I’m thinking about cooking. In the English system, we use cups. Teaspoons and tablespoons too, but they’re fractional subquantities of cups. I noticed stuck on our refrigerator today a magnet with a table of English to Metric volume conversions.
Ex:
1 C = 8 oz = 16 Tbsp = 48 tsp = 236 ml
[… snippage …]
1/2 C = 4 oz = 8 Tbsp = 24 tsp = 118 ml
[… more snippage …]
1/16 C = .5 oz = 1 Tbsp = 3 tsp = 15 ml
So, I’m wondering what size measuring cups and spoons do folks in Metric lands use? I’m sure there’s some rounding involved for similar volumes. I can easily accept 120 or 125 ml being close enough to 1/2 cup to not make much difference in the end product. I guess it might be easier if there weren’t non-metric or English quantities like “1 egg”.
I’m certain that most recipes are sufficiently robust that you can change the volume of anything by +/-10% and not have a problem. Otherwise “1 egg” would have to be more tightly specified.
Please don’t call it the English System. Imperial if you must. Here in England, even when we don’t use metric, we do not measure volume in cups, we do not treat teaspoons and tablespoons as well defined amounts, and out pints (and thus quarts and gallons) are a fifth larger than yours.
If you won’t use metric, like sensible countries, why not use your own system instead of a bastardized version of our obsolete one:
Mountain Measurements
1 smigeon = teensy l’il bit
3 smigeons = pinch
4 pinches = little bit
4 little bits = a middlin’ amount
3 middlin’ amounts = 1 right smart amount
5 right smarts = a whole heap
I think the Ikea measuring cup set I got when I moved out from my parents came with 1, 5(aka tsp), 15(aka tbsp), 50, 100 and 125 mL cups.
But growing up we only had 1, 5, 15 and 100 mL cups.
Note that US measurements are yet another set to consider. For example, 1 US quart is less than a litre (or “liter” if you like) which is less than an Imperial (“English”) quart as used in the rest of the English-speaking world. Then. of course there are recipes that specify ingredients by weight.
[QUOTE=Smapti’s article]
Most American households do not possess a kitchen scale. Because of this, kitchen scales are generally priced only for the upscale or gourmet market, and can cost significantly more than an accurate measuring cup (e.g. 50 cents for a cup vs. $30 or more for the cheapest scale at large chain houseware stores). Americans therefore tend to see British recipes as inaccessible and “only for snooty gourmets.”
[/QUOTE]
:eek: is that still true?
I bought “American cups” to help me with recipes I find online. They cost me an arm and a leg! I think it was about €10. My electric, flat kitchen scales cost me a fiver.
They work beautifully, but using the cups still terrifies me. It’s all very well to say that that 10% won’t make a difference to the recipe, but cooking is no time to stress out about whether I have packed the flour to tightly into the cup! Measuring things that compress in volume just makes no sense.
I think that’s true. My has a kitchen scale, and she said she uses it “quite a bit”. But “quite a bit” is only maybe three times per week, and she cooks a lot.
The main things she mentioned were pasta, because it’s hard to measure the different shapes by volume, cakes, because those are more exacting, and hamburgers, because she wants them all the same size.
Note that if you have a scale it’s absurdly easy to convert any cup to a measuring cup. All you need is the knowledge that 1 liter of water = 1 kg, from which it follows that an “American cup” = 237 g.
Well… it’s not quite absurdly easy because it’s different for every single thing. 237 grams of artificial sweetener is more than 3 whole jars (ie 3kg of sugar). You’d have to calculate it for every ingredient. Granted, 'snot rocket surgery, but if that’s what the recipe uses it’s easier to use cups.
Not here. Cups aren’t a thing, therefore they are expensive. (Obviously a random “cup”, of any random volume, is cheap. But a set of cups that indicate the volumes as used in US cooking is like a novelty item.) My scales are great, and like I said, cost a fiver.
It’s not that it’s out of reach: Most any American who decided that a kitchen scale was worthwhile could easily fit one into their kitchen budget. But it’s still a lot more than what most folks are willing to spend for something which is, for Americans, a very niche-use appliance. It’s a positive feedback: Few American recipes use weights (except for things that come in standard-weight packages), so few Americans have kitchen scales, and few Americans have kitchen scales, so few American recipes specify weights.
Quite some time ago, I started a thread about Japan’s imperial system (meaning the fact that it has a monarch, albeit a completely powerless one). That ruffled a few feathers because of my using the term imperial. Anyway, why shouldn’t the common system of measurements in the US be called English? It’s certainly not the French Imperial system, the Dutch Imperial system, etc. It’s the system we got from England.
If you want to convert any old cup to an occasional-use measuring cup, weigh out 237 grams of water and mark its level on the cup. Mark the level of 118 grams as a half cup.
As I pointed out, we in England do not use it all that much any more, and anyway, you Americans changed it. The system used for volume and weight used in America was never used in England (the pints are different sizes, we don’t use cups, and we measure weights in stones). We don’t want to be blamed for your crappy and idiosyncratic system.
The name Imperial System (for each of the two related but somewhat differing systems) is well established in both Britain and the USA.
This isn’t quite true. England had a number of different gallons; two of them were the wine gallon (also known as the Queen Anne gallon) and the ale gallon. The U.S. system adopted the wine gallon as its standard while in the U.K. the ale gallon (I believe) was adopted as the standard. (Probably to make sure when they ordered a pint they got more <– Joke).
As has been said, the issue isn’t the cost, it’s the usefulness. My wife cooks a lot, using lots of recipes from many different cookbooks. I can’t remember a single one that required her to weigh ingredients. Everything is always measured by volume, or comes premeasured at the grocery store.