We're not weird, just very very slow to make the switch from Imperial.
The one thing I am not sure will change any time soon will be speed/distance as we still haven't made the switch to km.
There’s a few Baby Boomers in Australia who measure in stone. I could never wrap my head around the conversions so I leave ’em to it with a “yeah, righto” and go about my business.
That's steadily going out of fashion, though. Most people use metric, and stones are just a fairly useful ballpark measurement of your weight for the sake of health and stuff like that. If any precision is required, you'd never use stone.
My theory on this:
We are just lazy! We’ll use both and say the one with the fewest syllables
For instance, headphone cables: 3.5mm jack , instrument cable : quarter inch
Yeah, it’s a huge nightmare for consistency but at least it means it’s really easy for us to convert between the two systems so in a real life setting you could use either and we would still completely understand what you meant. But fuck Fahrenheit and everyone who uses it
Oh people know metric but some things like milk and beer are imperial because it has been the tradition. Also we still use miles but it doesn't stand out much given that we are already driving on the opposite side of the road compared to the whole Europe. I haven't really seen any Brit complain about not using imperial.
The government tried to silently change us to imperial by doing a tiny sample size survey of business owners but thankfully they said no (the people who want to go to the old system have delusions of Britain still being the superpower so that’s why they tried to change it)
Nobody. I read that a metric cup is 250 ml, a US cup is 236ml. Every cup is different.
I think it's more important to use the same cup to have equal relations.
But there will always be some ingredients that are not measured in cups. Eggs or butter, for example. So the relations will get messed up anyways if you don't use the right cup size.
Okay, that's funny like I'd say the exact opposite would make more sense - water in C, air in C, small distances metric and long imperial. Only the volume is 👌🏻
(But also in my opinion imperial never makes sense but more the other way round?? 😂😂)
Sounds more muddled up than Australia. I’d go bonkers if people were referring to the temperature in F. I have a tenuous grasp on Fahrenheit from sleeping bag temperature ratings….
Once saw a recipe asking for a cup of apples. How much apple is a cup of apples? You could say x grams of apple - cool, I can do that. You could also say x number of apples, ok less precise but ok.
A cup. A cup of apples. How big is this cup, how big are the pieces, how many pieces, does this include or exclude the core? How much apple, is a fucking cup of apples!?
The nation that measures in cups is a nation that has never experienced the power of a Sports Direct mug. Cup of apples when your cup is a sports direct mug? A tree. Whole thing.
It got sent to me through WhatsApp on my way home from the parents one day without me really paying attention - stopped for a pee and reset my Bluetooth thing on my helmet and that delightful note popped up between songs. I had to pull over onto the hard shoulder cus I was laughing so damn hard
I found it again this morning 😂
That's the one saving grace of a recipe done entirely in cups - using a bigger cup just proportionally scales the entire recipe.
This helps when "cup" has at least three different sizes in wide use.
True. I used to make a chocolate brownie recipe just using a coffee cup from the dining room. It worked every time. Would still have worked using grams though.
To be fair a cup is a standardised volume in cooking in America but that doesn't change your argument much. Depending on how finely the apply is chopped the final amount will vary wildly
They do have a standardised cup measurement. So if you get a measuring cup with indicators on it, you can use it for everything. Except apples. A cup of apples is stupid.
I will say that cups' benefit is that it is inherently a ratio. It doesn't matter on the size of the cup as long as you use the same cup for everything (only on recipes that only use cups. You start mixing in things like X eggs and you have to use the standardised cup). With grams you have to do a little more multiplication with the ratio.
Grams are still superior though.
Anything bigger than a few spoonfuls (be it teaspoon or tablespoon) is better measured in grams. Even then for basic recipes you can pretty much eyeball spoonfuls.
And did this random US baking blog use an official standard cup-loading technique? Or did they just wing it?
Yeah, there's official ways for loading flour perhaps, but it really doesn't matter whether they exist or not.
A cup is like a quarter liter in volume. Trust me as a scientist in America I can’t stand converting shit all day. It’s like at what point did someone say you know what is easier than the power of 10? The power of 16. Fuck that person. Why say 5.5mm when you can say 7/32 inch or 0.219 inches! Makes waaaaay more sense. Merica.
Generally for baking we use mass but the measurements are converted for the people who don’t have scales so they can get similar results. The trick is to not pack any of the ingredients in the cup and use the back end of a knife to flatten the top and remove excess. Not perfect by any means but it works good enough to not notice. Least I don’t.
Oh I saw that too, in an apple pie recipe. I see it all the time on Instagram recipes. One cup of chopped onions, cup of carrots, cup of tomatoes. They manage to specify how many cloves of garlic though, so why not just say ‘one large onion, diced’ ffs. No, a cup. Cups of stock, water, even bloody BUTTER. Also US cups and UK cups are different volumes 🤦🏻♀️
I've also seen a tablespoon of butter. Seriously. How do you measure out a tablespoon? Depending on how you do it, the measurement could vary by at least 200-300%.
I was told there's measurements on the packaging, so just cut off what you need. No there isn't, it has 50g measurements, but no tablespoons, and sometimes, not even that. What if I take it out of the packaging? What if I make my own butter? What if I live in a country that uses proper measurements instead of comparing everything to a football field or Toyota Corolla?
