SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING AND DESIGN

THE DESIGN SCHOOL

FOUNDATION IN NATURAL BUILD ENVIRONMENT

NAME: Kelvin Ng

STUDENT ID NO: 0315081

TOOL SELECTED: Spatula

WORD COUNT: 637

ENGLISH 2 (ENGL 0205)

WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT 1: NARRATIVE ESSAY

LECTURER: CASSANDRA WIJESURIA

SUBMISSION DATE: 15TH NOVEMBER 2013

My Selected Tool

Ancient Kitchen Tool

Kitchen is the place where we use it every day since the ancient age. Nowadays, kitchen

comes with a lot of tools to make perfect dish either for business or family. One of my favorite among

kitchen tools is spatula. It was used to make nearly every dish we ate. Spatula gave me the

impression about chef as I was dream to be a chef when I was small. According to archeologist,

spatula already existed roughly around 3300 B.C ago during the bronze ages. However, spatula can

break into 3 parts which is the head, the body and the handle.

Head of the spatula that I found in my kitchen is the made of the stainless steel and covered

biggest area of the tool. It is also a heat conductor as the food can be cook faster and equally heated.

Although the texture of the spatula’s head is smooth as it is made of stainless steel but the hole

increases the friction force to enhance the grabbing of food to make us easier for flipping or lifting

food when we are cooking. The shape of the head is trapezium as the part that attached with the

body is smaller. The color of the head is silver just like the color of my necklace which is also made of

stainless steel. It produces ‘ding’ sound when I hit it on the frying pan. The head is the output force of

the spatula. A lot of scratches can be found on the head as we clean the stain remained after cooking

with scrubbing it roughly.

The middle part of the spatula I which is also the body is also made of stainless steel and it is

attached with the head and handle. The body of spatula is narrower and thicker compared with the

head. It’s the longest part of the spatula and this part made it a third class lever. The texture of

spatula’s body is smooth and shiny like a mirror which I can see myself in it. Since it was made of

stainless steel too, no doubts that the body of spatula is also a heat conductor just like the head of it.

The back of the body of spatula have the trade mark of the brand, Buffalo and also the year it was

made.

Then the handle of the spatula is the place where we hold the tool. It’s made of plastic so that

it can insulate heat and protect our palm from getting fry by the heat conducted from the pan or wok.

Even the handle is made of plastic, the texture is still rough as they got a lot of tiny dots arranged

properly to increases the friction so that the tool won’t slip away when we cooking. The handle is the

fulcrum of the spatula as this is the input of the force. There is a hole at the end of the handle as to

hook on the rack after washing it to enable quick dry for the tool.

In overall, spatula looks like a shovel for gardening and it even works like a shovel but it’s for

lifting or spreading food while cooking. I remember that when I was small, I used to imagine the

spatula as a sword and even had a ‘sword’ fight with my brother but we got scolded by mom pretty

bad. It’s more than a kitchen tool: it can also be a shovel for gardening to soften the soil when we got

new spatula for replacement.

Although spatula comes with two main materials which is plastic and stainless steel, yet this

invention is remarkable and still evolving today. In a nutshell, this kitchen tool can never be replaced,

it’s like a hero that contributing behind the scene and we seldom paying attention on it.