Why do Americans measure everything in cups?
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?
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But also, there’s no real incentive to change… my brownies taste just fine with a 1/3 cup of oil and a 1/3 cup of water. I am sure they would taste just as good with 80 g of each, but if it works, why change it?
What logic is there in saying grams are better than cups of both work well for the intended task? If I were a professional baker, it’s entirely possible I would have a different opinion, but I (like 99% of Americans) am not.
Oil and water are fine, but flour already starts to be a problem. How densely is it packed?
Then we go on to salt, which can have a lot of different grain sizes (although that is annoying with a scale as well because most kitchen scales are not very accurate with single-digit-grams)
Then it gets really weird when they say to use a cup of grated cheese, because depending on how you grate it it has very different densities
The difference is accuracy.
But what I’m saying is I’m plenty accurate enough with cups… there would be no appreciable difference for my box of brownies.
You're maybe plenty accurate for the brownies of your preference, but probably not for professional cooking or other activities that require accuracy.
The vast majority of the planet are not professional cooks.
Not the point.
Absolutely the point. Precision is not needed in the vast majority of cooking. It's a pointless, time-consuming step.
Volumetric measurement is superior. Yes, I'd rather it be liters instead of cups, but cups is better than grams.
I'm not just talking about home cooking. It's just one thing. I'm talking about life in general. We Americans have a tendency to do these weird things based purely on tradition when there are more precise and logical solutions available. But no, no: "We're unique and exceptional. We do it the American way." Ridiculous.
Well, I'm specifically talking about measurements in home cooking. But you have fun with that.
Like I said, it goes for home cooking as well.