The owl and the pussycat 'dined upon mince/and slices of quince/which they ate with a runcible spoon

The owl and the pussycat 'dined upon mince/and slices of quince/which they ate with a runcible spoon'. What is a runcible spoon?

• MANY of Edward Lear's poems have nonsensical references to his daily life. The 'runcible' spoon was Lear's way of teasing his friend, George Runcy. Runcy had very modern views (for his day) on bringing up children and believed, among other things, that they should be encouraged to feed themselves as early as possible. To this end George Runcy designed a spoon that had the hollow part for food curved towards the handle at 90 , thereby enabling the child to insert the spoon into its mouth end-on, without having to bend its wrist. This made eating with the spoon much easier and Runcy used the spoon to teach all of his children to eat. This type of spoon can still be bought in department stores, but George Runcy, to my knowledge, was never credited with its invention.

  Merlin Shepherd, Penarth, S Glamorgan.