Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[MrsNorthie]

I'm lost when it comes to metric

I am learning to use both as to not confuse my English husband, but oddly enough, he is old enough to remember the days before they fully adopted the metric system but young enough that he has used it the majority of his adult life. We can order some of his favourite puddings from home, but they are very pricey. A Banoffee Pie is $60 USD, and a Victoria Sponge is $75 USD, and forget about Sticky Toffee pudding or Spotted Dick. So I have used a lot of Mary Berry's recipes to learn to make whatever he is craving.

 

[RoyalChick]

I learned to use a scale for measuring flour when baking bread. I discovered that various flours (bread versus all purpose) are different weights for the same volume. And the gluten free flour I use is MUCH denser than either of those.

I have several sets of measuring cups. I think one of the cup measures is marked 240 ml, and another is marked 250. Really? Really?? For some cooking, eh, so what. For baking, it can be huge. So I use the red set when I make bread.

Some cooking is like jazz, lots of whatever, and anything goes. Some baking is like Bach, play it cleanly and precisely, or ... it isn't Bach.

It took me many (many!) years of living here before I realized people had sets of measuring cups.
What a revelation!

 

[RoyalChick]

Tax: Piglet who has yet to encounter something she won’t eat.

 

[RoyalChick]

Cup is 8 fluid ounces.
Pint is 16 fluid ounces.
1 pound is 16 weight ounces.

Old rhyme is ....pints a pound the world around


I'm lost when it comes to metric

Hmmm. And I learned 'a pint of pure water weighs a pound and a quarter' which is absolutely not the same thing!

 

[RoyalChick]

Hmmm. And I learned 'a pint of pure water weighs a pound and a quarter' which is absolutely not the same thing!

And the oracle at Google tells me:

As per the U.S. measurement system, 1 liquid pint of water equals about a pound (16 ounces) in weight. The actual measure of a U.S. pint of water isn't exactly 1 pound. It is about 1.04318 pounds. On the other hand, the British imperial pint weighs 1.2528 pounds (i.e., 20.0448 ounces).

 

[Perris]

a traditional rhyme reveals the origins of these things in body parts and typical behaviours

An ounce is to dangle from your finger
A pound is to hold in your hand
A stone is to carry under your arm
A hundredweight over your shoulder
And a ton a horse pulls in a cart

 

[Molpet]

And the oracle at Google tells me:

As per the U.S. measurement system, 1 liquid pint of water equals about a pound (16 ounces) in weight. The actual measure of a U.S. pint of water isn't exactly 1 pound. It is about 1.04318 pounds. On the other hand, the British imperial pint weighs 1.2528 pounds (i.e., 20.0448 ounces).

US Yankees have to confuse everything

 

[TropicalChickies]

US Yankees have to confuse everything

It's taken me seven years to start adjusting to metric. The funny thing is here in Ecuador, they use a weird mix of both. Commercial packed food is by grams. But produce, meat, and bulk foods are by the pound. Timber and building materials are by the meter, but nails and rebar are in inches. Cooking recipes are usually in cups and tablespoons, but occasionally in grams. Distance is in meters and km, that's one constant. And then there's all the the colloquial measures like quintales and arrobas I mentioned.

I see the logic in the metric system -- and in degrees Celsius, but it's tough after 40 years of living with imperial and Fahrenheit.

The only two things that bring out a tinge of Yankee imperialism in me -- the metric system and that hyped up running around thing they call "futbol".

 

[Molpet]

I see the logic in the metric system -- and in degrees Celsius, but it's tough after 40 years of living with imperial and Fahrenheit.

The only two things that bring out a tinge of Yankee imperialism in me -- the metric system and that hyped up running around thing they call "futbol".

I agree, logical but It's difficult to change and being in my 60s I don't want to . Besides all my cook books are very old and don't use metric

 

[Perris]

Sounds like the people of Ecuador are adaptable and flexible - both great attributes in my view.

We switched to metric for most things decades ago now, but in a rather piecemeal fashion. We've hung on to pints (for beer) and miles (for longer distances) even among the young, while thinking of shorter lengths comes easier in feet/yards for the older and in metres for the younger. I think a lot of us just used the price as the proxy for a shamefully long time, instead of getting our heads around kilos for fruit and veg and litres for fuel. So I'd buy £25 worth of fuel, and couldn't tell you how much that was in either litres or gallons! It was an 'enough, that'll do' sort of measure.