h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The definition for a 'cup' and other measurements, differ from country to country. Which version are you using?

I used standard U.S.A. measuements.

Since I'm conversion impaired , I figured that if the editors wanted it in metric units, they could do the do that as part of the editing process.

*grin*

I noticed the use of ounces, but I'm not sure if the UK uses imperial measurements as well, hence the confusion.

In case you're interested, this is what my cookbook says about converting.

1 Australian mesuring cup holds approximately 250ml. (Actually, it doesn't say so here, but I was under the impression that they used 200ml cups in the U.S, maybe I was wrong).

Australians use 20ml tablespoons, but NZ, Canada, USA and UK all use 15ml tablespoons.

It also says that there is usually only 2-3 teaspoons difference between measuring cups internationally.

And this is the sum total of my book's wisdom on the matter, except it contains tables of metric to imperial measurements, and there's no point in spamming people with that, since I'm sure it's easy to find.

Hmmm, measurements... Actually, there is such a thing as an (almost) international system for that called the SI. It uses measurements based on grams, litres, metres etc.

Only two things has gone wrong,

1) It's not consistently used in recipes (table & teaspoons still come in more handy than an analytical balance in the kitchen). In good parts of Europe, though, gram and litres are used a lot.

2) The former British empire (I'm guessing here) did an awfully good job in making people in a few small countries around the world uses akward units like ounces, feet and such


And I still dread the day I by accident set my oven at the Fahrenheit value given in a recipe -- since my oven interprets that as Celsius, whatever is in there will be toast very quickly...

Maybe it's time to introduce a "recipe readers in the world, unite" kind of society...?

All the best

SG V

I couldn't agree more!
I can picture the demonstrations:
Go metric now! Go metric now!

-B-

"I used standard U.S.A. measuements."

unfortunately there is nothing "standard" about US measurements! the standard is metric!!

cups aren't even used in the UK. I remember my sister had an American cook book and had to convert from cups to ounces (she is pre-metric).

although they seem similar, the Imperial system that was used in the UK and the US system are different. there are a different number of fluid ounces in a pint for example. fairly typical of ounce/feet systems really.

so please use metric and then I'll try your carrot cake!

there are numerous convertors on the web for US citizens struggling with their non-standard system

Ah well, can't please all of the people all of the time. This article was written before the peer review system was in place. If it was submitted now, I'm sure I'd have plenty of help to refine the measurements to everyone's satisfaction.

Researcher 204932, if you update your "Space" and place a short introduction on your page, an ACE will be along promptly to introduce you properly to h2g2.