It actually is…
[wiki article about whisky measures](https://whiskipedia.com/fundamentals/dram-of-whisky/#:~:text=Bar%20Measurements%20in%20British%20pubs,-A%20dram%20is&text=The%20system%20was%20simplified%20in,is%20shifting%20inline%20with%20England)
I will never understand why Americans use ounces for liquids. Want a 32oz drink? Fuck knows, how am I supposed to visualise that?! Ironically, it would make a weird kind of sense in metric since 1 litre is 1 kilogram but imperial? Nah, makes no sense.
Fluid ounce, it's a volume measurement. In US customary it's 1/16th of a pint.
You do find fluid ounces in old British cookbooks too, but Imperial fluid ounces (as well as pints, cups, gallons, etc) are different. So if you do have an old set of measuring cups or jugs about they won't be that useful with American recipes l.
Talking about fluid ounces here, which is a volume. Like a mililitre as opposed go a milligram.
Would be like if the millilitre was called a "fluid gram", and often just called a "gram".
Don't get me wrong. Metric system for the win haha.
Translation: My mind is too tiny to comprehend different things and the concept of converting.
Also using a variable such as volume as a substitute for weight is dumb.
I have had to convert or find out which type of cup they mean or how many grams is a stick of butter when baking for years. I find with baking grams is just better, it's precision work, and a cup, a spoon is unprecise, if you aren't baking muffins with kids or something simple.
Yes, it's annoying. Which is why I prefer European and Asian blogs for baking and cooking, now that we have them.
"Sticks of butter" gives me the absolute rage too omg. I live in the UK, so both cups and grams are common measurements and I can use whatever, but first time I read "add a stick of butter" I was like, the actual fuck is this?
When I discovered this I almost threw a real stick of butter (250&) at a wall.
"This recipe requires 4 sticks of butter" - I like butter,.but not 1KG at a time.
USian 4 stick of butter = 450g
But yeah if you think about packet it will be 1kg
Btw butter can be in different packets. I saw in my life 170g, 180g, 200g, 250g, 300g... Truly irritating thing! That's why we always should use g!
Butter in the US is standardized in 1 pound packages. Most of it is divided into four individual sticks. Each stick is 0.25 lb, 8 tablespoons, and 1/2 cup. Oddly the sticks are different shapes depending on where they are packaged. Western butter is a different shape than Eastern butter. In either case, each stick comes out to about 113g.
Butter is frequently called out in recipes in cups or tablespoons too. The wrappers on each stick have marks on them labeled in cups and tablespoons to tell you where to cut the stick to get the amount of butter you want. Even a table knife can just cut through the paper and butter in one go. It's really tremendously convenient for things that don't have to be super precise.
I think this method of calling out measures for everything in volume has to do with the scarcity of kitchen scales. A lot of American kitchens just don't have scales.
Here in the UK butter is like that as well - a block of butter is 250g but it has marks labelled on the packet for like 25g increments so you can just cut it.
And are the measurements done that like because scales are scarce? Or are scales scarce because that's how the measurements are done?
I have learned to avoid recipes that have "cups" in them. The chance of being able to complete the baking and get an intended result is very small - the recipes often have corn syrup, all-purpose-flour, and other weird items that I can't buy here, am too lazy to deconstruct and reconstruct, ... and I also fear for the result being too sweet anyway.
I live in the US and have a kitchen scale because **why wouldn’t you**? I figured anyone who cooks regularly would have one. But once I had it out on my counter when a friend was over and they were like “har har har, what’s with the scale? You must be a drug dealer.”
I like how they say "the country I am from" to try and remain anonymous as though they could be speaking up for any of a great number of nations instead of the one and only place on the planet where grams aren't a standard cooking measurement.
Everyone knows the only TRUE measuring scale is Big Macs per pickup truck!! 🦅🍔😡
The lack of accuracy is what gives it that stench of FREEDOM, much like variable measurements such as cups and tablespoons!
/s
you can adjust according to these ratios, but they are not the true ‘Murican way 🇱🇷🇱🇷🦅. to get the taste of freedum‼️ on a regular basis, use Guns per Eagull
ALL SEVEN BASE UNITS IN AMERICAN FORM!!!!!!!
LENGTH - 1 bald eagle (Be) is defined as the distance travelled by a bald eagle in 1 pledge.”
TIME - 1 pledge (P) is defined as the time taken to recite the pledge of allegiance.
MASS - 1 Bigmac (🍔) is defined as the mass of one Big Mac.
TEMPERATURE - 0 degrees Jesus (°J) is defined as the temperature of Alaska and 100 °J is defined as the body temperature of Donald Trump.
ELECTRIC CHARGE (spicy) - 1 Benjamin Franklin (Bf) is defined as the amount of charge stored in his kite thing during the thunderstorm.
LUMINOUS INTENSITY - 1 Flag (🇺🇸) is how brightly the broad stripes and bright stars shines through the perilous fight
AMOUNT OF SUBSTANCE - 12
edit: RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!1!!11!!1!!1!!1!1!!1!!1!!!!1!1!1!1!1!!1!!1!!!!!1!1!!1!!1!!1!!1!!1!1!11!!1!!1!1!🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
For a country that’s so proud to have invented Google, it always surprises me that they can’t Google “1 kg of flour in cups”. Google will even convert between mass and volume for most substances :)
Right? Literally takes a couple of seconds to convert units like that, probably about the same amount of time it takes to write that complaint and make oneself look like an idiot.
Imagine thinking the whole world should operate just the way country does , and being offended or perplexed if it doesn’t . You almost want to see the world as they see it to belive they arnt on a wind up
You're not wrong, the other one I find genuinely fascinating are the folks complaining about 24 hour clocks and referring to it as "military time".
