Why is the metric system associated with the '70s?

[michravera]

In Safari (and probably other browsers), entering something in the search bar compatible with Google Calculator (except currency) will calculate it, even without pressing enter. My favorites:

wh%7J = 2 joules. It looks like a random string of characters, but it actually means something. (In this context, % is modulo.)

mm^-2 to mpg = 2.35214583 miles per gallon. In fact, anything with units of length^-2 is treated as fuel economy.

The fun one is the difference between a cms (light milliseconds, a unit of distance) and cms (the incorrect plural of centimeters, another unit of distance) and cm-s (centimeter-seconds,  a unit of distance-time), and cm/s (a rather slow unit of velocity or speed).

[kkt]

Also you should be weighing dry ingredients anyway

And not follow any recipe I have? which all measure dry ingredients by the cup.

Yup. Weight is far more accurate and consistent (you don't get any lumpy cups). You can find the conversions anywhere online.

Here's an example:

Cups	Grams	Ounces
1/4 c	34 g	1.2 oz
1/3 c	45 g	1.6 oz
1/2 c	68 g	2.4 oz
1 c	136 g	4.8 oz

A kitchen scale you can pick up for $10 makes it easy, and you won't have to worry about being sure you have a flat cup again. 136 g is always 136 g.

It really, really depends what you're measuring.  Ingredients can have very different densities.

[kalvado]

In Safari (and probably other browsers), entering something in the search bar compatible with Google Calculator (except currency) will calculate it, even without pressing enter. My favorites:

wh%7J = 2 joules. It looks like a random string of characters, but it actually means something. (In this context, % is modulo.)

mm^-2 to mpg = 2.35214583 miles per gallon. In fact, anything with units of length^-2 is treated as fuel economy.

The fun one is the difference between a cms (light milliseconds, a unit of distance) and cms (the incorrect plural of centimeters, another unit of distance) and cm-s (centimeter-seconds,  a unit of distance-time), and cm/s (a rather slow unit of velocity or speed).

I like (and actually use!) the fact that 1 light nanosecond is 1 foot (2% off)

[GaryV]

By state regulation, kitchen knives are stored away in a locked cupboard

What? Really?  You can't just have them in a knife block on the counter, or in a regular drawer?

What do you do with a dirty knife before you do the dishes?

[kphoger]

What? Really?  You can't just have them in a knife block on the counter, or in a regular drawer?

My wife runs a licensed home daycare.  We have to have knives locked away.

[kalvado]

What? Really?  You can't just have them in a knife block on the counter, or in a regular drawer?

My wife runs a licensed home daycare.  We have to have knives locked away.

Maybe a specific issue with schools and similar facilities. I don't see anything for home kitchens

[TXtoNJ]

Cups	Grams	Ounces
1/4 c	34 g	1.2 oz
1/3 c	45 g	1.6 oz
1/2 c	68 g	2.4 oz
1 c	136 g	4.8 oz

The numbers you just gave imply a density of 0.58 g/cm³, which is very low for anything you would cook with (water is 1, and anything made from living things is near this value).

Bread flour

It really, really depends what you're measuring.  Ingredients can have very different densities.

It's a good thing you can look up the conversion on practically any phone nowadays. Not to mention more and more cookbooks include both weight and volume (some weight alone).

[kphoger]

It's a good thing you can look up the conversion on practically any phone nowadays.

but...

About a month ago or so, I finally got so sick of being addicted/married to my smartphone that I took the plunge.  I downgraded to the phone shown below.  I keep my old smartphone in my desk drawer at work, because I use it for a mobile VPN pass, which I can access via Wi-Fi to the company router.



I wanted a flip phone, but my periodic travels in Mexico require me to get a phone that can roam on GSM networks.  This was the only GSM-capable dumbphone sold by Verizon that isn't a piece of crap.  And actually, it's made really well.  It was built with construction workers in mind:  it's waterproof, dustproof, solid construction.  It's big and heavy enough that I bought a leather belt-clip holster for it.

The only downsides are that it's difficult to view pictures on the smaller screen, and that I'm back to texting in T9.

[TXtoNJ]

It's a good thing you can look up the conversion on practically any phone nowadays.

but...

About a month ago or so, I finally got so sick of being addicted/married to my smartphone that I took the plunge.  I downgraded to the phone shown below.  I keep my old smartphone in my desk drawer at work, because I use it for a mobile VPN pass, which I can access via Wi-Fi to the company router.



I wanted a flip phone, but my periodic travels in Mexico require me to get a phone that can roam on GSM networks.  This was the only GSM-capable dumbphone sold by Verizon that isn't a piece of crap.  And actually, it's made really well.  It was built with construction workers in mind:  it's waterproof, dustproof, solid construction.  It's big and heavy enough that I bought a leather belt-clip holster for it.

