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comment by goobster
goobster  ·  1238 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: return of the bread

I had a cooking realization while watching the GBBS the other day...

Metric countries have way easier recipes.

I literally have a magnet on my fridge that translates between different measurements.

I have liquid and solid measuring devices, as well as a scale.

I have a set of measuring spoons.

I have a set of measuring cups.

I have no idea ahead of time if the bowl I am mixing my dry and wet ingredients into will be... too small... too big... or just right.

In metric countries, not one of these things is an issue... you have a bowl, and you have a scale. That's it.

My head exploded when I realized this earlier this week... and I have yet to find all the pieces of my skull.

(BTW - That bread looks heavenly...)





user-inactivated  ·  1238 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Don't know about the rest of Europe, but most of our recipes even for baking comes in volume measurements. My kitchen has a liter measure and a deciliter measure, as well as non-SI, Swedish cookbook standard tablespoon (15 ml), teaspoon (5 ml) and spice measure (1 ml).

kleinbl00  ·  1238 days ago  ·  link  ·  

For broad definitions of "metric." I've got a goodly collection of British recipes that call out temperatures as "gas mark 4" and if you've never read a cake recipe designed for the Aga do-si-do you're missing out.

Speaking as someone who has now dealt with European cars, European jewelry and European watchmaking, European adoption of the metric system is far more ambivalent than most Americans realize. Jewelry is still built in gauges which are bizarrely tied to American, English or French inches, and the entire Swiss watch industry adopted the ligne despite the fact that the Metric System was 100 years old before any of them got started.

I do my casting with investment recipes that are called out in pounds and cups for flasks that are measured in inches which go into a kiln whose burnout schedules are in fahrenheit to pour molten metal melted in celsius. The only thing that makes it work is a 4-tab Excel spreadsheet with lookup tables that prints out a worksheet.

The Metric System is obviously superior on every possible level yet for some reason Europe, which has had two hundred fucking years of supposed adoption, still throws a fuckin' pouce in there every now and then just to be French about it.

goobster  ·  1238 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I was taught to cook on an Aga by a lovely woman whose B&B I had the lovely opportunity to stay with multiple times, in southwest England, just off the Devonshire Moors...

(And that sentence right there is ... a lot....)

kleinbl00  ·  1238 days ago  ·  link  ·  

"Just off the Devonshire Moors" is the best place for an Aga.