today's question: what do you find to be the most useless units of measure for cooking. i'll start

Ummm, Ang...? When I make cookies with my 1 tablespoon sized scoop,

Hubby shoves the whole cookie into his mouth. Although I keep telling him it's NOT bite sized, he likes to dispute that.

So maybe even "bite-sized" is an objective measurement as well?

smileys/smile.gif

 
Have you ever seen the measuring spoons for "Pinch", Smidgen" and "Scant"?

I gave them to my friends one year, and one girlfriend loved it, saying she added it to her regular measuring spoons, just for those recipes!!

And I thought it was just a funny joke! Oh well.

 
it should be 1 cup berries pureed or 1 cup pureed berries but...

it isn't always clear.

 
Yes I hate the metric measurements on cans! Trying to reconcile that to an old recipe or

a recipe from the US is hell.

 
If the description comes AFTER the ingredient...

it means after it's measured. Compare the difference between "I cup mushrooms, sliced" (1 cup of whole mushrooms that you then slice) and "1 cup sliced mushrooms" (1 cup of mushroom slices). This is deliberate language on the part of recipe writers and not an error.

 
Okay, that makes sense, I thought the objection was to ... (long)

"enough water" (since the discussion was originally about measurements).

Sometimes authors will add descriptions like "the consistency of wet sand" or "like play-dough", which can be helpful, but then some people will always object to those, too, since not everyone has experienced wet sand, and I myself never played with Play-Doh.

It's also worth keeping in mind that some authors will deliberately assume a certain amount of knowledge on the part of their readers. Such authors will, for instance, just say "deglaze." Other, more careful or more "teacherly" authors will expand on that, saying something along the lines of "Add the wine and bring to a boil, scraping up all the brown bits on the bottom of the pan."

Some very good authors manage to address both kinds of audience. Offhand I can think of Regan Daley's "In the Sweet Kitchen," a book for fairly experienced, or at least unintimidated, bakers that explains why you are doing what you are doing without sounding condescending; and much of Rose Levy Beranbaum's work. But it is often a tough call in both writing and editing recipes to decide how much your reader knows, and how much you can leave out, to avoid making every cookbook read like "Cookbook for Dummies." ("To peel an apple ...")

 
In this case, it probably doesn't matter ...

The assumption would be that you are preparing it in the evening and cooking it the next evening, unless it's a breakfast recipe such as a strata.

The out-of-print "Recipes into Type: A Handbook for Cookbook Writers and Editors" advises specifying the range of time for marinating instead: "Marinate 8 to 12 hours." That's sensible advice, and helpful to the cook, but again, in many cases, such as a spice rub on meat, or maple syrup and soy with salmon, it really not matter how long it marinated, and so the recipe writer may not want to specify a time.

 
I guess everybody here HATES this book ...

James Peterson's "Essentials of Cooking." Many of his recipes do not give measurements. Tempura batter, for example, just says to add soda water to flour, and another batter recipe just says "add egg yolks ..."

I approve, at least philosophically, of getting people to move away from having to measure everything -- it makes you a more intuitive, knowledgeable cook -- but I still can't bring myself to do most of these guide-less recipes.

 
Rick Bayless cleared that one up for me. He describes a great way to render your own lard.

Waaaay better than the snow-white brick they sell in the markets.

Michael

 
It would be great if all cookbooks and recipe writers followed this rule. Unfortunately

consistancy doesn't always rule. Years ago I remember following a Bon Appetit cookbook recipe that called for "1/2 cup chopped garlic cloves" which I thought was too much- it was. It should have been "1/2 cup garlic cloves, chopped." Sometimes even the big houses goof even though they try not to-LOL

I've got a rather large collection of cookbooks and it is amazing to me to see the inconsistancies- for instance, I have a book from a chef named Jean-Marie Josselin (a fabulous talent) that is gorgeous and I loved the food at his restaurants (before most of them closed due to bad business practices like not paying taxes) so I dug right into the book when I got it. Hardly any of the recipes worked! The amounts of ingredients were "off", some were missing, the oven temps were wrong, baking times were wrong- it was obvious that the recipes were just written out of his head and not tested for non-commercial kitchen use. What a disappointment! I always am comforted by going back to Julia Child's books or Marcella Hazen's books- certainly dozens of others too- because the recipes have been tested over and over and over before printing and are consistant.

Again, like I said before, an experienced cook can work around most anything but it is the new cooks that need really specific instructions. Bravo to you, Shaun in TO and you, Michelle for being consciencious and true to the "rules" when you write and edit recipes and books.

 
Good example- I have a few of his books-sauces, soups- and don't hate them but

they are set up to be sort of "bibles" on the subjects. I use them for reference- but would not feel good about giving them to new cooks to cook from. I know I myself don't measure ingredients except when I am baking- but I do appreciate seeing what the recipe author had in mind for a finished product. Peterson's books are not meant to be "beginners" books- but I think it is sloppy to just say "add soda water to flour" without giving even a vague idea of amounts. Don't you?

 
Shaun...I agree with you. I'd love to have the intuitive ability to

just "toss ingredients together" and have it work out. While reading these posts and laughing, I couldn't help thinking about Alice Waters who didn't own a set of measuring cups or spooons. Or how Julia Child understood the nature and chemistry of food enough to wing it beautifully. They would shudder to see how anal I am.

I've lost the inclination and the patience to freeform these days. In moments of inspiration, I've tried to go without guidance and failed miserably. Those are generally the nights when my husband turns to me and say "...and what is this again?"

 
I saw a recipe just yesterday that had 4/5 of a cup! since I have never, ever seen a ....

measuring cup that had 5ths on it, I decided the recipe wasn't worth my time!

 
Not useless, but confusing. When recipes call for an amount of coffee...

do they mean instant coffee granules or brewed coffee (as in mocha brownies, etc.). Not a big complaint, but sometimes I wonder, especially if the recipe doesn't come out just right... "OOH, maybe they meant use the LIQUID" - lol.

 
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