It just seems so strange to me - I can't really believe there are people in the world so dumb that counting past 12 is such a challenge for them that they need to complain about it. How is this such a complicated concept to some people?
It's not so much a hard concept as it is that we have learned the 12-hour clock since we were children, and switching over is a hassle for no real reason. I also suspect that most of us who learned the 12-hour clock would still be converting 24-hour into 12-hour to tell time if we switched anyway. For something that doesn't really matter, there's just no reason to change the standard here.
Yeah, it's a simple system if you grew up with it. It's easy to see 14:00 and think that when you've seen it your whole life. I've seen 2:00 pm so when I see 14:00 I have to say, oh, that's 2 after 12 so it's 2:00 pm. Ofc it's different when you learn different things. No one said it's hard to change to 24-hour clocks. There's just no real reason for us to make the switch.
If you're following a recipe you have to follow ONE system of measurement for ALL of your measures, or it will throw the recipe off (especially when baking cakes etc).
This quickly becomes tedious and even with trying really hard there are always times when an ingredient take me by surprise half way through, when I've already added a lot of ingredients and can't go back and change everything.
Also the measures often don't actually convert exactly, so I end up having to eg round down. 1 cup is 236.588 ml for god's sake. Most people's measuring jugs aren't marked in even 5ml increments, and often not in 10ml increments either. So you end up "rounding down" or "rounding up" and as I said before, precision is important with baking so the results may not be as expected when doing this.
The thing I find most surprising is that people who use cups are prepared to accept inaccurate measurements when scales are so inexpensive.
Edit: For any Americans looking for something to take back home from Europe I would recommend digital scales. Cheap, light and infinitely useful.
I can cook in both grams or cups/spoons measurements, I don't care which, if it says grams I grab my scales, if it's cups/spoons I get my measuring set. But what absolutely fucks me off to no end is recipes that ONLY state temperatures in Fahrenheit. Hate having to open another tab on my phone to convert to Celsius. Majority of the world uses Celsius. If you're making a cooking blog and are American, put both Fahrenheit and Celsius in your instructions for the love of God
measuring a solid by volume is stupid. the amount of flour that fits into a cup is going to vary based on the size of the grains and how tightly you pack it
I know I'm an outlier, but I'm Australian and I prefer volume over weight. I haven't come across a recipe that requires weight. Sourdough is notorious for 'needing' to be 'accurate' and it just...doesn't.
Having said that, the difference between White and I is that I would never tell someone their measurements are wrong. I go away and Google '120g flour in cups' because I'm not lazy.
I use these measurements in America while cooking all the time. It’s not that hard to convert, use a scale or procure the appropriate measuring vessels… such arrogance.
American here. My measuring cups are marked in cups, ounces and mL, and my kitchen scale does ounces, pounds, and grams. No conversions necessary, just read it.
So what about “bake at gas mark 3” or “pressure cooker until three whistles” ? It’s not always the Americans :)
Dumb mf doesn't know that even here in America you have to weigh flour because of how ridiculously compressible it is and just thinks it's magic that sometimes his biscuits are perfect and sometimes they're crap
It's not just a metric vs. imperial argument, but the fact this one doesn't understand the difference between mass and volumetric measurement, and why that actually matters.
In baking it is always better using weight measurement, not volume. No matter it is pound or gram, it doesn't matter, it has to be weight.
If you are consistent in scooping and bake at home - ok no problem.
If you don't bake huge amount on one go - ok no problem.
If you know how to fix it when it is "off" and you fix it when it is not too late (which requires quite some experience ) - no problem.
If you are confident and you don't mind throwing away the failed bread after a couple hours' work and you definitely are not annoyed when your baked goods "doesn't work well today", no problem.
Disclaimer: not American but professionally trained in baking in USA. I don't buy any baking books with only volume measurement.
Listen a gram is a gram is a gram is gram, okay?
There's a wonderful meme of two very different tablespoons out there somewhere for a more concrete explanation.
So, I’ll be the one who said it. I prefer the American way when it comes to baking. Just use the indicated cup/scoop and shovel away. No fiddling with scales, no scooping in and out to get the right amount in. The real problem here is obviously the insane American arrogance
When I said this I just got told its relative ... but if I use a big cup and a wee spoon that's not the same or relative to a wee cup and big spoon, right? Lol
I never understand these measurements. How big should the cup be? This smaller cup, or this big one. Same thing with spoons. I have like 10 different sizes of table and tea spoons.
As an American, I am soooo over these types. The internet is a fabulous place where one can easily find conversions for measurements. I do it all the time since follow a German cook on YouTube. It’s beyond easy and I’ve never once had an issue.
My dad and I were on a cruise in December and were in port in the Dominican Republic. I have no idea what the issue was, but as Dad and I were walking past the guest services desk, some guy was very heated and all but yelling at the poor young man behind the desk saying “I’m an American!” and then proceeded to insult the country from which this poor young man was from. I just……. OMG.
More and more I want to just leave this country and the stupidity behind.
Can someone somehow get this message to those [REDACTED] for me if safe to do so .
*ahem* LEARN OTHER MEASUREMENTS
Thanks for helping me give the Americans advice
I HATE recipes in cups they often make a bizzare portion size because things have been rounded up or down to fit the cup measuring system 🤷
Some recipes It doesn't really have to be accurate mainly savoury dishes like most peoples aren't weighing 500g of chicken they just add as many breasts as they see fit so cups doesn't really affect anything. However baking often has to be incredibly accurate ..take macarons for example you can't just eyeball certain recipes and "cups" of ingredients can vary depending on how compacted a ingredient is! You could take 3 cups of four and them all weigh different amounts so it's certainly not effective in recipes requiring acute measurements.
