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March 29, 2024, 02:16:48 AM

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Why don't Americans have proper units?

Started by touchingcloth, September 06, 2021, 11:26:40 AM

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Gurke and Hare

People bitching about cups is bullshit. "Oh, I found this amazing looking recipe on the internet, but it's got measurements in cups, I can't possibly make it now, it's not as if the internet also has piss easy ways of converting cups to a measurement I'm familiar with." The usual reflex cheap anti-American bullshit, the complete faux mystification that cultures on separate continents might diverge over 500 years.

bgmnts

Simplest solution is to get those little cups/spoons that have the measurements in cups/tbsp/tsp and also ml on them.

So if a recipe calls for a cup of rice and 400ml of water it's no issue.

I was born in '75, and have absolutely no familiarity with pounds as a unit of weight. When people say their baby weighed 7lb 4oz, I have to try and divide that by 2.2 (and fuck the ounces, how many are there in a pound again anyway?) to get any sense of what it means.

The only Imperial measurements I relate to are miles, and feet and inches for a person's height I guess. But if I have to try and estimate a length, it's always back to cm, using my mental image of a 30cm ruler or a metre stick as a guide.

touchingcloth

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on September 07, 2021, 11:58:25 PM
People bitching about cups is bullshit. "Oh, I found this amazing looking recipe on the internet, but it's got measurements in cups, I can't possibly make it now, it's not as if the internet also has piss easy ways of converting cups to a measurement I'm familiar with." The usual reflex cheap anti-American bullshit, the complete faux mystification that cultures on separate continents might diverge over 500 years.

When it comes to baking - bread more so than cakes - cups are too imprecise a measurement. It's not that they're hard to use and convert when following a recipe, more that they make you think the person who wrote the recipe didn't know what they were talking about.

Being a bread wanker is equally as objectionable as being a cup Yank, so it's all a bit pyjamas/pyjamas.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on September 07, 2021, 09:46:36 PM
Yeah, much better to have shitty British ones where you basically can't use any two adjacent burners because the pans will bang into each other.

The worst thing about American stoves is that a large proportion of them still seem to be using electric-coils or plates. Slow as shit.

Quote from: bgmnts on September 08, 2021, 12:00:24 AM
Simplest solution is to get those little cups/spoons that have the measurements in cups/tbsp/tsp and also ml on them.

So if a recipe calls for a cup of rice and 400ml of water it's no issue.

Fine for things you need to scoop but still bloody stupid to say "1 cup of chopped onion" rather than "one onion chopped" or something, it's onion, it doesn't have to be that precise, just forces people to work backwards.

Buelligan

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on September 07, 2021, 11:58:25 PM
People bitching about cups is bullshit. "Oh, I found this amazing looking recipe on the internet, but it's got measurements in cups, I can't possibly make it now, it's not as if the internet also has piss easy ways of converting cups to a measurement I'm familiar with." The usual reflex cheap anti-American bullshit, the complete faux mystification that cultures on separate continents might diverge over 500 years.

Like touchingcloth says - it's got nothing to do with any reflex apart from a reflexive desire for accuracy.  Is that too much to ask, even from our dress-down-Fridays gum-chewing cousins?

El Unicornio, mang

Yeah but a cup is 250ml. When they say "a cup" they don't mean "any cup of any size". It means exactly 250ml (or 8fl oz).

See also: tablespoon which is 18ml

Zetetic

None of my cups are that size, and I'd get rid of any that were.

El Unicornio, mang

You're supposed to use one of these, rather than a mug you got given for your birthday


Buelligan

Heaped or flat? HEAPED OR FLAT!???  Shaken, stirred, compressed, with or without air gaps and bubbles?  As any fule kno, the bigger the fish, the harder it is to check the size of its arse (ass).  A gramme or a kilogramme is precise, not a question of judgement.

Quote from: The Capitalist's CookbookTake two cups of plutonium...

You can see why they always fuck up.

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: touchingcloth on September 08, 2021, 10:12:22 AM
When it comes to baking - bread more so than cakes - cups are too imprecise a measurement.

