too. I fell into the trap of thinking a spork was the one, all-purpose utensil that I needed for the trail. A sampling of all the utensils I have tried over the years. Having used my long handle spoon for the past four years, I can no longer fathom why sporks have garnered such favor.

Read more: Toaks Titanium Long Handle Spoon with Polished Bowl reviews (3)

Featured review by G00se

Sea to Summit's AlphaLight Long Spoon is an ultralight, anodized aluminum spoon that, due to its superiority, has replaced the Titanium Spork I've carried for nearly 15 years.

Most of us have done it...Finished off the last of our Mountain House meal by digging into the bottom of the bag and allowing our hand to be covered in tomato sauce or other goo. It seems to go with the territory. Let's start with a short, slightly narcissistic video. For 15 years, my Snow Peak Titanium Spork has been my companion on every camping adventure, but earlier this year, I stumbled upon the Sea to Summit AlphaLight Long Spoon. There was, of course, a moment of indecision. I mean, I've had my spork almost as long as I've had my wife, and I'm a pretty committed person.

Read more: Sea to Summit AlphaLight Long Spoon reviews (5)

Featured review by Horn Rimmed Hiker

A double-sided tool, with a hard, plastic edge for more difficult scraping, and a soft, silicone edge to lightly scrape leftover liquid or softer foods. If you like cooking and don't like washing dishes, this is an essential tool to have as part of your camp kitchen, no matter how small or large it may be. Pair this with some baby wipes and your dishwashing will never be easier. Spending five bucks on this scraper will save you the cost of having to prematurely replace worn-out non-stick cookware.

If you like cooking and don't like washing dishes, this is an essential tool to have as part of your camp kitchen, no matter how small or large it may be. It is a double-sided tool, with a hard, plastic edge for more difficult scraping, and a soft, silicone edge to lightly scrape leftover liquid or softer foods. This came included with my GSI Crossover Kitchen Kit, and is easily one of my favorite items in my kitchen. Using this scraper saves time and effort when washing dishes, and if your non-stick cookware is slick enough, it makes a tedious and lengthy chore into a short and simple one.

Read more: GSI Outdoors Compact Scraper reviews (5)

Featured review by JimDoss

An extendable-handle spoon that's lightweight and perfect for reaching into the corners of food pouches.

What an ingenious little spoon! Collapsed the Optimus Sliding Long Spoon is slightly less than 7 inches long. Fully extended it is 9.5 inches long.   Collapsed versus extended Weighing in at a paltry 25 grams, this little spoon is great for stirring your tea, eating soup, or digging into a bowl of your favorite breakfast cereal. Slide the handle into its extended position and, voila!, it's now perfect for digging out your dinner from the deep, dark recesses of those freeze dried food pouches! No more sloppy hands from using a too short spoon! Taller than a food pouch! When extended, the Optimus Sliding Long Spoon locks into place with a little spring-loaded button.

Read more: Optimus Sliding Long Spoon reviews (2)

Featured review by Horn Rimmed Hiker

Opting to use pivoting hinges instead of a retractable design, GSI Outdoors succeeds in creating a packable spoon that feels neither too weak nor small for the job. The addition of measurement markings on the inside makes this serve double-duty as serving ware and a measuring cup. The high-temp, nylon 66 this is made from is able to withstand contact with hot pots and pans, although it cannot sit (even for the smallest amount of time) in them.

As nice as a spatula is, and for as flat as it can fold down, sometimes you need something a little more stable. Sure, I could dish-out my corned beef hash with a spatula, but if I do, I'm that much more likely to miss my target, dropping food on the ground and creating both wasted food and bear food. I love my corned beef hash too much for it to ever hit the ground, and the only utensil I trust with this duty is the Pivot Spoon. Note: the spoon was only rested long enough to take a quick photograph and was not rested longer than that.

Read more: GSI Outdoors Pivot Spoon reviews (2)

Featured review by Wolfed

Excellent spoon, does exactly what you need it to.

  So, it's a spoon. If you do any amount of backpacking at some point you will likely encounter at least one freeze-dried meal.  There are people who do not of course, but I am not one of those people. If you are one such person you already know that eating from the container these meals is an annoyance. You will often get some measure of the meal on your fingers  using a standard sized spoon to dig into it. Enter the long handle spoon. This one does exactly what you might think. It gets to the bottom easily without you ever having to get your fingers dirty.

Read more: Toaks Titanium Long Handle Spoon reviews (3)

Reviewed by Melensdad

Beautifully made titanium utensils with a good balance, very nice finish. 1.7 ounce total weight, nice size. But lacks a carry pouch.

GO-TO-WARE Bamboo ~vs~ TOAKS Titanium Cutlery Since there are several of us going on a trip I figured that I'd buy some Christmas presents for some of the others who will be on the trip and it would give me the opportunity to compare different items. I purchased some TOAKS brand Titanium Cutlery sets and some Bamboo Cutlery sets. Each has some interesting advantages, but as I think you will see, the Bamboo spoon is nearly worthless and the Bamboo knife is an oddity that it hard to describe. The Titanium stuff is very traditional in form, well balanced in your hand, very functional, expensive, strong/stiff and yet amazingly lightweight.

Read more: Toaks Titanium 3-Piece Cutlery Set review (1)

Reviewed by BigRed

An inexpensive, long-handled spoon for scraping the last bit of the goodness out of that deep plastic bag or foil pouch.

I can’t believe I’m reviewing a spoon. After all, it’s just A SPOON! But in the age of the $22 titanium folding spoon, not all spoons are created—or priced—equal. So here goes. Many of us regular TSers are old enough to remember: when your parents or grandparents took you to the ice cream parlor and you ordered a hot fudge sundae and it was served in a tall kind of goblet with a pile of whipped cream and a maraschino cherry on top and the waitress gave you a special long spoon that you could use to scoop up the cherry first and then at the very end dig that last gobbet of fudge out of the tapered bottom… Yeah.

Read more: GSI Outdoors Pouch Spoon review (1)

Featured review by Horn Rimmed Hiker

Short enough to nest inside a cookset. Long enough to hit the bottom of your freeze-dried meal. MSR's folding spoon solves both these problems, offering a utensil as packable as it is functional. I prefer plastic utensils to metal, and the nylon these are made of is easy on the teeth and doesn't conduct heat. A nice upgrade from the run-of-the-mill camping utensil.

Before I defaulted to a titanium mug, I upgraded (or downsized, however you see it) from a 2L GSI Pinnacle Pot (part of my Pinnacle Backpacker Cook Set) to an MSR Stowaway 1.1L Pot.  The only downside was the smaller, 1L pot had too small a diameter to fit my LMF spork (6.6" x 1.5"). As much as I love that spork - and trust me, I do - I knew I needed to find a replacement.  It usually helps to search within the brand, and you've a pot from a manufacturer, the utensil best-sized for it will come from that same manufacturer (whether or not they're marketed as part of a set).

Read more: MSR Folding Spoon reviews (3)