As a European living in the US now for many years the temperature scale is the least of my annoyances. It’s easy enough to memorize be ranges for what to wear. Fahrenheit is more granular, which is nice sometimes but really doesn’t matter.
No, let’s convert all the ridiculous weight/volume measures first. Having two kinds of ounces makes no sense. Measuring solids by volume (mostly) doesn’t make sense. Having different units for different magnitudes doesn’t make sense.
Fortunately things are often labeled in both metric and customary units so I can convert way easier.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to have my 12 fluid ounces of coffee and a 1/3 cup of oatmeal.
I’ve had to translate recipes from Norwegian to American and this struggle is real. Never thought I’d need to look up material density tables for cooking.
I accidentally a word. Converting recipes from Norwegian and metric to American and US customary units.
I’m aware. I have a scale, too. But most people didn’t weigh dry ingredients. So when I translate for someone else I have to use the “normal” measures they’re used to. For myself, I speak the language and just use metric, my scale, and a measuring cup with both markings.
Having the more granular temperature seems more practical. I often find myself adjusting my thermostat by just a single degree F. Do heating/ac thermostats in Europe use half degrees as increments? Even then I don’t think it’s as granular. But just integer values would be super annoying.
Because it’s mass produced consumer goods operating on a “below x temperature turn on heat/turn off AC” and “above y temperature turn off heat/turn on AC”. Old ones are just bimetallic strips where you change the trigger position with a slider, and modern ones use commodity grade temperature sensors, and neither is guaranteed to be placed particularly far from the vent.
The sensor is typically on the thermostat. Not at the vents. You would typically place the sensor in a central location in the house. A high quality multi speed motor AC is designed to keep a decently consistent temperature which is a bit more complex than just turn on / turn off. If you’re dropping $15k to $30k on central AC, they aren’t going to cheap out on a poor quality temp sensor.
It’s just not that fine tuned of an instrument. The furnace also runs on intervals so it’s just going to naturally fluctuate a bit. Like with anything “it depends”, but I doubt it’s possible to keep the room within a tenth of a centigrade just with a consumer level thermostat. Maybe in a small room with resistive heating? I’d love to see actual measurements of this.
Measuring solids by volume (mostly) doesn’t make sense.
This could be apocryphal, but I seem to recall hearing that a lot of American recipes got established during times of westward expansion, and that it made more sense for people moving out to the frontier to carry a measuring cup and a set of spoons that it did for them to carry a carefully-calibrated scale.
Yeah that makes sense. And in a pinch (no pun intended), measuring your solids by volume or even just eyeballing it is good enough for a lot of cooking (baking is a different matter).
But let’s not forget that Europe was not always metric, either. They went through the same process. They had the same units (or similar units) as US has now, with a lot of the same quirks. That was the entire point of the metric system: have one consistent set of units. United States was onboard early for metrication, but backed out before it completed it, so here we are.
It’s funny because all of the imperial units are mathematically based on metric anyway.
I’m an American, so I started with imperial units, but I am making the very slow progression of converting to metric. I already use metric for work, and it’s already the scientific standard here and has been since the 70s. It’s just turbo annoying to try and get used to a new measuring system that I use reflexively especially when surrounded by imperial units. Makes it too easy to trip up and fall back.
I think they mean ounces, cups, quarts, gallons, with no intuitive sense of conversion between them. I personally use ounces for almost everything (cocktail recipes are in 0.25 ounce increments, big cups are 40 ounces, big ol buckets can be 256 ounces). I might mess with gallons for very large amounts, but anything that can be expressed in cups or pints I’m usually just talking ounces anyway.
Your assumption is correct. I meant using cups, ounces, etc separately or in combination. Especially annoying when trying to figure out portions. Serving size: 8oz, package size: 1lb 4 oz. You have to do math every time.
As a European living in the US now for many years the temperature scale is the least of my annoyances. It’s easy enough to memorize be ranges for what to wear. Fahrenheit is more granular, which is nice sometimes but really doesn’t matter.
No, let’s convert all the ridiculous weight/volume measures first. Having two kinds of ounces makes no sense. Measuring solids by volume (mostly) doesn’t make sense. Having different units for different magnitudes doesn’t make sense.
Fortunately things are often labeled in both metric and customary units so I can convert way easier.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to have my 12 fluid ounces of coffee and a 1/3 cup of oatmeal.
