In the context of cooking, what is the difference between "flipper" and "spatula"?

Question

I'm genuinely confused about this because at first I thought a spatula was a cooking tool resembling a flat pallet attached at an angle to the handle that could be used for activities such as flipping eggs.

Then I noticed in stores what I thought was a spatula was labelled "flipper" and a "spatula" was something else that was flat in profile as having the handle parallel with the head of the device.

Now people are telling me there's no such thing as a flipper in terms of a cooking device.

I believe the terminology may vary by region. What is a flipper and what is a spatula and in which parts of the world do the definitions apply? For completeness sake, do some people call one of the devices a "turner" (I've never heard this before @choster used it)?

Answer 1

A spatula in cooking is a flat object often made of rubber or metal meant to spread, mix or lift food.

A flipper or turner are flat objects usually made of metal or plastic designed to slide under a piece of food in a pan or on a grill. The broad flat blade facilities easy turning of the food. (Flipper sounds more like a colloquialism for turner to me. Also Pancake Flipper or Burger Flipper is frequently used to refer to the person doing the flipping - that is a short-order cook …)

Rubber (or silicone) spatulas with handles are also called scrapers. (With no handle they are called bowl scrapers.)

Small metal spatulas are often called icing knives.

A spatula can refer to any tool with a small flat blade. It is derived directly from Latin, having come to English in the 1520s as a medical instrument. Spatula the diminutive of the Latin spatha meaning a "broad, flat tool or weapon," from Greek spathe "broad flat blade (used by weavers)".

Update Based upon my review of multiple cook's tool resellers (Williams-Sonoma, etc.) it seems that turners are frequently called spatulas. And, rubber scrapers are also called spatulas. But, a rubber scraper cannot be called a turner, and vice-versa.

Answer 2

Interestingly, if you search for images of spatula in Google, about half of the images are for the device used to turn over pancakes, and half are for the device used to scrape food from a jar.

A similar search for turner results in images for the artist. However, a sidebar offers images for kitchen turner which leads to pictures of the pancake reorienting machine. Delving into these images offer a variety of terms, such as slotted turner, griddle turner and pancake turner.

A search for turner on the Amazon shopping site offers a range of griddle or pan related utensils. A similar search for spatula yields the mixed bag.

A search in Google images or Amazon for flipper yields dolphins (the mammals not the fish).

In sum, if the interweb is to be believed, spatula means either an inversion device or a scraping device, and turner means an inversion device.

Answer 3

The English usage of these terms and the kitchen's (more exacting) usage of these terms differ, slightly. You may get a more nuanced response on our sister site, http://cooking.stackexchange.com.

Some pictures may help. Please see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/18682. In my dialect of AE, I had never heard of "flipper," but only a "pancake turner" or a "spatula." (Of course, they were used for turning more than pancakes.)

In the kitchen's more specific usage, the spatula is the long, thin blade used to spread icing on a cake. (Also to pry open watch backs.) See https://cooking.stackexchange.com/q/22277.

In my AE usage, a pancake turner is called a spatula. And many companies have marketed flexible scrapers as spatulas as well.

Answer 4

Spatula refers to several kitchen* tools used for lifting, spreading, scraping, and sometimes mixing. They all have broad, flat, flexible blades, for which they are named. There are three major varieties:

• Turners are used to lift and flip food like pancakes and filets. Some people call these flippers, but it’s comparatively rare and not well documented. Fish slice is the British English name for a common kind of turner.

• Palette knives are used for spreading, such as frosting a cake. They’re also called frosting spatulas and (in Canada) levelers.

• Scrapers are used to empty containers and clean surfaces. Some scrapers are also useful for mixing, folding, or stirring ingredients.

For some reason, spatulas inspire a kind of nomenclature prescriptivism. Some people insist that spatula properly refers only to scrapers, and that it’s an error to use the word for a turner. Other people insist that palette knives are the only true spatulas. One thing is certain:

You can call any of these things a spatula, and everyone will know what you mean, but a bunch of people will think you are calling it the wrong thing.

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Answer 5

In this part of Canada (southern Ontario), pass me the flipper will get you a turner, pass me the spatula will get you a turner or a scraper, and pass the scraper will get you a rubber spatula. No consensus. Spatula seems to mean anything you want but in my kitchen a turner is called a flipper and a scraper is called a spatula. Don't know why - ask my mom.

Answer 6

In Australia, a spatula is this image below:

While a "flipper" or "turner" (in school I was taught to call it an egg flip, but can be used for other things) is the below picture:

Hope this helps from an Australian point of view.