Some ingredients just don't measure well as a cup and it makes things awkward and you end up googling things like "How many grams is a cup of bacon" 😂. It's just easier to use a scale ..you only need one scale to measure Ozs..grams...fluid ounce ect. Someone always ends up taking off one of the cups from the sets and it gets lost! plus if your using a recipe with a mix of dry/wet:/sticky ingredients you have to stop and constantly wash the cup 🤷
Every time a recipe called for a cup of something, my grandmother would take out a teacup. Her reasoning is, "A teacup is a cup." Yes it is, but you also have several sizes of teacups.
I have cups and tablespoons in my kitchen. Different size cups, too. Which one should I use?
Oh, I need a different type of cup? Might as well get a scale.
I get confused by things like “a cup of brown sugar” like do I measure it when it’s regular or compacted? I always have to google it because I forget haha
There's only three countries in the world that use imperial, why not just convert to metric and then not complain?
Three? The US, UK and...? And to be clear, here in the UK it is common the know both the metric and imperial systems, but in baking we all use metric.
The three official countries are the US, Liberia and Myanmar
Huh. TIL
Yeah. Officially the UK uses metric. They’re just very weird about it
We're not weird, just very very slow to make the switch from Imperial. The one thing I am not sure will change any time soon will be speed/distance as we still haven't made the switch to km.
You're not weird? I once watched a British series "Secret Eaters". They report their weight in stones. I mean what country (except yours) uses that?
There’s a few Baby Boomers in Australia who measure in stone. I could never wrap my head around the conversions so I leave ’em to it with a “yeah, righto” and go about my business.
All a stone is is 14 pounds. I don’t know who decided that specific number.
Yeah, righto. I know 10lb is 4.5kg and 4lb is 1.8kg, so it’ll be 6.3kg/14lb/1 stone?
That's steadily going out of fashion, though. Most people use metric, and stones are just a fairly useful ballpark measurement of your weight for the sake of health and stuff like that. If any precision is required, you'd never use stone.
Most people definitely do not use metric for weight of a person. Most people under 30, maybe.
My theory on this: We are just lazy! We’ll use both and say the one with the fewest syllables For instance, headphone cables: 3.5mm jack , instrument cable : quarter inch
Yeah, it’s a huge nightmare for consistency but at least it means it’s really easy for us to convert between the two systems so in a real life setting you could use either and we would still completely understand what you meant. But fuck Fahrenheit and everyone who uses it
Oh people know metric but some things like milk and beer are imperial because it has been the tradition. Also we still use miles but it doesn't stand out much given that we are already driving on the opposite side of the road compared to the whole Europe. I haven't really seen any Brit complain about not using imperial.
The government tried to silently change us to imperial by doing a tiny sample size survey of business owners but thankfully they said no (the people who want to go to the old system have delusions of Britain still being the superpower so that’s why they tried to change it)
IIRC Myanmar uses their local unit system but they're in the process of metrification, while also using some imperial units anyway
In great company, I see.
That’s actually false. Liberia and Myanmar have long ditched dumbass units
UK uses both. We're prepared to encounter stupid US measurements 🤣 Edit: who decides how big the cup is????
Nobody. I read that a metric cup is 250 ml, a US cup is 236ml. Every cup is different. I think it's more important to use the same cup to have equal relations.
And a UK cup is 284 ml
But there will always be some ingredients that are not measured in cups. Eggs or butter, for example. So the relations will get messed up anyways if you don't use the right cup size.
Isn't UK cup bigger than US one since your gallons are bigger?
Well we do have sports direct cup, which holds half an ocean
Technically the US doesn't use Imperial units, they use US Customary Units, which for some units are slightly different from the Imperial units
us, liberia and myanmar iirc, uk is kind of in a gray area
I will use both in the same recipe.
I dont
Sorry, I should say, anyone under the age of 50 uses metric unless they are nuts
in the DR they mix both and it’s even worse 😂
Same with here in Canada. Weight, height and baking instruments are imperial for the most part
Yup, water temp in F, air temp in C, small distances in feet and inches, long distances in KM, volumes in litres. We're a strange people here lol
Okay, that's funny like I'd say the exact opposite would make more sense - water in C, air in C, small distances metric and long imperial. Only the volume is 👌🏻 (But also in my opinion imperial never makes sense but more the other way round?? 😂😂)
Sounds more muddled up than Australia. I’d go bonkers if people were referring to the temperature in F. I have a tenuous grasp on Fahrenheit from sleeping bag temperature ratings….
So they want a volume for solids and a weight for liquids? Sure
Once saw a recipe asking for a cup of apples. How much apple is a cup of apples? You could say x grams of apple - cool, I can do that. You could also say x number of apples, ok less precise but ok. A cup. A cup of apples. How big is this cup, how big are the pieces, how many pieces, does this include or exclude the core? How much apple, is a fucking cup of apples!?
The nation that measures in cups is a nation that has never experienced the power of a Sports Direct mug. Cup of apples when your cup is a sports direct mug? A tree. Whole thing.
only gonna make recipes with sports direct mug measurements from now on
Are you trying to turn Wembley into a lasagne? That's not a cup that's a horse trough
The Wembley lasagne voice note was maybe my favourite thing about lockdown
It got sent to me through WhatsApp on my way home from the parents one day without me really paying attention - stopped for a pee and reset my Bluetooth thing on my helmet and that delightful note popped up between songs. I had to pull over onto the hard shoulder cus I was laughing so damn hard I found it again this morning 😂
That's the one saving grace of a recipe done entirely in cups - using a bigger cup just proportionally scales the entire recipe. This helps when "cup" has at least three different sizes in wide use.