The only downsides are that it's difficult to view pictures on the smaller screen, and that I'm back to texting in T9.

If only there were some other electronic repository of information that you could be using at this very moment...

[kphoger]

– You should be measuring ingredients by weight.
– I don't have a kitchen scale.
– You should rearrange your kitchen to make room.
– My recipes don't measure things by weight.
– You should look up the conversions on your smartphone.
– I don't have a smartphone.
– You should move your computer into your kitchen.
– How about I just measure things by volume?

[hotdogPi]

Even if measuring things by volume, you can switch to metric: mL or cm³.

[kphoger]

– You should be measuring ingredients by weight.
– I don't have a kitchen scale.
– You should rearrange your kitchen to make room.
– My recipes don't measure things by weight.
– You should look up the conversions on your smartphone.
– I don't have a smartphone.
– You should move your computer into your kitchen.
– How about I just measure things by volume?
– You should at least measure in metric units.
– But none of my recipes are written for metric units.
– You should look up the conversions on your smartphone.
– * sigh *

[kalvado]

– You should be measuring ingredients by weight.
– I don't have a kitchen scale.
– You should rearrange your kitchen to make room.
– My recipes don't measure things by weight.
– You should look up the conversions on your smartphone.
– I don't have a smartphone.
– You should move your computer into your kitchen.
– How about I just measure things by volume?
– You should at least measure in metric units.
– But none of my recipes are written for metric units.
– You should look up the conversions on your smartphone.
– * sigh *

Nobody asks you to throw away your measurement cups and spoons once (rather, if) conversion occurs. And measuring cups from a 5 lb package is no different from measuring cups from 2 kg package.
As for going from volume to weight... If you're running a big operation, you are still buying everything (except maybe eggs) by weight - either lb or kg, so you need to track your consumption by weight anyway.
For home cooking, volume measurement is usually good enough, although you generally don't expect result as consistent as for commercial restaurant. Switching from one cup to the other would have little effect in home kitchen. A bit sweeter or dryer will not kill you.

You do need to go to weights, regardless of metric/imperial system, to achieve more consistent result. Again, a must for consistent commercial operation, not a big deal for home - but a good idea nontheless.   On the same token, timers and food thermometers are also a good idea even for home cooking and a must for a restaurant. 
You do need to go to moisture-content adjusted weights, especially for flour,  if you want to do higher class baking. But that is a whole different level of operation.

[kphoger]

Oh yeah, I forgot about this:

[kphoger]

Nobody asks you to throw away your measurement cups and spoons once (rather, if) conversion occurs. And measuring cups from a 5 lb package is no different from measuring cups from 2 kg package.

There's no bloody point in changing the label on an 8-ounce can of tomato paste to say 227 grams instead.  Yes, I know they say both as it is, but who the heck cares that it's 227 grams?  Do your recipes say to add 227 grams of tomato sauce to the pot?  If they do, then I guarantee you those recipes started their life in US customary units and simply got converted to metric for no good reason.  If, on the other hand, your recipes say to add 200 grams of tomato sauce, then have fun finding a 7-ounce can of tomato sauce at the corner store.

As for going from volume to weight... If you're running a big operation, you are still buying everything (except maybe eggs) by weight - either lb or kg, so you need to track your consumption by weight anyway.

OK, so it's a wash either way.  Also, I'm not running a big operation.  I'm running a household kitchen with hardly any counter space.

For home cooking, volume measurement is usually good enough, although you generally don't expect result as consistent as for commercial restaurant. Switching from one cup to the other would have little effect in home kitchen. A bit sweeter or dryer will not kill you.

But using the method that the cookbook was actually written for will result in a predictably better result than using a method it wasn't written for.  If the recipe says a quarter-cup of packed brown sugar and 2.5 cups of (not packed) bread flour, then I should get the same result by doing that.  The author probably didn't know or care how many grams that quarter-cup of brown sugar weighed, but he or she got consistently good results with a quarter-cup, so why should I mess with that?

You do need to go to weights, regardless of metric/imperial system, to achieve more consistent result. Again, a must for consistent commercial operation, not a big deal for home - but a good idea nontheless.

I flatly disagree, at least on a home kitchen scale.  If a recipe is written for volume measurement, and then I do a conversion based on a chart someone developed, then I am automatically introducing a margin of error that didn't exist beforehand.  As mentioned already, the author of the recipe got good results by volume, so that's the best course of action when following the recipe.

[kalvado]

Nobody asks you to throw away your measurement cups and spoons once (rather, if) conversion occurs. And measuring cups from a 5 lb package is no different from measuring cups from 2 kg package.

