In shops in the UK the weight of items for sale has to be shown in (kilo)grammes.
In the Channel Isles, Jersey, Guernsey and others which are an English crown dependency the weights are often shown in pounds (lbs). I asked once why this was and was told 'that's because we are not in the European Union, we don't have to use grammes'. The Channel Isles are linked to the English Crown but are not part of the UK and make their own laws
The Channel Isles and the Isle of Man are Crown Dependencies and are not part of the UK. From memory, the Channel Isles are the sole remaining parts of the Duchy of Normandy.
The Channel Isles and the Isle of Man are Crown Dependencies and are not part of the UK. From memory, the Channel Isles are the sole remaining parts of the Duchy of Normandy.
Indeed, when in the Channel Islands HMQ is addressed as Duke of Normandy, especially in loyal toasts.
Imperial measures of length are still fairly common, especially in sport.
We're all still pretty familiar with inches, feet and yards, but then you have chain - 22 yards, the length of a cricket wicket furlong - 10 chains, still used in horse racing mile - 8 furlongs league - 3 miles
You've also got the ell - 45 inches, generally used to measure fabric link - 1/100th of a chain, a smidgeon under 8 inches rod (also called pole or perch) - 25 links
Of course, nautical measurements are another matter
Also the acre, which is defined as the area of a rectangle one furlong long and one chain wide.
Land in western Canada is surveyed into townships, each of which is made of 36 sections 1 mile square, for 640 acres. Three townships (typically) make up a "rural municipality". Each section is divided into quarter sections which are 160 acres. The quarters are divided into quarters as well, each of which is 40 acres. This is the origin of the term "the back 40" which means an obscure area where no-one knows what you're doing, like where you might bury bodies, or where weird uncle Frank lives and everyone stays away from. Does any other country use the term "the back 40"?
(Historically the Hudson's Bay Company got 1¾ sections of every township (sections 8 and 26), railways got almost half the land (odd numbered sections except for 2 of them) and schools got 2 sections. We continue to deal with railway problems because they have sovereign title to land, including having their own police: they're a nation unto themselves.)
Cricket was played fairly widely across the original northern states, Pennsylvania being a hotspot. However, cricket needs a large pitch and a well-prepared flat wicket, making impromptu games a no-no, so baseball took over from around the time of the US civil war.
Am I right in thinking that Little Women is set during the Civil War? There is a war going on in the background but not much is said about it.
The Channel Isles and the Isle of Man are Crown Dependencies and are not part of the UK. From memory, the Channel Isles are the sole remaining parts of the Duchy of Normandy.
Indeed, when in the Channel Islands HMQ is addressed as Duke of Normandy, especially in loyal toasts.
As she is Duke of Lancaster when in that shire. The little irrelevancies that go towards making life interesting.
The really screwy thing is that an American gallon is 3.89 litres, and an imperial gallon is 4.54. Most Canadians are bilingual re measuring. I use imperial measures for cooking (cups, teaspoons etc), metric for distance, feet and inches for height, small distances mm, pounds for some weights like people or meat, kg for lifting something. Two measuring systems does make for some pains, like having to have 2 sets of wrenches and socket sets, though also knowing that a ½" wrench is close to a 13mm, which works unless the bolt is stuck.
We end up with some rather odd sizes for things, like a standard bottle or can of beer might be 330, 341 or 355 ml.
One odd difference I notice between the UK and North America, which I've commented on before on these threads, is that our recipes work largely by weight. We don't tend to talk about cups. It makes foreign recipes really very difficult to follow. Flour (if you can get it, a very sore point at the moment) is measured by grammes or ounces and weighed out on scales. Obviously, we use volume measures for liquids, but those are quoted by litres or pints. The odd one out is things described as tsps, tbss (teaspoons, tablespoons) etc. but those are special measuring ones in 5, 10 etc millilitres, which often come tied together on little chains.
Though when we take growlers to brew pubs for refill, they are 500 l and up in round metric sizes. -- do you call refillable beer bottles growlers?
No.
Nor does the expression 'Back 40' mean anything here.
The Civil War is a key part of the story in that is why the father of the girls is away. Little is said about the war, however.
When the war is mentioned it is with pride at the men fighting for "freedom". That seemed to me an odd way to refer to a civil war, which is why I was puzzled.
As a little girl reading Little Women, I had a hard time imagining it - to me, the Civil War meant Cavaliers and Roundheads, but the book seemed too modern (I think my copy had drawings). I don’t know how old I was when I realised....
One odd difference I notice between the UK and North America, which I've commented on before on these threads, is that our recipes work largely by weight. We don't tend to talk about cups. It makes foreign recipes really very difficult to follow.