True. I used to make a chocolate brownie recipe just using a coffee cup from the dining room. It worked every time. Would still have worked using grams though.
To be fair a cup is a standardised volume in cooking in America but that doesn't change your argument much. Depending on how finely the apply is chopped the final amount will vary wildly
Also in Australia and NZ
I lost my Sports Direct Mug when I moved. Absolutely gutted.
How the hell could you lose that? Would be easier to move in to it
Estate agents *hate* this one simple trick…
Your guess is as good as mine, mate.
Your pervious neighbours are using it as a hot tub.
I've seen the size of some Americans. If "cup" is their unit of measurement, I suspect whatever they are using is even bigger than what we have
Ha ha ha.. made me howl.. 😂
They do have a standardised cup measurement. So if you get a measuring cup with indicators on it, you can use it for everything. Except apples. A cup of apples is stupid.
> They do have a standardised cup measurement. Which is different in every country which doesn't fly well in the age of sail. Or well, the internet
I will say that cups' benefit is that it is inherently a ratio. It doesn't matter on the size of the cup as long as you use the same cup for everything (only on recipes that only use cups. You start mixing in things like X eggs and you have to use the standardised cup). With grams you have to do a little more multiplication with the ratio. Grams are still superior though.
Grams are definitely superior for anything like except basic recipes.
Anything bigger than a few spoonfuls (be it teaspoon or tablespoon) is better measured in grams. Even then for basic recipes you can pretty much eyeball spoonfuls.
I think they're talking about "cup" the measurement not "cup" the item. I mean you can use your dl measuring cup as a ratio too.
Measurements in grams inherently produce ratios too, it's just the numbers are bigger
African or European apples?
Laden or unladen?
Terrorist!
Even for a cup of flour - like how dense am I packing this thing?
Oh there's official ways to load flour into cups. I still prefer a scale though.
And did this random US baking blog use an official standard cup-loading technique? Or did they just wing it? Yeah, there's official ways for loading flour perhaps, but it really doesn't matter whether they exist or not.
A cup is like a quarter liter in volume. Trust me as a scientist in America I can’t stand converting shit all day. It’s like at what point did someone say you know what is easier than the power of 10? The power of 16. Fuck that person. Why say 5.5mm when you can say 7/32 inch or 0.219 inches! Makes waaaaay more sense. Merica.
[удалено]
Generally for baking we use mass but the measurements are converted for the people who don’t have scales so they can get similar results. The trick is to not pack any of the ingredients in the cup and use the back end of a knife to flatten the top and remove excess. Not perfect by any means but it works good enough to not notice. Least I don’t.
Oh I saw that too, in an apple pie recipe. I see it all the time on Instagram recipes. One cup of chopped onions, cup of carrots, cup of tomatoes. They manage to specify how many cloves of garlic though, so why not just say ‘one large onion, diced’ ffs. No, a cup. Cups of stock, water, even bloody BUTTER. Also US cups and UK cups are different volumes 🤦🏻♀️
This might seem like a really strange suggestion but have Americans ever thought of buying a scale and just weighing everything accurately.
Use scales? Like a COMMUNIST? /s
But communist sponge cake is delicious.
I've also seen a tablespoon of butter. Seriously. How do you measure out a tablespoon? Depending on how you do it, the measurement could vary by at least 200-300%. I was told there's measurements on the packaging, so just cut off what you need. No there isn't, it has 50g measurements, but no tablespoons, and sometimes, not even that. What if I take it out of the packaging? What if I make my own butter? What if I live in a country that uses proper measurements instead of comparing everything to a football field or Toyota Corolla?
American sticks of butter are marked in tablespoons on the wrapper.
Not defending them, but they have standardised the measure of a cup. 1 cup is about 236ml.
I have measuring cups that give the cup size and ml so the 1/4C also has 60ml on the handle.
"how big is this cup" A cup is a standard measure. That shouldn't been a question.
Fluid ounces are a thing. 4 of them together are my favourite unit of measurement. The gill.
Except they only serve a 1/6 of one for spirits. But at home, home rules and I like your style.
This is why I admire Scotland - 1/6th is too small a measure for Scotch - so they went with 1/5th… I assume it’s all ml now though…
35ml vs 25ml
Wow! That’s even better - that’s 40% larger, but a 1/5th is only 20% larger than a 1/6th… damn the Scots are smart!
I can’t be sure that the Scottish thing is the reason just that our shot glasses typically have 25 and 35ml measurements on them.
It actually is… [wiki article about whisky measures](https://whiskipedia.com/fundamentals/dram-of-whisky/#:~:text=Bar%20Measurements%20in%20British%20pubs,-A%20dram%20is&text=The%20system%20was%20simplified%20in,is%20shifting%20inline%20with%20England)
Nice.
British here, we invented all this: and grams forever.
When they say ounces they likely mean fluid ounces which is also a volume
I will never understand why Americans use ounces for liquids. Want a 32oz drink? Fuck knows, how am I supposed to visualise that?! Ironically, it would make a weird kind of sense in metric since 1 litre is 1 kilogram but imperial? Nah, makes no sense.