There's no bloody point in changing the label on an 8-ounce can of tomato paste to say 227 grams instead.  Yes, I know they say both as it is, but who the heck cares that it's 227 grams?  Do your recipes say to add 227 grams of tomato sauce to the pot?  If they do, then I guarantee you those recipes started their life in US customary units and simply got converted to metric for no good reason.  If, on the other hand, your recipes say to add 200 grams of tomato sauce, then have fun finding a 7-ounce can of tomato sauce at the corner store.

As for going from volume to weight... If you're running a big operation, you are still buying everything (except maybe eggs) by weight - either lb or kg, so you need to track your consumption by weight anyway.

OK, so it's a wash either way.  Also, I'm not running a big operation.  I'm running a household kitchen with hardly any counter space.

For home cooking, volume measurement is usually good enough, although you generally don't expect result as consistent as for commercial restaurant. Switching from one cup to the other would have little effect in home kitchen. A bit sweeter or dryer will not kill you.

But using the method that the cookbook was actually written for will result in a predictably better result than using a method it wasn't written for.  If the recipe says a quarter-cup of packed brown sugar and 2.5 cups of (not packed) bread flour, then I should get the same result by doing that.  The author probably didn't know or care how many grams that quarter-cup of brown sugar weighed, but he or she got consistently good results with a quarter-cup, so why should I mess with that?

You do need to go to weights, regardless of metric/imperial system, to achieve more consistent result. Again, a must for consistent commercial operation, not a big deal for home - but a good idea nontheless.

I flatly disagree, at least on a home kitchen scale.  If a recipe is written for volume measurement, and then I do a conversion based on a chart someone developed, then I am automatically introducing a margin of error that didn't exist beforehand.  As mentioned already, the author of the recipe got good results by volume, so that's the best course of action when following the recipe.

A recipe is often written as a compromise. 8 oz or 200 gramm of tomato paste will have some effect, but not a big one. Is it possible that they had to substitute 210 or 240 gram, which they found to be an optimum, to a commercial can to begin with? 
Process window for cooking is pretty broad in general. Moisture content in dough may be the most sensitive parameter, and that is usually accounted for with dough consistency check (doesn't stick, pretty soft, etc). That criteria alone should give you an idea of how much tolerance is in there... 

[kphoger]

A recipe is often written as a compromise. 8 oz or 200 gramm of tomato paste will have some effect, but not a big one. Is it possible that they had to substitute 210 or 240 gram, which they found to be an optimum, to a commercial can to begin with?

Possibly.  Which they then accounted for with the amount of water or stock or wine required for the same recipe.  Or by telling you to drain or not drain a can of beans.  Or by telling you to leave the lid on or off while it cooks.  Or who knows what else.  So, even if 210 or 240 grams is somehow "better", the rest of the recipe will be off, because it was written with that 8-ounce can in mind.

[Scott5114]

Oh yeah, I forgot about this:

I kind of disagree with some of the guy's points. Part of that is because I'm starting to get the picture (between this and other posts I've seen here) that my grocery store sucks less than most grocery stores tend to. Also, because I have to monkey around with portion sizes on recipes anyway, so these niceties he seems to value aren't something I ever get to have.

To begin with, he's wrong about the meat; at Crest, the butcher department grinds the beef themselves, packages and weighs it, and puts it out in the cooler for you to buy. That being said, they go for "about a pound" or "until the package is full", and usually this means I always get a package with more than a pound of beef in it. The most recent package of ground round I've bought (which I am about to fry up into burgers) is 1.18 pounds, for instance. This is not really a problem, since I usually only use half a pound of beef at a time. (I use half for either burgers or Hamburger Helper, and the other half for tacos. Tacos don't care if you have 0.18 lb extra beef in them.)

Now, if for some reason I needed exactly 500 g of beef for a recipe I was doing, I feel like going to the butcher counter and saying "Hey, I have a recipe that calls for 500 g of beef, can you help me with that?" would be a reasonable request. 1.1 pounds does come off as picky, but not if you mention why you need that exact amount. I would be very surprised if Crest's scales don't let them weigh in grams; it's not like nobody in Oklahoma has never looked up a non-American recipe on the Internet. (Of course, I do have a kitchen scale so I could weigh off the 500 g myself, but we're pretending I don't for the sake of this paragraph.)

Additionally, when I cook, I cook for two (me and my wife), and most recipes seem to serve 4. So I have to halve anything anyway (or make extra and throw it away, as I can't make myself eat leftovers), so I'm always dealing with fractional amounts of boxes and everything anyway. It's really no big deal–when I buy pasta, I put the leftover bit in a plastic canister, then the next time I buy a box I pour that box into the canister. Pasta is now a fluid measurement, not a fixed one. (Also anyone who measures pasta instead of throwing it in handful by handful until it looks like enough is a weirdo.)