And yet, sketchy reports suggest that there is bread in America, and some of it is nice.

touchingcloth

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on September 08, 2021, 11:19:11 AM
Yeah but a cup is 250ml. When they say "a cup" they don't mean "any cup of any size". It means exactly 250ml (or 8fl oz).

See also: tablespoon which is 18ml

When making things like bread, for every cup of flour you might need to add in 62% of the flour's weight in water, and 2.5% in salt. Even if you were measuring the flour in cups you'd quickly end up switching to scales for the other ingredients, so it's easiest to go with weights rather than volumes from the off.

It's equally bonkers when someone does the opposite thing, by the way, and tries to bring precision to recipes which really don't need it. "Add the spaghetti to 1.17kg of boiling water" can get in the cauldron.

Buelligan

I think we may be in danger of straying from our brief here - we need to ask ourselves what is the point of writing down a recipe?

El Unicornio, mang

I'll tell you what I love, scrolling through four pages of "I fell in love with Tuscany and fell in love with Panzanella on my first trip there in...etc" to get to the actual ingredients/directions.

Cuellar

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on September 08, 2021, 01:17:34 PM
I'll tell you what I love, scrolling through four pages of "I fell in love with Tuscany and fell in love with Panzanella on my first trip there in...etc" to get to the actual ingredients/directions.

This is a meme but I've honestly never encountered it in the wild

touchingcloth

Quote from: Cuellar on September 08, 2021, 01:18:18 PM
This is a meme but I've honestly never encountered it in the wild

Every recipe site which is run by a single person as opposed to a large(r) business tends to have a load of preamble. I've found peace with it because I think it's less a case of gobshites going on about their tedious lives than it's people having a stab at SEO.

touchingcloth

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on September 08, 2021, 12:28:36 PM
And yet, sketchy reports suggest that there is bread in America, and some of it is nice.

Yeah, they have great bread, but the people baking it aren't working in volumes.

I've got no issue[nb]Well, maybe a handful. A cup. Forty ounces at most.[/nb] at all with American cuisine, but if you see a bread recipe that's been given in cups then it's an odds on certainty that it's been written by an American. British writers do a similar thing, but it tends to be using weights when cups would be more appropriate.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on September 08, 2021, 11:25:59 AM
You're supposed to use one of these, rather than a mug you got given for your birthday



Ain't got time for that.



The 1/4 cup (62ml) makes a slightly generous, or slightly frugal double gin.

The half cup perfectly fills my double chamber bong.

Buelligan


Mr Banlon

Quote from: Cuellar on September 08, 2021, 01:18:18 PM
This is a meme but I've honestly never encountered it in the wild
I've encountered it in the wild. In the hills above an enchanting fishing village on the Peloponnese coast, where the locals produce the most delightful olive oil. The whitewashed cottages seem to tumble down the hillside to the village square, where time has stood still.

Dex Sawash

Quote from: touchingcloth on September 08, 2021, 12:32:36 PM
and tries to bring precision to recipes which really don't need it. "Add the spaghetti to 1.17kg of boiling water" can get in the cauldron.

Print news stories will do something like

QuoteMr Americunt claimed to have walked "about 40 miles" (64.374 kilometers)


Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: touchingcloth on September 08, 2021, 12:32:36 PM
It's equally bonkers when someone does the opposite thing, by the way, and tries to bring precision to recipes which really don't need it. "Add the spaghetti to 1.17kg of boiling water" can get in the cauldron.

One of the ones that does my head in is when someone trys to accurately calculate the cost of a recipe by breaking it down, especially when it starts including things like 50g flour, 1.6p.

Unless you can find someone who can sell you things in such small quantities that's not much use, most of the time flour's 'just there' and free until you run out, which could be a problem on a rough week if you're skint.

touchingcloth

Quote from: Dex Sawash on September 08, 2021, 04:45:12 PM
Print news stories will do something like

There's a bit in a Dave Gorman show when he shows a news article about a man who had walked the 2,660 mile Pacific Crest trail and took a selfie every mile of the trek, where the paper had used the headline:

Quote
Man walks 4,281km Pacific Crest Trail, takes a selfie every mile

I think he had another example along the lines of

Quote
Scientists discover hottest star is 210,000 Kelvin (210,273 Celsius)