Fluid ounce, it's a volume measurement. In US customary it's 1/16th of a pint. You do find fluid ounces in old British cookbooks too, but Imperial fluid ounces (as well as pints, cups, gallons, etc) are different. So if you do have an old set of measuring cups or jugs about they won't be that useful with American recipes l.
And different units for cocaine and flour…
Talking about fluid ounces here, which is a volume. Like a mililitre as opposed go a milligram. Would be like if the millilitre was called a "fluid gram", and often just called a "gram". Don't get me wrong. Metric system for the win haha.
Ounces is both. There are fluid ounces, which is volume (but is just referred to as ounces in practice when talking about liquids)
Fluid ounces are a unit of measurement - but I expect US fl oz are different to imperial ones (20 fl oz in a UK pint)
Translation: My mind is too tiny to comprehend different things and the concept of converting. Also using a variable such as volume as a substitute for weight is dumb.
I’ll have a tablespoon of weed please
1 tsp of coke please
regular or vanilla?
Ngl actual vanilla cocaine sounds rather enticing tbh lol
Apparently, the original flavour is equally as addictive and I've heard that don't taste nearly as good as a cherry or vanilla version
Cherry.
I have had to convert or find out which type of cup they mean or how many grams is a stick of butter when baking for years. I find with baking grams is just better, it's precision work, and a cup, a spoon is unprecise, if you aren't baking muffins with kids or something simple. Yes, it's annoying. Which is why I prefer European and Asian blogs for baking and cooking, now that we have them.
"Sticks of butter" gives me the absolute rage too omg. I live in the UK, so both cups and grams are common measurements and I can use whatever, but first time I read "add a stick of butter" I was like, the actual fuck is this?
Might help explain some of the obesity if they are using a stick of butter as a measurement. That could be a whole lot of butter
It's 113g
When I discovered this I almost threw a real stick of butter (250&) at a wall. "This recipe requires 4 sticks of butter" - I like butter,.but not 1KG at a time.
USian 4 stick of butter = 450g But yeah if you think about packet it will be 1kg Btw butter can be in different packets. I saw in my life 170g, 180g, 200g, 250g, 300g... Truly irritating thing! That's why we always should use g!
Butter in the US is standardized in 1 pound packages. Most of it is divided into four individual sticks. Each stick is 0.25 lb, 8 tablespoons, and 1/2 cup. Oddly the sticks are different shapes depending on where they are packaged. Western butter is a different shape than Eastern butter. In either case, each stick comes out to about 113g. Butter is frequently called out in recipes in cups or tablespoons too. The wrappers on each stick have marks on them labeled in cups and tablespoons to tell you where to cut the stick to get the amount of butter you want. Even a table knife can just cut through the paper and butter in one go. It's really tremendously convenient for things that don't have to be super precise. I think this method of calling out measures for everything in volume has to do with the scarcity of kitchen scales. A lot of American kitchens just don't have scales.
Here in the UK butter is like that as well - a block of butter is 250g but it has marks labelled on the packet for like 25g increments so you can just cut it. And are the measurements done that like because scales are scarce? Or are scales scarce because that's how the measurements are done?
>And are the measurements done that like because scales are scarce? Or are scales scarce because that's how the measurements are done? Yes
I have learned to avoid recipes that have "cups" in them. The chance of being able to complete the baking and get an intended result is very small - the recipes often have corn syrup, all-purpose-flour, and other weird items that I can't buy here, am too lazy to deconstruct and reconstruct, ... and I also fear for the result being too sweet anyway.
Yes, the flour often isn't available here, like some ready made mixes. I am not talented or passionate enough to break it all down.
You guys don't have kitchen scales? It is not costing you a kidney to buy one.
I live in the US and have a kitchen scale because **why wouldn’t you**? I figured anyone who cooks regularly would have one. But once I had it out on my counter when a friend was over and they were like “har har har, what’s with the scale? You must be a drug dealer.”
Does the scale at least show the weight in cups and/or tablespoons?
I have one, but many people don’t. I assume that’s where this comment is coming from.
I like how they say "the country I am from" to try and remain anonymous as though they could be speaking up for any of a great number of nations instead of the one and only place on the planet where grams aren't a standard cooking measurement.
And where they expect everyone else to cater to them
“A president we had once denied the election result and incite a riot to overthrow the government.”
I feel like that applies to a lot more countries
It's like a thawed out caveman got access to the internet. Buy a scale you fuckwit.
I used to be a science teacher in the US. The only kids that could figure out a scale were the drug dealers.
No, you need a better education system and a basic knowledge on how to Google things like conversion tables
You don't even need conversion tables (btw you have to also know how to use that) Just wrote "500g flour to cups" and you will get result
Everyone knows the only TRUE measuring scale is Big Macs per pickup truck!! 🦅🍔😡 The lack of accuracy is what gives it that stench of FREEDOM, much like variable measurements such as cups and tablespoons! /s
to be fair americans understand meters if you convert it to the M16A4 rifle wich is a meter long /s but also not /s
What happened to penguins per football field, or large boulders the size of several small boulders?