I very much prefer to cook/bake/prep in metric grams.
2c white flour, sifted.
1c brown sugar, packed.
1c room temperature water.
2tsp active dry yeast.
2tbsp vegetable oil.
1/2tsp baking powder.
2 egg yolks.
5 egg whites.
Pinch of cinnamon.
Fuck you. Tell me how many grams that is. I don’t need five different tools to measure out my ingredients. I need a wet bowl, a dry bowl, and a scale.
Also this isn’t a real recipe I just started naming shit at random.
I’ve had to translate recipes from Norwegian to American and this struggle is real. Never thought I’d need to look up material density tables for cooking.
“To American” … what?
We have kitchen scales, we know how to weigh ingredients.
Old recipes in English often use volume measurements, across the pond too.
Modern recipes use weights when possible.
Idk why you’d convert to
ye olde style.I accidentally a word. Converting recipes from Norwegian and metric to American and US customary units.
I’m aware. I have a scale, too. But most people didn’t weigh dry ingredients. So when I translate for someone else I have to use the “normal” measures they’re used to. For myself, I speak the language and just use metric, my scale, and a measuring cup with both markings.
You made cake btw.
You gotta do the cooking by the book.
Having the more granular temperature seems more practical. I often find myself adjusting my thermostat by just a single degree F. Do heating/ac thermostats in Europe use half degrees as increments? Even then I don’t think it’s as granular. But just integer values would be super annoying.
I have not seen any thermostats in Europe with decimal degrees. But I also don’t think a thermostat is necessarily accurate to that level anyway.
lol you don’t think it’s accurate to a degree Fahrenheit? Why wouldn’t it be?
Because it’s mass produced consumer goods operating on a “below x temperature turn on heat/turn off AC” and “above y temperature turn off heat/turn on AC”. Old ones are just bimetallic strips where you change the trigger position with a slider, and modern ones use commodity grade temperature sensors, and neither is guaranteed to be placed particularly far from the vent.
The sensor is typically on the thermostat. Not at the vents. You would typically place the sensor in a central location in the house. A high quality multi speed motor AC is designed to keep a decently consistent temperature which is a bit more complex than just turn on / turn off. If you’re dropping $15k to $30k on central AC, they aren’t going to cheap out on a poor quality temp sensor.
It’s just not that fine tuned of an instrument. The furnace also runs on intervals so it’s just going to naturally fluctuate a bit. Like with anything “it depends”, but I doubt it’s possible to keep the room within a tenth of a centigrade just with a consumer level thermostat. Maybe in a small room with resistive heating? I’d love to see actual measurements of this.
Half a C is actually quite close to a whole F in delta. I don’t have a thermostat though.
The ones in the UK go by half a degree.
This could be apocryphal, but I seem to recall hearing that a lot of American recipes got established during times of westward expansion, and that it made more sense for people moving out to the frontier to carry a measuring cup and a set of spoons that it did for them to carry a carefully-calibrated scale.
Yeah that makes sense. And in a pinch (no pun intended), measuring your solids by volume or even just eyeballing it is good enough for a lot of cooking (baking is a different matter).
But let’s not forget that Europe was not always metric, either. They went through the same process. They had the same units (or similar units) as US has now, with a lot of the same quirks. That was the entire point of the metric system: have one consistent set of units. United States was onboard early for metrication, but backed out before it completed it, so here we are.
It’s funny because all of the imperial units are mathematically based on metric anyway.
I’m an American, so I started with imperial units, but I am making the very slow progression of converting to metric. I already use metric for work, and it’s already the scientific standard here and has been since the 70s. It’s just turbo annoying to try and get used to a new measuring system that I use reflexively especially when surrounded by imperial units. Makes it too easy to trip up and fall back.
I’m not sure I get what you mean? Are you saying how we use ounces for tiny weights, pounds for “human”-ish weights, and tons for huge weights?
I think they mean ounces, cups, quarts, gallons, with no intuitive sense of conversion between them. I personally use ounces for almost everything (cocktail recipes are in 0.25 ounce increments, big cups are 40 ounces, big ol buckets can be 256 ounces). I might mess with gallons for very large amounts, but anything that can be expressed in cups or pints I’m usually just talking ounces anyway.
Your assumption is correct. I meant using cups, ounces, etc separately or in combination. Especially annoying when trying to figure out portions. Serving size: 8oz, package size: 1lb 4 oz. You have to do math every time.