this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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The only thing measured in grams in the US is cannabis.
And bullets are measured in millimeters
It depends. Ones designed in other countries, yes. But if the bullet was designed in the USA, it is measured in inches like .45 ACP or .223 Remington
TIL that .223 Remington and 5.56x45mm NATO are very similar but not identical cartridges. Weird!
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I thought Americans loved their fractions too much for those numbers.
The only ones who like fractions are carpenters. If you bring fractions into a machine shop then you're going to get a wrench hucked at you. Mechanics on the other hand keep the peace using fractions for fasteners and decimals for tolerances.
Ok, I think I was still thinking about recipes but that is still way more than I'm used to and so arbitrary.
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I think most medicines are measured in grams over there too (500mg for acetaminophen / paracetamol). And Cocaine.
Medicine is in metric except for the entire bottle of liquid medicine. How many 30ml doses are in an 8oz bottle of nyquil?
We have 2 liter bottles of coke, but also 16oz if you just want to drink now.
Don't ask about cooking measurements we don't get it either and everyone who questions it turns into flour within the week.
Britain is weird too.
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It's actually sold in ounces. And grammes. My local head shop does that.
In Russia, cannabis was measured in "matchboxes" (around the amount that gets in to a small ziploc) and "glasses", where glass is a 220ml glass Russians drink vodka from in the movies.
So it goes full circle when you start measuring cannabis in glasses, sounds really American!
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What is a cup? What is a cup for liquid? What is a cup for flour?
Ffs.
Cups are ~235ml regardless of wet or dry. They are one of the sane-er measurements
You may be confusing your frustration with the ounce, which may refer to:
- avoirdupois ounce, used for mass in most cases
- Troy ounce, used for mass when referring to precious metals
- the imperial fluid ounce, used for volume sometimes
- the us customary fluid ounce, used for volume sometimes
- the us food labelling ounce, used for volume like the customary fluid ounce, but rounded to a nice number of milliliters
In metric, dry ingredients are measured by weight, so how much a cup is changes for each ingredient.
Dry ingredients by weight isn't a metric exclusive thing, it's an "accurate recipe" thing. Plenty of American recipes call for ounces and pounds. Cups are also a unit of volume, so 1c of milk occupies the same volume as 1c of water even though their masses are different (at a given temperature; which is why it's better to use weight for liquid ingredients as well)
The confusion is when you have no idea whether they are calling for 28.4ml, 29.5ml or 28.3g when they say "ounce"
No, I'm also confused by "a cup of flower" or even "a cup of broccoli" in American recipes.
What's confusing about it? It's the amount of flour that fills a 236ml cup. It's no different than measuring 1L of water
You may say "yeah well it depends on how finely ground the flour is or how tightly packed the broccoli is" and the answer is "it either doesn't matter or it's a bad recipe"
Not confusing, just crappy.
Volume for a powder is bad because they can "fluff up" when poured reducing the amount being added, so proportions are wrong.
Liquids don't hold air like flour does.
Sure, so then you do it by weight and I have to ask if your measuring the flours weight in Florida or Arizona and what time of year it is to figure out how much humidity is in it.
Food should never require that amount of accuracy. It's a bloody cake, how much flour and water do you need, about that much. Eggs? A few lol, only have 2 fuck it that's fine
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There are plenty of things to be confused about, but it is baffling to me that this should be one of them.
A cup measure is a unit of volume.
I get it if you are not familiar with that unit of measurement, but to be confused about using volume as a unit of measurement... it is not exactly rocket surgery.
Seems like you are just looking for a reason to be annoyed.
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You might be right, I think I got annoyed with fluid ounces in cups in a recipe with flour also measured in cups, and some other random third measurement.
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Oh, and is it an american cup or an english cup? Yes, they're both different.
If you are complaining about American recipes, then it should be self evident what version of cup it is.
I mean, in this comment i'm complaining about cups as a measurement specifically. The post as a whole is complaining about american recipes.
What is a foot? Whose foot?!
Why is it a pound 💷? It weighs nowhere near a pound?!
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No word of a lie, one of my university roommates came up to be the first week we were living together with a drinking glass in his hand and asked me if it was what a recipe meant when it said "add a cup of water."
What's fun is halving a recipe with a quarter, 3/4, or third...
I get the rocket and coriander ones, also the units of measurement but what do you call a bell pepper? (Also how do you differentiate dried cilantro seed powder from the fresh herb? I like to know if I should be using a spice or the fresh plant)
what do you call a bell pepper
Paprika.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_pepper#Nomenclature
It's very well documented.
Rocket????
Arugula is known as Rocket in most of the rest of the world.
Cilantro is the herb, coriander (seed) is the spice/dried powder. Often you can tell by what you are making and how it's being used/added, but typically they are differentiated as above in American recipes.
Genuinely confused as well about the pepper, a bell pepper is a pretty universal name for it as far as I knew. Folks also refer to them as green/yellow/red peppers here, or sweet peppers occasionally (usually when used in Italian food), but bell pepper is the generic name.
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Truth.