Liters and hogsheads

When you move, or even visit, the US, one of the first things that strikes most people after they've become accustomed to the ubiquitous friendliness and large cars, are the different measures used for just about everything. Water boils at 212 degrees as opposed to 100, the nearest exist isn't 500 meters away, but 1/2 mile, and you buy carpet per square foot. It all seems positively insane at first. A body temperature of 98.6 sounds like you should by all means be dead, while describing blind widths using terms such as 5/8 of an inch, makes you wish you'd paid more attention in 3rd grade math.

What's even more insane, however, is that these measures have grown on me. I can pretty much tell you what temperature it is in my office right now, both in Fahrenheit and Celcius, or Centigrade for my die-hard American readers (and for those of you who wondered, I guessed it to be about 68F or 19C, which according to my online converter is pretty close). I know what to wear when the our Channel 9 weatherlady tells me it's going to be 92 degrees today. I've become pretty accurate at assessing how long something is in, both in feet, yards, and meters. I can handle inches pretty well as well, as their length does kind of seem logical, even though the fact that there are 12 of them in a foot does not. Interestingly, I've actually become better at measuring my runs in miles than I can in kilometers, and I can calculate how many gallons my car uses per miles in a jiffy (about thirty eight, thankyouverymuch).

The only aspect of this odd American measurement system that I just cannot seem to grasp is volume. We have a drawer full of different sized cups, little plastic teaspoons and tablespoons, a beaker with seemingly hundreds of different lines and measures, and still I struggle.

Actually, I think it's safe to say that I'm really totally ignorant. When I was emailing Steve this morning, discussing conversion measures (as that's what academic scholars email about when they're at work thousands of miles apart), and exclaimed in my most theatrical manner possible that I did not understand why there were fluid ounces and regular ounces, he asked me, "You do know that that goes for cups and teaspoons and tablespoons too, right? So you can't use the same cup for flour that you use for water."
Uhm.
No, I did not know that.
It does explain why some of my pies and cakes turn out a little wetter or dryer than I would like them to though.

Anyway, as I was saying, I truly do not get it. And I'm just going to go ahead and take a stand here, but I really think the whole volume measurement system is to blame. I mean, if you're raised with recipes stating things like this, "Take 250 ml of water (use one side of your universal measuring beaker) and 225 grams of flour (dry said beaker and use the other side, which has grams on it)", can one be blamed if "use 3/4 cups of oil (select the 3/4 cup from the pile meant for liquids), 4 cups of pecans (use a different cup, four times), 1/2 teaspoon of mint (slide the little measuring stick on your teaspoon measurement apparatus to 1/2)" confuse you just a little? I am going to answer that with a firm and resounding "no".

I mean, don't get me wrong, I do know how to bake (well, apparently only sort of, but I will be better now that I know that the two sets of cups we have actually serve different purposes), but it's really only doable whenever I can use nifty contraptions such as plastic cups, plastic little spoons and other childlike-minds-friendly tools. Whenever a recipe asks me to suddenly think in terms of ounces or quarts, I'm truly lost. And the mathematical process usually ends up going something like this: "OK, I have to add add 10 ounces of water. Honey! Honey! What's ten ounces of water? Honey?! Oh, crap, he went to the store. Hmm. *insert random rummaging through drawers* Great. Oh, let's look in the pantry. Ah. Here's a can of soda. It's 12 fluid ounces and 335 ml. OK, divide 335 by 12, that's uhm..uhm...OK, about 27, so there are 27 ml to an ounce, so 10 ounces of water equals 270 ml, OK, now let's find my European measuring cup"*

And now you know why my baked goods usually end up just a little off.

Anyway, as I was saying, I really think the whole measuring system is just plain wrong. I mean, who came up with the idea that 3 teaspoons equal one tablespoon? And that there are two tablespoons in 1/8 cup which, oh by the way, equals 1 ounce? And that 1 cup equals 1/2 pint which equals 8 ounces? Two cups, thank the Lord for some logic here, two cups equal 1 pint, while two pints fit into a quart, which equals, Hallelujah, about a liter. Now there are four quarts in a gallon, which is where it gets easy for me, on account of the word "quart" you know. And for those you of who think it ends there, oh no, it only gets better. Nine gallons apparently fit into a firkin, while 63 gallons make up a hogshead. In case you ever wondered how much fluid would fit into a hogshead, there you have it. *

So yes. Although I truly love this country, I vote we switch to metric now. Or even better, yesterday. Where cooking involves the same measurement; liters for fluids and grams for dry goods. Where there is 1000 ml in a liter and a 1000 grams in a kilo. Where all you need is one big measuring cup, and you don't have to freak out when your 2/3 cup disappeared into one of your kids' science projects, or the 1/4 cup melted in the dishwasher. Where a "teaspoon" means you can just eyeball it. Where men are men, and mililiters can't be converted into something smaller.


* Any mistakes in this blog post are entirely my fault, and were put in on purpose by the author to explain her total and utter confusion with the system. Honesty. Promise.
** And if you don't believe me, check out these two sources.