# Are Our American Culinary Measuring Spoons Really Not Metric? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 24, 2023, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983 "2023-10-24T01:06:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/41 "2023-10-25T04:45:14Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > and soup spoons (though not the bowl type but instead the usual oval). The round bowl type soup spoon is for cream soups and the oval ones are for broth-y-er soups, according to my late mother who knew all that stuff. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/42 "2023-10-25T06:15:17Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > the many “metric” recipes I’ve seen (usually European websites) seem to prefer measuring ingredients by weight, not by volume, so “metric measuring spoons” would seem to be less important than a good (and accurate) kitchen scale. All my (modern) recipes are metric and teaspoons and tablespoons are frequent measurements in all my books. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/43 "2023-10-25T06:20:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’m not sure what the proper name for them is [Dessert spoon.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dessert_spoon) ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/44 "2023-10-25T08:13:41Z")
heh wait until you get a family heirloom cookbook from the 1800s It all dashes and pinches and puffs and "pour milk into mix then stir … if batter is still stiff keep pouring in milk until stirrable " ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/45 "2023-10-25T08:24:03Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > With a spoon, that is. Why a spoon Cousin? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/46 "2023-10-25T08:31:18Z")
Because it’s _dull_, you twit! _It’ll hurt more!_ ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/47 "2023-10-25T08:43:45Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > “Dinner Fork; Dinner Knife; Salad Fork; Teaspoon; Dinner Spoon.” We have always called them a fork, knife, salad fork, teaspoon, and tablespoon. It might be a regional thing but I have never heard anyone call it a dinner spoon. I’ve never heard it called a dessert spoon either. I have heard it called a soup spoon though. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > No, those are serving spoons. 😉 Agreed. 🙂 > [@nightshadea](#): > > heh wait until you get a family heirloom cookbook from the 1800s My Grandmother grew up in rural Greece (her dowry was 2 cows and a chicken, IIRC, which should give you some idea of the type of place she was from), and she was a phenomenal cook. It was impossible to get a recipe out of her because she never measured anything and she didn’t really use recipes. She just had these amazing instincts about how much of different things would taste good. You could sorta get a recipe if you stood next to her and watched her, but if you asked how much of some ingredient she was putting in, she’d usually answer “enough”, as if you were just supposed to know how much “enough” was for a particular ingredient in a particular meal. Mrs. Geek did manage to get a few recipes just by standing next to her and writing down everything she did (with a bit of guesswork on exact amounts), but there were some things that we couldn’t get to taste right even after following exactly what we thought she had done. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/48 "2023-10-25T08:44:30Z")
Well, _this_ set of spoons is definitely not metric. I measure my height in feet and inches, and my weight in pounds. No idea what those equate to in meters and kilos. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2023, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/49 "2023-10-25T16:31:22Z")
Yes, I’ve never heard of a serving spoon called a tablespoon; my experience is that a place setting includes a salad fork, regular fork, knife, “spoon” and teaspoon or “desert spoon”. If pushed to be more precise, the “big spoon” or “table spoon”. A “soup spoon” had a deeper, rounder bowl; a real “tea spoon” was smaller than the place setting one. (And usually had some annoying decorative crest at the handle end to indicate where it was a souvenir from). Service spoons were way too big to hold a level tablespoon of whatever. A butter knife looked like a regular place setting knife except the blade was the same width all the way, and a rounded ent to the blade. Steak knife tended to have some sort of fake handle (fake ivory, fake wood, or that fake black old-style telephone bakelite) and a serated blade with pointy end (so it doesn’t hurt as much as a dull spoon). I’ll agree most recipes are not chemistry lessons, the mix of ingredients does not need to be exact. It would be seriously weird if the recipe called for a tablespoon of olive oil and 1.2 or 0.8 of a tablespoon would ruin the litre or so of cooked result. Especially for items that simply affect the taste, YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/50 "2023-10-26T08:10:34Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > heh wait until you get a family heirloom cookbook from the 1800s I class my _Mrs Beeton’s_ as “modern”. My recipe books I _don’t_ consider modern say things like > Take Venyson or Bef, & leche & gredyl it vp broun; then take Vynegre & a litel verious, & a lytil Wyne, and putte pouder perpir ther-on y-now, and pouder Gyngere; and atte the dressoure straw on pouder Canelle y-now, that the stekys be al y-helid ther-wyth, and but a litel; Sawce & then serue it forth. and assumes you just _know_ how _much_ Canelle is y-now \*. ETA - like a Greek grandma. \* Which means how much cinnamon is enough, BTW. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/51 "2023-10-26T08:19:46Z")