One odd difference I notice between the UK and North America, which I've commented on before on these threads, is that our recipes work largely by weight. We don't tend to talk about cups. It makes foreign recipes really very difficult to follow.
Yes, and that difficulty works both ways.
Is that because you don't have scales or because the quantities are generally in metric?
The former as much as anything. Scales haven’t traditionally been a standard kitchen item here, though they perhaps seem to be becoming more common. But at least in my experience it’s mainly “serious cooks”—or probably more accurately, “serious bakers”—that typically have them. Most scales these days are digital, so presumably they can do ounces or grams. And there’s always the internet for finding gram-to-ounce and ounce-to-gram conversions.
But there may also be a degree of unfamiliarity that gets in the way. Just as talking of cups of flour is unfamiliar to British bakers, talking of grams of flour is unfamiliar here.
Do British kitchens not have measuring cups, whether in ounces/cups or milliliters?
The former as much as anything. Scales haven’t traditionally been a standard kitchen item here, though they perhaps seem to be becoming more common. But at least in my experience it’s mainly “serious cooks”—or probably more accurately, “serious bakers”—that typically have them. Most scales these days are digital, so presumably they can do ounces or grams. And there’s always the internet for finding gram-to-ounce and ounce-to-gram conversions.
But there may also be a degree of unfamiliarity that gets in the way. Just as talking of cups of flour is unfamiliar to British bakers, talking of grams of flour is unfamiliar here.
Do British kitchens not have measuring cups, whether in ounces/cups or milliliters?
We have measuring jugs for liquids and many of us have cups now simply because of wanting to follow US recipes.
I've just checked my cup measure and it does appear to be the required 237ml
It does however always feel odd to measure dry ingredients by volume.
It does however always feel odd to measure dry ingredients by volume.
Again, it’s familiarity and unfamiliarity. To many cooks here, it feels odd to measure those dry ingredients by weight. “That’s not how my grandmama thought me to make a cake.”
Of course, then you get into what cooks here are taught about how to measure a cup of flour.
I checked two different sets of measuring cups against each other and against a Pyrex measuring jug. They were all different. Weight is the only reliable method unless you always use the same set of cups. (And the 'growler' that makes frequent trips to the brewery - or did before the virus closed it - is 1.9l, or half a US gallon.).
Heh! Never pressed down or packed and never flowing over. Flour is spooned or scooped into the appropriate-sized measuring cup and then leveled at the rim with the dull side of a knife.
BTW, while we’re on the subject of baking, I learned this past week how “biscuit” came to mean very different things on either side of The Pond.
In the early days of British colonization here, biscuit meant the same thing as in Britain—a small hard or crisp unleavened baked food, which could be sweet or savory. But the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam (New York) brought with them the word koekje, meaning “little cake,” and fairly quickly the anglicized version of that word—cookie—caught on for small cakes and for sweet biscuits. As “cookie” caught on for sweet biscuits, savory biscuits began to be called by the sound they made when broken: “crackers.”
Meanwhile, American cooks began to add soda to basic quick breads so that they would rise while cooking, and they called these quick breads “soda biscuits.” Then, as “cookie” and “cracker” replaced “biscuit” in the traditional sense, “soda” was dropped from “soda biscuit,” and that kind of quick bread became known simply as a biscuit.
Heh! Never pressed down or packed and never flowing over. Flour is spooned or scooped into the appropriate-sized measuring cup and then leveled at the rim with the dull side of a knife.
But how do you do the levelling off without getting flour all over the place? That's the bit I always struggle with.
Or you level it over the board on which you intend to roll out your pie crust, thus flouring the board and saving you an extra step. (Guess who made pasties two days ago?)
Regards: Little Women, the father is a pastor who has gone off to minister to the soldiers in the American Civil War. When he comes back it is obvious he suffers from what we now know as PTSD.
Grandma used to make soda biscuits. She came from Tennessee. Loved them.
Another term for unleavened biscuits would be hardtack but I think this term is used worldwide.
Presumably then you have to have separate half (and quarter) cup measures. You can’t level off something that’s only half full.
Sure. Most measuring cups come in sets, with 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 3/4 and cup sizes. We have three sets (one set also has a 1/8-cup size), along with the standard 2-cup (with marks for ounces, part-cups and milliliters) Pyrex measuring cup with pouring spout. I don’t think that’s at all unusual.
Meanwhile, a stick of butter = 1/2 cup (or 8 tablespoons/24 teaspoons) of butter, and 4 sticks = 1 pound of butter. The stick is wrapped in paper that marks teaspoons and tablespoons.
