Used a couple of US recipes recently and most of the ingredients are in cups, or spoons, not by weight. This is a nightmare to convert. Do Americans not own scales or something? What’s the reason for measuring everything by volume?

  • @ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    8
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    A measuring cup is a specific size, about 237mL. There’s a whole system of US measurements, actually:

    3 teaspoons in a tablespoon

    2 tablespoons in an ounce

    8 ounces in a cup

    2 cups in a pint

    2 pints in a quart

    4 quarts in a gallon

    Not all cups are measuring cups; if you are having a cup of coffee that doesn’t mean your cup is exactly 8oz. You just infer from context that if someone is talking about ingredients then you should measure them with a measuring cup. (Very commonly you also see cups with graduated markings, which are US Imperial on one side and metric on the other, that go up to 2 cups/500mL.)

    • @Sinthesis@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      2
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      fluid ounce, since most liquids used in food are nearly the same density.

      /edit to add to this, after a cup most things that are dry are not measure in pints, quarts or gallons. For example, you don’t hear anyone say “you’ll need 1 pint of flour”, they’ll just say 4 cups.