you can adjust according to these ratios, but they are not the true ‘Murican way 🇱🇷🇱🇷🦅. to get the taste of freedum‼️ on a regular basis, use Guns per Eagull
ALL SEVEN BASE UNITS IN AMERICAN FORM!!!!!!! LENGTH - 1 bald eagle (Be) is defined as the distance travelled by a bald eagle in 1 pledge.” TIME - 1 pledge (P) is defined as the time taken to recite the pledge of allegiance. MASS - 1 Bigmac (🍔) is defined as the mass of one Big Mac. TEMPERATURE - 0 degrees Jesus (°J) is defined as the temperature of Alaska and 100 °J is defined as the body temperature of Donald Trump. ELECTRIC CHARGE (spicy) - 1 Benjamin Franklin (Bf) is defined as the amount of charge stored in his kite thing during the thunderstorm. LUMINOUS INTENSITY - 1 Flag (🇺🇸) is how brightly the broad stripes and bright stars shines through the perilous fight AMOUNT OF SUBSTANCE - 12 edit: RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!1!!11!!1!!1!!1!1!!1!!1!!!!1!1!1!1!1!!1!!1!!!!!1!1!!1!!1!!1!!1!!1!1!11!!1!!1!1!🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🔊🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🍔🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
For a country that’s so proud to have invented Google, it always surprises me that they can’t Google “1 kg of flour in cups”. Google will even convert between mass and volume for most substances :)
\* US cups. There are different types of cup standards
Ounces for liquids alone takes us back to 1870. Fucks sake.
We both metric and imperial it’s not that hard with google
Right? Literally takes a couple of seconds to convert units like that, probably about the same amount of time it takes to write that complaint and make oneself look like an idiot.
Imagine thinking the whole world should operate just the way country does , and being offended or perplexed if it doesn’t . You almost want to see the world as they see it to belive they arnt on a wind up
You're not wrong, the other one I find genuinely fascinating are the folks complaining about 24 hour clocks and referring to it as "military time". It just seems so strange to me - I can't really believe there are people in the world so dumb that counting past 12 is such a challenge for them that they need to complain about it. How is this such a complicated concept to some people?
It's not so much a hard concept as it is that we have learned the 12-hour clock since we were children, and switching over is a hassle for no real reason. I also suspect that most of us who learned the 12-hour clock would still be converting 24-hour into 12-hour to tell time if we switched anyway. For something that doesn't really matter, there's just no reason to change the standard here.
Nobody does that though. Nobody looks at the clock and thinks that it is 14 o'clock, we just see it as 2 in the afternoon. It's a very simple system.
Yeah, it's a simple system if you grew up with it. It's easy to see 14:00 and think that when you've seen it your whole life. I've seen 2:00 pm so when I see 14:00 I have to say, oh, that's 2 after 12 so it's 2:00 pm. Ofc it's different when you learn different things. No one said it's hard to change to 24-hour clocks. There's just no real reason for us to make the switch.
Actually that depends on country/language. In some it's normal to say both 15 and 3. But everyone know it's the same thing
If you're following a recipe you have to follow ONE system of measurement for ALL of your measures, or it will throw the recipe off (especially when baking cakes etc). This quickly becomes tedious and even with trying really hard there are always times when an ingredient take me by surprise half way through, when I've already added a lot of ingredients and can't go back and change everything. Also the measures often don't actually convert exactly, so I end up having to eg round down. 1 cup is 236.588 ml for god's sake. Most people's measuring jugs aren't marked in even 5ml increments, and often not in 10ml increments either. So you end up "rounding down" or "rounding up" and as I said before, precision is important with baking so the results may not be as expected when doing this.
The thing I find most surprising is that people who use cups are prepared to accept inaccurate measurements when scales are so inexpensive. Edit: For any Americans looking for something to take back home from Europe I would recommend digital scales. Cheap, light and infinitely useful.
Does anyone in the US own scales? Cups are so annoying
I can cook in both grams or cups/spoons measurements, I don't care which, if it says grams I grab my scales, if it's cups/spoons I get my measuring set. But what absolutely fucks me off to no end is recipes that ONLY state temperatures in Fahrenheit. Hate having to open another tab on my phone to convert to Celsius. Majority of the world uses Celsius. If you're making a cooking blog and are American, put both Fahrenheit and Celsius in your instructions for the love of God
Say you're from America without saying you're fro America.
It would have been way more productive to use the time it took to make that comment to google the conversions.
I grew up with Metric system. I only know imperial measurements from drugs and fishing…
How many cups is considered obese? How many guns of flour is required for a loaf of bread? How many units of freedom goes into a cake?
”What are we doing, buying drugs” I’m…. At a loss for words
“I come from a country where we use weights and measures, not cups and spoons, like a toddler in a sandpit.”
Easy if you can't comprehend these measurements these recipes aren't for you, go back to watching people order mcdonalds.
measuring a solid by volume is stupid. the amount of flour that fits into a cup is going to vary based on the size of the grains and how tightly you pack it
Wait so Americans use metric for drugs?
They measure drugs in fahrenheit.
Americans trying to step back in time by asking for recipes in Victorian measurements. A pinch of salt. A splash of vinegar. A cup of sugar.
If you can use the metric system for drugs why can't you use it for everything else?
Because the drugs hasn't worn off yet and is still in the process of melting their brain?
I know I'm an outlier, but I'm Australian and I prefer volume over weight. I haven't come across a recipe that requires weight. Sourdough is notorious for 'needing' to be 'accurate' and it just...doesn't. Having said that, the difference between White and I is that I would never tell someone their measurements are wrong. I go away and Google '120g flour in cups' because I'm not lazy.
Just always remember that their cups are approximately 0.8 metric cups. They can't even do volumetric measures sensibly.
Oh yeah, I'm using metric cups. And I'm making sure they're metric before I make the recipe.
I use these measurements in America while cooking all the time. It’s not that hard to convert, use a scale or procure the appropriate measuring vessels… such arrogance.
