[LMB] AKICOT:L - Cooking

[James M. BRYANT G4CLF]

Megaera is:-

 >...one of those Americans with no scale....

Shame!

I have weighed "1 cup" of flour and, depending
on whether it has been sifted through a sieve
or tamped down with a spoon, the weight can
vary by a ratio of more than 3:2.

The main reason American recipes are so hard
to reproduce is that measures are volume and
not mass and so much less well-defined.

I had intended to write a long rant on this
but I then found
http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=85172
and so will spare those not interested in cooking.

However I will point out that a VERY quick search
in Amazon US (probably not the cheapest) found
digital kitchen scales for about $20 so it's not
a major outlay. Get one with 2 gm (better 1 gm)
increments.

James - who himself also owns a small digital scale
bought on eBay for $5 which measures up to 150 gm
in 0.01 gm steps. I assume the reason they are so
cheap is that they're used by drug dealers and so
there's a volume market - but they're ideal for
counting small parts, checking airmail, and
measuring yeast and salt