you know i know /remeber enough olde English that I understood about 70-80 percent of that > [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > You could sorta get a recipe if you stood next to her and watched her, but if you asked how much of some ingredient she was putting in, she’d usually answer “enough”, as if you were just supposed to know how much “enough” was for a particular ingredient in a particular meal MY grandma could tell the difference tho …she’d make something from the book and say “Had too much of this or needed more that” Once in a while she’d close her eyes and say “Perfect” and I’d be like "how can you tell ? " ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/52 "2023-10-26T08:31:10Z")
Most of it is pretty understandable. Stuff like _Bef_, _gredyl_, _vynegre_, _pouder perpir_, even _stekys_, all are just spelling variations of words we know - Beef, griddle, vinegar, powdered pepper, steaks. It’s words like _leche_, _verious_ and _y-helid_ that might need explaining (_slice_, _[verjuice](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verjuice)_ and _covered_, respectively) ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/53 "2023-10-26T09:26:07Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > I’ll agree most recipes are not chemistry lessons, the mix of ingredients does not need to be exact. Yeah, with an asterisk on that “most,” because there are some exceptions. In general, when I’m cooking, I rarely measure anything at all, from teaspoons up to pints or larger. I have a “feel” and ballpark is generally fine. Some of this, a bit of that, taste, a little more, adjust, bob’s your uncle. However, there are a few things where the ratio needs to be closer than eyeball range and it’s hard to fix as you go. When I’m making polenta, for example, if the four-to-one liquid-to-meal is off by more than a little, the texture will be wrong and it can’t really be satisfactorily corrected. So that, I measure. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/54 "2023-10-26T10:45:07Z")
I cook a lot of molecular gastronomy-type things. That _is_ like a chemistry lesson, down to the pipettes and the milligram scales. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/55 "2023-10-26T10:55:40Z")
My first introduction to cooking was baking, and I was cautioned over and over that precision was important, so my instincts are to rely on measuring tools. When I use a recipe, it’s very hard for me to just eyeball quantities. There are two soups I make pretty often for the family. One is a hearty lentil soup from _Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone_, and though I’ve made it dozens of times, I can’t stop myself from measuring out 1/3 cup of chopped carrots or whatever, because _that’s what the recipe says_, and it comes out amazing. The other is chicken soup with rice, and for that one I don’t measure anything at all, I just chop and saute and simmer and taste, and it comes out amazing. Surely I could do the same with the lentil soup, too, if I trusted myself; but goddammit, there’s a _recipe_. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/56 "2023-10-26T11:19:17Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#): > > Are sets of culinary measuring spoons marked with United States customary units (half teaspoon, teaspoon, tablespoon) identical to metric spoon sets, sold in the rest of the world, except for labeling (2.5 ml, 5 ml, 15 ml)? No, they can’t be because we are not talking about the same amounts that just have different names. We are talking about different names and different amounts. For example, a meter is not 36 inches long, so it isn’t just another name for what we call a yard even though they are very close in length. We think of kilometers and miles, but a mile is significantly longer than a kilometer. So therein lies the reason we haven’t changed. People look at it and think, “I don’t want to have to learn how to convert all of these metric measurements into the system I was born and raised with, so I’m not going to.” They refuse to look at it as, “I’m going to learn this new system and the measurements it entails.” ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/57 "2023-10-26T12:20:12Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I can’t stop myself from measuring out 1/3 cup of chopped carrots or whatever, because _that’s what the recipe says_ That’s interesting. I often measure my spices, but i don’t think I’ve ever used volume or weight measurements for vegetables that come in whole units. I add 2 small carrots. (Hmm, these carrots are very large, maybe 1 is enough.) Or a medium onion, or 5 potatoes. Etc. If i don’t have large eggs (the size most recipes expect) i have juggled to get about the same volume of medium or jumbo eggs. But i mostly buy large eggs so i don’t have to. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/58 "2023-10-26T12:44:53Z")
My gf has a bunch of recipes written down by her grandmother. It’s fun to “follow” the recipes because they assume you know what you’re doing in the kitchen. For instance, “make a roux”, “add appropriate vegetables”, “season as you would a stew”. Many spices are described as “a bit” or “to taste”. There are also notes instructing things like, “omit this if Charles is coming for dinner”. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/59 "2023-10-26T14:21:48Z")
My measuring spoon set has a 1/4 spoon - I’m sure I must have used it for something in the past - maybe salt in a sweet recipe or something. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2023, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983/60 "2023-10-26T15:10:38Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > If i don’t have large eggs (the size most recipes expect) i have juggled to get about the same volume of medium or jumbo eggs. But i mostly buy large eggs so i don’t have to. Do we need metric chickens to lay metric eggs? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-our-american-culinary-measuring-spoons-really-not-metric/991983.md?page=4)