When the war is mentioned it is with pride at the men fighting for "freedom". That seemed to me an odd way to refer to a civil war, which is why I was puzzled.
Freedom for slaves, I assume (you've probably realised that since).
... Another term for unleavened biscuits would be hardtack but I think this term is used worldwide.
I've read it but never known what it meant. Also, to our usage 'unleavened biscuit' doesn't make sense. So what do they both actually mean?
@Nick Tamen we have transparent jugs, either pyrex or plastic with fluid measures up the side of them, but that's so you can measure liquids in them by holding the jug up to the light.
I don't think I've ever heard of a stick of butter.
The notion that a decently equipped kitchen could not have any sort of scales in it is fairly odd here. Even reluctant and incompetent cooks like me argue at an almost doctrinal level about whether scales should be the sort that have one sprung pan and a dial , the sort with balancing pans and weights, or these days the snazzy electronic sort.
What do you mean 'many of us' use measuring cups, KarlLB? I've never seen one, although I've got a Pyrex measuring jug for liquids.
I know realise, though why a US social media contact tells me that she finds British recipes hard to follow. She seems to follow a Geordie fella's You Tube videos of how to make Toad In The Hole (which I've not eaten since the 1970s) and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding which is not as common as it used to be ...
What do you mean 'many of us' use measuring cups, KarlLB? I've never seen one, although I've got a Pyrex measuring jug for liquids.
I know realise, though why a US social media contact tells me that she finds British recipes hard to follow. She seems to follow a Geordie fella's You Tube videos of how to make Toad In The Hole (which I've not eaten since the 1970s) and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding which is not as common as it used to be ...
You've not had a Toad in the Hole for decades? What's wrong with you man?
Regards: Little Women, the father is a pastor who has gone off to minister to the soldiers in the American Civil War. When he comes back it is obvious he suffers from what we now know as PTSD.
Really? That's something else I missed completely. Either that or it was left out of the abridged version I seem to be reading.
@Nick Tamen we have transparent jugs, either pyrex or plastic with fluid measures up the side of them, but that's so you can measure liquids in them by holding the jug up to the light.
Sure, they’d be used for that here, too, but they also might be used for dry ingredients if no leveling is required. Otherwise, we have the separate measuring cups.
I don't think I've ever heard of a stick of butter.
That’s how butter is usually sold here. Most packages of butter contain four sticks (i.e., one pound).
The notion that a decently equipped kitchen could not have any sort of scales in it is fairly odd here. Even reluctant and incompetent cooks like me argue at an almost doctrinal level about whether scales should be the sort that have one sprung pan and a dial , the sort with balancing pans and weights, or these days the snazzy electronic sort.
I get that. But since recipes here typically don’t use weight except in the case of meat or canned/packaged ingredients (which come from the store with weight noted on them), most cooks don’t have that much need for them, except as noted the really serious bakers or chef-types.
I just took a quick survey of our cookbook shelves. Out of 75+ cookbooks, I’m aware that one (the one with my favorite pancake and waffle batter recipes) uses weight for dry goods in baking, but then goes on to give the equivalent in volume for those ingredients, apparently on the assumption that many cooks using the book won’t have scales, despite the author’s encouragement to get some. All the others I cook or bake out of use volume for dry ingredients, and I’m willing to bet the rest do, too. Ditto all the family and other recipes we’ve gathered. That’s just how it’s done here.*
And that’s the problem here with moving to weight instead of volume for those ingredients. Because “we’ve always done it this way,” all the recipes we have, in cookbooks or otherwise, would have to be “translated.”
* I’ve read that it’s because when Fannie Farmer wrote The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896), which became one of the most influential cookbooks in the US (it’s among the 75+ on our shelves), the scales available to most home cooks were generally so inaccurate that Farmer thought volume measurements were more precise and reliable for the average cook. So, that’s what she used in her cookbook, and as a result that’s what became the standard here.
I haven't made a study, and I'm definitely not a serious cook, but I don't think I've seen scales in a UK kitchen since I was a child. A pyrex measuring jug, on the other hand, is essential.
I haven't made a study, and I'm definitely not a serious cook, but I don't think I've seen scales in a UK kitchen since I was a child. A pyrex measuring jug, on the other hand, is essential.
How do you weigh ingredients for recipes? We use scales for things as basic as pastry.
I haven't made a study, and I'm definitely not a serious cook, but I don't think I've seen scales in a UK kitchen since I was a child. A pyrex measuring jug, on the other hand, is essential.
