Why do Americans measure everything in cups?

Chris@feddit.uk to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 198 points –

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?

340

You are viewing a single comment

Do Americans not own scales or something?

I do not own a kitchen scale. Outside of baking, volume works well enough.

Not with salt or anything granular. Liquid is probably fine

It works well enough for me. Salt is relatively uniform, so there isn't that much variance. With spices, the variance of the spice strength is greater than the variance caused by compaction.

Outside of baking, the tolerance required to get a dish to taste good is rather wide.

Salf is the definition of not uniform.

Try a spoonful of table salt instead of sea salt next time and see how well that goes. In grams it does not matter.

I have one kind of salt that I cook with. I know that if I use different kinds of salt, it can affect the flavor and concentration, so I just go with one kind of salt.

Literally never had a problem with any recipe, ever. This is a non-issue.

Oh okay well if you've not had an issue then it can't be one.

Honestly, what is wrong with the people left on lemmy, why is everyone like this. There was a few months there where you could talk and have a conversation. Then all the good people left and we just get.... this.

I know it's easy to misread the tone of text, but I certainly didn't mean to offend you. It's true that it is a complete non-issue for me and *millions *of Americans. I'm simply stating a fact and in no way judging you or criticizing you for asking the question. I'm giving you an answer from my perspective.

what is wrong with the people left on lemmy

You're the one causing problems here. The others are conversing normally. Lemmy is fine, chill.

Salt tends to be used in such small quantities that you'll get much larger errors on the typical kitchen scale than with measuring spoons.

Never have I ever thought "oh it would be so much easier to pour my flour into a bowl on a scale" rather than just scoop out a few cups.

Unironically, I do in fact do this all the time. I make large batches when I bake, so it's easier to just tare and measure everything directly in the stand mixer bowl instead of scooping 16 cups. It's also less clean up afterwards!