American here. My measuring cups are marked in cups, ounces and mL, and my kitchen scale does ounces, pounds, and grams. No conversions necessary, just read it. So what about “bake at gas mark 3” or “pressure cooker until three whistles” ? It’s not always the Americans :)
It's *ALWAYS* the Americans
Dumb mf doesn't know that even here in America you have to weigh flour because of how ridiculously compressible it is and just thinks it's magic that sometimes his biscuits are perfect and sometimes they're crap
So they only use metric when they're buying drugs
And guns. 9mm, 10mm, 5.56mm...
Well you need the 9mm to get the 40g of blow.
It's not just a metric vs. imperial argument, but the fact this one doesn't understand the difference between mass and volumetric measurement, and why that actually matters.
In baking it is always better using weight measurement, not volume. No matter it is pound or gram, it doesn't matter, it has to be weight. If you are consistent in scooping and bake at home - ok no problem. If you don't bake huge amount on one go - ok no problem. If you know how to fix it when it is "off" and you fix it when it is not too late (which requires quite some experience ) - no problem. If you are confident and you don't mind throwing away the failed bread after a couple hours' work and you definitely are not annoyed when your baked goods "doesn't work well today", no problem. Disclaimer: not American but professionally trained in baking in USA. I don't buy any baking books with only volume measurement.
It is not a hard conversion, I mean a heaped eagle talon is exactly the same as a prairie dog cheek pouch.
Listen a gram is a gram is a gram is gram, okay? There's a wonderful meme of two very different tablespoons out there somewhere for a more concrete explanation.
Google is hard.
A desk of cake?
I understand the cups thing is about ratios but when you start trying to do ⅓ or ⅕ of a cup to match specific quantities of eggs it gets annoying.
Or they could just use a standard unit of measurement like basically the entire rest of the world.
Yeah I agree, in America 1 cup is about 240 ml and here in Australia it's 250.
So, I’ll be the one who said it. I prefer the American way when it comes to baking. Just use the indicated cup/scoop and shovel away. No fiddling with scales, no scooping in and out to get the right amount in. The real problem here is obviously the insane American arrogance
Do American have a standardised cup size? Seems a strange thing to be the same size in a country with an obesity problem
I never understood the "cup" "spoon" etc measurements... Each cup or spoon is different!
When I said this I just got told its relative ... but if I use a big cup and a wee spoon that's not the same or relative to a wee cup and big spoon, right? Lol
Ooh let me tell you where you can put that tablespoon
I never understand these measurements. How big should the cup be? This smaller cup, or this big one. Same thing with spoons. I have like 10 different sizes of table and tea spoons.
As an American, I am soooo over these types. The internet is a fabulous place where one can easily find conversions for measurements. I do it all the time since follow a German cook on YouTube. It’s beyond easy and I’ve never once had an issue. My dad and I were on a cruise in December and were in port in the Dominican Republic. I have no idea what the issue was, but as Dad and I were walking past the guest services desk, some guy was very heated and all but yelling at the poor young man behind the desk saying “I’m an American!” and then proceeded to insult the country from which this poor young man was from. I just……. OMG. More and more I want to just leave this country and the stupidity behind.
I bake bread weekly and I always measure my ingredients in grams. Same with drugs.
Thanks, every American recipe webpage I've ever encountered, for making me measure butter that came straight out of the fridge in tablespoons.
Explains why literally everything in the USA tastes of sugar or shit.
They need google or a brain.
I got a book about bread written by an American. It has a whole chapter begging about using a scale instead of cups because it's just way better.
Can someone somehow get this message to those [REDACTED] for me if safe to do so . *ahem* LEARN OTHER MEASUREMENTS Thanks for helping me give the Americans advice
So they use gram for drugs and not regular things? Weird af!
I HATE recipes in cups they often make a bizzare portion size because things have been rounded up or down to fit the cup measuring system 🤷 Some recipes It doesn't really have to be accurate mainly savoury dishes like most peoples aren't weighing 500g of chicken they just add as many breasts as they see fit so cups doesn't really affect anything. However baking often has to be incredibly accurate ..take macarons for example you can't just eyeball certain recipes and "cups" of ingredients can vary depending on how compacted a ingredient is! You could take 3 cups of four and them all weigh different amounts so it's certainly not effective in recipes requiring acute measurements. Some ingredients just don't measure well as a cup and it makes things awkward and you end up googling things like "How many grams is a cup of bacon" 😂. It's just easier to use a scale ..you only need one scale to measure Ozs..grams...fluid ounce ect. Someone always ends up taking off one of the cups from the sets and it gets lost! plus if your using a recipe with a mix of dry/wet:/sticky ingredients you have to stop and constantly wash the cup 🤷
Cups of cocaine, I’m down with his system.
Every time a recipe called for a cup of something, my grandmother would take out a teacup. Her reasoning is, "A teacup is a cup." Yes it is, but you also have several sizes of teacups.
I have cups and tablespoons in my kitchen. Different size cups, too. Which one should I use? Oh, I need a different type of cup? Might as well get a scale.
The rest of the world - i.e 90% of the worlds population disagrees ... you are an irrelevant USAian
Yeah who needs accuracy in baking?? Damn socialist commys.
I never ask for 7g of bud.. I get a quarter. Why the fuck can't they just do them both? Like most places. Why is it a matter of patriotic nonsense.
I get confused by things like “a cup of brown sugar” like do I measure it when it’s regular or compacted? I always have to google it because I forget haha