How do you weigh ingredients for recipes? We use scales for things as basic as pastry.
I have a metal cup set 1, 1/2, 1/3 and 1/4, and have used them for years, as easier to use teaching children to cook than scales, which I also have. School cookery lessons in the UK we had dry measuring cones (link) in the school kitchen, and my plastic measuring jug gives dry measures too.
Interesting, I’ve never come across cooking by volume in the UK, although I knew that’s how it was done in the US. I thought every kitchen (over here in UK, anyway) would have scales as an absolute basic. I’m another who doesn’t know how you would cook by weight without them.
And I’m another who is astonished that Gamma Gamaliel has not had toad in the hole for years! We have some sausages in the freezer and we’re discussing the possibility of having it at some stage next week. Oh and roast beef and yorkshire pud is pretty much a standard in the MMM kitchen too. Or pork, lamb or chicken. Although sadly these days, we tend only to have either yorkshire pud or roast potatoes, having both only on special occasions.
Putting ingredients in the bread maker without weighing them to nicety is a recipe for disaster. Other than that, I seldom use the scales being more of a That Looks Like Enough sort of cook.
I have a set of measuring spoons get frequent use - tbsp and tsp turn up in most recipes. Measuring jug is only ever for liquids.
I've heard of sailors eating (hard) tack, as well as tacking a boat. Exactly what literary source I have for that I don't remember.
EDIT: Part of me wants to say Captain Haddock in Tintin, but that could be way off.
I think that is what is referred to in novels like Hornblower, as "ship's biscuit". Generally full of weevils after it had been stored in the hold for maybe several years! I seem to remember a reference to the midshipmen knocking them on the table to make the weevils drop out, then using the weevils to bait traps for the rats (which they would then eat!)
FYI: It is possible to do US-style measuring with just *one* measuring cup and a set of measuring spoons. That's what I grew up with. Regular teaspoons and tablespoons can also serve as measuring spoons--you just have to be a little careful, and pay attention to what you're doing.
I've heard of sailors eating (hard) tack, as well as tacking a boat. Exactly what literary source I have for that I don't remember.
EDIT: Part of me wants to say Captain Haddock in Tintin, but that could be way off.
I think that is what is referred to in novels like Hornblower, as "ship's biscuit". Generally full of weevils after it had been stored in the hold for maybe several years! I seem to remember a reference to the midshipmen knocking them on the table to make the weevils drop out, then using the weevils to bait traps for the rats (which they would then eat!)
Comments
In the Channel Isles, Jersey, Guernsey and others which are an English crown dependency the weights are often shown in pounds (lbs). I asked once why this was and was told 'that's because we are not in the European Union, we don't have to use grammes'. The Channel Isles are linked to the English Crown but are not part of the UK and make their own laws
Indeed, when in the Channel Islands HMQ is addressed as Duke of Normandy, especially in loyal toasts.
Also the acre, which is defined as the area of a rectangle one furlong long and one chain wide.
(Historically the Hudson's Bay Company got 1¾ sections of every township (sections 8 and 26), railways got almost half the land (odd numbered sections except for 2 of them) and schools got 2 sections. We continue to deal with railway problems because they have sovereign title to land, including having their own police: they're a nation unto themselves.)
Am I right in thinking that Little Women is set during the Civil War? There is a war going on in the background but not much is said about it.
As she is Duke of Lancaster when in that shire. The little irrelevancies that go towards making life interesting.
Nor does the expression 'Back 40' mean anything here.
When the war is mentioned it is with pride at the men fighting for "freedom". That seemed to me an odd way to refer to a civil war, which is why I was puzzled.
MMM
Is that because you don't have scales or because the quantities are generally in metric?
But there may also be a degree of unfamiliarity that gets in the way. Just as talking of cups of flour is unfamiliar to British bakers, talking of grams of flour is unfamiliar here.
Do British kitchens not have measuring cups, whether in ounces/cups or milliliters?
We have measuring jugs for liquids and many of us have cups now simply because of wanting to follow US recipes.
I've just checked my cup measure and it does appear to be the required 237ml
It does however always feel odd to measure dry ingredients by volume.
Of course, then you get into what cooks here are taught about how to measure a cup of flour.
BTW, while we’re on the subject of baking, I learned this past week how “biscuit” came to mean very different things on either side of The Pond.
In the early days of British colonization here, biscuit meant the same thing as in Britain—a small hard or crisp unleavened baked food, which could be sweet or savory. But the Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam (New York) brought with them the word koekje, meaning “little cake,” and fairly quickly the anglicized version of that word—cookie—caught on for small cakes and for sweet biscuits. As “cookie” caught on for sweet biscuits, savory biscuits began to be called by the sound they made when broken: “crackers.”
