By Dan Rosenfield
We all have our own certain quirks. It’s what makes us, well, us. Ally Pollak, a rising senior on UD’s Field Hockey team, has a very bizarre, yet interesting quirk of her own. She always carries a travel spoon with her, whether it be to practice or team dinners, she only uses spoons. This never stood out to her as an odd trait because that’s how she learned to eat.
Ally Pollak always carries a spoon with her
“I was raised on just spoons and knives,” Pollak said. “I didn’t really know life any different, no one ever brought it up to me that it was weird.”
Her home utensils cabinet contains a row for forks, mostly for guests, knives and three rows dedicated to spoons.
Even when guests did come, they too never mentioned the peculiarities of Pollak’s emphasis on spoons.
“No one mentioned it for being weird,” Pollak said. “When we would have guests, we would have forks available and people would use them, but it was never a thing that people noted like ‘oh you don’t use forks here.’”
Not only do they have an array of spoons in their kitchen, they also have a giant spoon hanging up on their wall, that has been passed down for generations. Although this time, Pollack can recognize the strangeness.
“I can see how that’s weird,” Pollak said on the giant spoon. “It’s hanging up, so they’re a big deal.”
It was Pollak’s father that started the tradition of using spoons, coming from his Italian upbringings.
“My dad’s ride or die Italian, so he loves sauce with everything, so with a spoon you can get sauce with whatever you’re eating, so it just seemed the most practical,” Pollak said. “If you want to eat chicken with sauce, you’d need a spoon.”
The first time her teammates were exposed to her spoon tendencies was during a team dinner her freshman year.
“We were out to eat at La Casa Pasta down the street and the chicken dish that I ordered had spaghetti on the side and the head coach Rolf (van de Kerkhof) was sitting across from me,” Pollak said. “I was using a spoon to eat the spaghetti no problem, I’ve been doing it since I was a kid and he was like ‘What are you doing? We’re in a restaurant’ and he was so confused about it. Nobody really picked up on it until that team dinner and then it became a huge thing.”
Pollak doesn’t use her travel spoon as much since she has adjusted to learn how to use a fork.
“I don’t use it much anymore, but it was more for my freshman year when I was still learning how to use a fork, I still struggle with it, but I’m so much better now,” Pollak said. “I can cut so easily with a spoon and a knife, but give me a fork and I get really confused. I always carry [a spoon] just in case.”
According to Pollak, you can eat all food groups with a spoon.
“I never had an issue for 18 years of my life.”
Her mom adjusted fairly easily to her husband’s family tradition.
“My dad was like ‘you can get more sauce with a spoon’ and she’s like ‘that’s brilliant!!!!’“
Maybe Pollak will be next in her family to pass the spoon down. It’s a tradition that doesn’t seem to be breaking anytime soon.