The big problem is really eggs, of course, since you cannot meaningfully have half an egg. And if the ratios are off with eggs, really weird stuff can start to happen.

In any event, since I do have a kitchen scale, metric recipes aren't a problem really. I just switch my scale over to metric and use the mL side of my measuring cup and things work out fine.

[kphoger]

To begin with, he's wrong about the meat; at Crest, the butcher department grinds the beef themselves, packages and weighs it, and puts it out in the cooler for you to buy. That being said, they go for "about a pound" or "until the package is full", and usually this means I always get a package with more than a pound of beef in it. The most recent package of ground round I've bought (which I am about to fry up into burgers) is 1.18 pounds, for instance. This is not really a problem, since I usually only use half a pound of beef at a time. (I use half for either burgers or Hamburger Helper, and the other half for tacos. Tacos don't care if you have 0.18 lb extra beef in them.)

We buy our ground beef at Aldi, and it comes in packages of exactly one pound.  On the rare occasion we buy it at Dillon's, we buy it by the tube, which are either exactly three pounds or exactly five pounds or whatever.  It's only the foam-tray-with-cling-wrap-on-top packs of meat that end up having weird weights, and we rarely buy those.  Really, we only buy ground pork that way, which we don't use very often (and buy at yet a third grocery store).

Now, if for some reason I needed exactly 500 g of beef for a recipe I was doing, I feel like going to the butcher counter and saying "Hey, I have a recipe that calls for 500 g of beef, can you help me with that?" would be a reasonable request. 1.1 pounds does come off as picky, but not if you mention why you need that exact amount. I would be very surprised if Crest's scales don't let them weigh in grams; it's not like nobody in Oklahoma has never looked up a non-American recipe on the Internet.

Again, Aldi.  No counter, no butcher.

when I buy pasta, I put the leftover bit in a plastic canister, then the next time I buy a box I pour that box into the canister. Pasta is now a fluid measurement, not a fixed one.

Unless you're doing lasagna.  Or do you keep leftover lasagna noodles in a canister too?

(Also anyone who measures pasta instead of throwing it in handful by handful until it looks like enough is a weirdo.)

I generally agree with that statement, but chiefly because I almost always cook pasta and sauce separately.  For dishes in which they cook together or at least end up together in the same pan, I can see it being important that the pasta-to-sauce ratio be somewhat precise.

The big problem is really eggs, of course, since you cannot meaningfully have half an egg. And if the ratios are off with eggs, really weird stuff can start to happen.

Yes, the egg is a fixed object.  Even using medium instead of large, or vice versa can get interesting if you're baking (which is when precision is most needed).

[kkt]

If volume measurements of your ingredients haven't been a problem so far, why change? 

But if you decide to try a recipe from other countries, or a professional grade recipe from the U.S., a lot of them are by weight, and it can be handy to have a scale.  Or if some recipes don't come out right on warm days that may be the problem.

[kkt]

Adapting recipes from other countries is more of a series of puzzles.  In Cornwall, they make pasties, a meat and potato pie with all the ends closed.  I got the recipe there.  All the amounts are by grams, because it's a commercial shop with the recipe scaled down to make four pasties.  But that's not the hard part.  The hard parts are ingredients called by different names:

500g strong bread flour.  It is important to use stronger than normal as you need the extra strength in the gluten to produce strong pliable pastry.

Okay, we can get bread flour in a variety of different glutens and they usually have a percentage gluten.  But the Cornish recipe doesn't include the percentage gluten, just a vague "hard".  Does this mean more gluten than regular bread flour, or just more gluten than "all purpose" flour?

25g pastry margarine (cold from the fridge)

Never seen something called pastry margarine and I'm not sure how it would be different from regular margarine.

250g swede

I've never seen something called a "swede" in cooking.  Some kind of vegetable?

Gas mark 6

What?

[GaryV]

Britain has some classifications of flour and sugar (and probably other things) that we aren't used to in the US.  Just watch The Great British Baking Show sometime.

And "swede" is probably a rutabaga.

[kkt]

Britain has some classifications of flour and sugar (and probably other things) that we aren't used to in the US.  Just watch The Great British Baking Show sometime.

And "swede" is probably a rutabaga.

Thanks!  But my point was that the units and even weight vs. volume measurements are the least of your problems in converting recipes.

[CtrlAltDel]

Gas mark 6

What?

The conversion to F is pretty simple:

F = 250 + 25GM

So, gas mark 6 is 250 + 25 × 6 = 400.

[kphoger]

Good thing it isn't metric, then...