Meanwhile, American cooks began to add soda to basic quick breads so that they would rise while cooking, and they called these quick breads “soda biscuits.” Then, as “cookie” and “cracker” replaced “biscuit” in the traditional sense, “soda” was dropped from “soda biscuit,” and that kind of quick bread became known simply as a biscuit.
But how do you do the levelling off without getting flour all over the place? That's the bit I always struggle with.
Grandma used to make soda biscuits. She came from Tennessee. Loved them.
Another term for unleavened biscuits would be hardtack but I think this term is used worldwide.
Sure. Most measuring cups come in sets, with 1/4, 1/3, 1/2, 3/4 and cup sizes. We have three sets (one set also has a 1/8-cup size), along with the standard 2-cup (with marks for ounces, part-cups and milliliters) Pyrex measuring cup with pouring spout. I don’t think that’s at all unusual.
Meanwhile, a stick of butter = 1/2 cup (or 8 tablespoons/24 teaspoons) of butter, and 4 sticks = 1 pound of butter. The stick is wrapped in paper that marks teaspoons and tablespoons.
@Nick Tamen we have transparent jugs, either pyrex or plastic with fluid measures up the side of them, but that's so you can measure liquids in them by holding the jug up to the light.
I don't think I've ever heard of a stick of butter.
The notion that a decently equipped kitchen could not have any sort of scales in it is fairly odd here. Even reluctant and incompetent cooks like me argue at an almost doctrinal level about whether scales should be the sort that have one sprung pan and a dial , the sort with balancing pans and weights, or these days the snazzy electronic sort.
I know realise, though why a US social media contact tells me that she finds British recipes hard to follow. She seems to follow a Geordie fella's You Tube videos of how to make Toad In The Hole (which I've not eaten since the 1970s) and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding which is not as common as it used to be ...
You've not had a Toad in the Hole for decades? What's wrong with you man?
Really? That's something else I missed completely. Either that or it was left out of the abridged version I seem to be reading.
That’s how butter is usually sold here. Most packages of butter contain four sticks (i.e., one pound).
I get that. But since recipes here typically don’t use weight except in the case of meat or canned/packaged ingredients (which come from the store with weight noted on them), most cooks don’t have that much need for them, except as noted the really serious bakers or chef-types.
I just took a quick survey of our cookbook shelves. Out of 75+ cookbooks, I’m aware that one (the one with my favorite pancake and waffle batter recipes) uses weight for dry goods in baking, but then goes on to give the equivalent in volume for those ingredients, apparently on the assumption that many cooks using the book won’t have scales, despite the author’s encouragement to get some. All the others I cook or bake out of use volume for dry ingredients, and I’m willing to bet the rest do, too. Ditto all the family and other recipes we’ve gathered. That’s just how it’s done here.*
And that’s the problem here with moving to weight instead of volume for those ingredients. Because “we’ve always done it this way,” all the recipes we have, in cookbooks or otherwise, would have to be “translated.”
* I’ve read that it’s because when Fannie Farmer wrote The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896), which became one of the most influential cookbooks in the US (it’s among the 75+ on our shelves), the scales available to most home cooks were generally so inaccurate that Farmer thought volume measurements were more precise and reliable for the average cook. So, that’s what she used in her cookbook, and as a result that’s what became the standard here.
How do you weigh ingredients for recipes? We use scales for things as basic as pastry.
I use them for portions as well.
And I’m another who is astonished that Gamma Gamaliel has not had toad in the hole for years! We have some sausages in the freezer and we’re discussing the possibility of having it at some stage next week. Oh and roast beef and yorkshire pud is pretty much a standard in the MMM kitchen too. Or pork, lamb or chicken. Although sadly these days, we tend only to have either yorkshire pud or roast potatoes, having both only on special occasions.
MMM
I have a set of measuring spoons get frequent use - tbsp and tsp turn up in most recipes. Measuring jug is only ever for liquids.
I have never heard it used here. Hard tack can be used in sailing - to take a hard tack to port/starboard, and as a difficult task.
EDIT: Part of me wants to say Captain Haddock in Tintin, but that could be way off.
I think that is what is referred to in novels like Hornblower, as "ship's biscuit". Generally full of weevils after it had been stored in the hold for maybe several years! I seem to remember a reference to the midshipmen knocking them on the table to make the weevils drop out, then using the weevils to bait traps for the rats (which they would then eat!)
Yes, that's the sort of thing I was thinking of.