Why do Americans use volumes instead of mass for baking/cooking?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As if Americans are actually cooking enough for any of this discussion to be relevant. Everyone knows Americans buy all of their food premade and just eat it.

If only.

I bought some beans and some soup and they came in these hard metal shells, which I've bitten but to no end.

I'm so hungry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As if Americans are actually cooking enough for any of this discussion to be relevant. Everyone knows Americans buy all of their food premade and just eat it.

If only.

I bought some beans and some soup and they came in these hard metal shells, which I've bitten but to no end.

I'm so hungry.

Have you tried shooting the hard shell with your AK-34433?
Or try your 9mm (and they say we don't use metric)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As if Americans are actually cooking enough for any of this discussion to be relevant. Everyone knows Americans buy all of their food premade and just eat it.

So true. This is how we all eat. Why are we even discussing scales and science and 'tare'. 'Tare'? TARE?

Three slices of toast seems excessive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All recipe creators (including American ones) use weighed out ingredients when developing recipes bc it's so much more precise. For the US market they then convert back to volume based measurements.

Weighing and baking is a way better system and even Americans are speaking out in favor of it, eg. Alison Roman on one of her videos.

But it doesn’t make sense to convert back to volumes. Just leave it as mass. Yes, it is way more precise. It makes zero sense to ever use volumes to measure out solids. I worked as a chemist for years.

A scale is 1 more thing to buy and you can still cook with volume. As much as bakers love to talk about how precise measurements need to be, they're full of it. Close enough works in 99% of cooking situation

Omg, owning a scale is a world ending endeavor. How will you ever live if you have to use a scale!!?? Lol, meanwhile, 4 billion other people on the planet use scales and make better food because their recipes are more precise.

As you, Dear Troll, are concerned with precision with numbers, check your 4 billion people use scales number.

Go back to making your crappy cakes using cups and other volumes to measure solids like flour and butter, lol.

You can polish off your bad cakes with a nice heaping side of school shootings while you are at it.

dp Why do you care if you aren't going to eat it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You might get a more insightful response if you weren’t so hostile about it. I’m sure there is a historical reason for this if you really want to know.

Here you go. Despite the hostile OP I will share this because I love it so much:
https://imgur.com/gallery/imperial-system-S9nYOfZ

What a dumb post setup with a whole bunch of strawmen.

Omg, a 3rd of a cup is 68.3333 grams!!! Dumb. Because anyone making a recipe using mass wouldn't use 68.333 grams in the first place, the recipe would be invented to optimize ratios and would use 65 grams, 68 grams, or 70 grams. Working with base 10 is infinitely easier. The poster is fixated in decimals. Lol, if that matters to you, you wouldn't use grams of you're concerned about .035 grams, you'd just use milligrams instead. Or if you have decimals of liters, you'd use milliliters. It's really not that hard as that poster makes you want to believe. They're just trying to setup ridiculously stupid scenarios to support a weak argument when they completely ignore simply using a different metric unit of base 10.

Oh you, need 6.036 grams of flour? Not hard, weigh 6 grams and 36 milligrams of flour. Lol. Takes 10 seconds to do.

So many stupid Americans ignorant of science and basic measurements.

So we are 'stupid' because we don't use the measurements you use. How about someone who comes on an American chat to insult Americans? What would you think if an American did this to any other country? It is rude when you do it and rude when Americans do!

Go back under your metric rock

[Anonymous]

For over two hundred years home bakers had bowls and a set of standard measuring cups and spoons for baking. They were affordable and portable, scales weren't. So, this is how recipes were written and taught for the home kitchens by generations of home cooks and bakers. Today scales are affordable, portable and very accurate. But, good luck finding cookbooks using weight rather than volume. Also, it upset the Europeans. Which makes us laugh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For over two hundred years home bakers had bowls and a set of standard measuring cups and spoons for baking. They were affordable and portable, scales weren't. So, this is how recipes were written and taught for the home kitchens by generations of home cooks and bakers. Today scales are affordable, portable and very accurate. But, good luck finding cookbooks using weight rather than volume. Also, it upset the Europeans. Which makes us laugh.

I don't think recipes were very precise until the last 50 years or so. Around the turn of the century you would see things like "3-5 carrots." Obviously, there is no standard carrot and the number of carrots was dependent on he size of the carrots and the cooks idea of how much carrot a dish needed. It's cooking, not chemistry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For over two hundred years home bakers had bowls and a set of standard measuring cups and spoons for baking. They were affordable and portable, scales weren't. So, this is how recipes were written and taught for the home kitchens by generations of home cooks and bakers. Today scales are affordable, portable and very accurate. But, good luck finding cookbooks using weight rather than volume. Also, it upset the Europeans. Which makes us laugh.

I don't think recipes were very precise until the last 50 years or so. Around the turn of the century you would see things like "3-5 carrots." Obviously, there is no standard carrot and the number of carrots was dependent on he size of the carrots and the cooks idea of how much carrot a dish needed. It's cooking, not chemistry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For over two hundred years home bakers had bowls and a set of standard measuring cups and spoons for baking. They were affordable and portable, scales weren't. So, this is how recipes were written and taught for the home kitchens by generations of home cooks and bakers. Today scales are affordable, portable and very accurate. But, good luck finding cookbooks using weight rather than volume. Also, it upset the Europeans. Which makes us laugh.

I don't think recipes were very precise until the last 50 years or so. Around the turn of the century you would see things like "3-5 carrots." Obviously, there is no standard carrot and the number of carrots was dependent on he size of the carrots and the cooks idea of how much carrot a dish needed. It's cooking, not chemistry.

If you aren't using moles of carrots, it's not chemistry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As if Americans are actually cooking enough for any of this discussion to be relevant. Everyone knows Americans buy all of their food premade and just eat it.

If only.

I bought some beans and some soup and they came in these hard metal shells, which I've bitten but to no end.

I'm so hungry.

Have you tried shooting the hard shell with your AK-34433?
Or try your 9mm (and they say we don't use metric)

Thank you! Not only did it open the containers, but I plugged a couple of squirrels, so I had a multicourse meal, like the fine kwizeen they serve in France.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For over two hundred years home bakers had bowls and a set of standard measuring cups and spoons for baking. They were affordable and portable, scales weren't. So, this is how recipes were written and taught for the home kitchens by generations of home cooks and bakers. Today scales are affordable, portable and very accurate. But, good luck finding cookbooks using weight rather than volume. Also, it upset the Europeans. Which makes us laugh.

I don't think recipes were very precise until the last 50 years or so. Around the turn of the century you would see things like "3-5 carrots." Obviously, there is no standard carrot and the number of carrots was dependent on he size of the carrots and the cooks idea of how much carrot a dish needed. It's cooking, not chemistry.

If you aren't using moles of carrots, it's not chemistry.

Wait until you learn the concept of equivalents.

How to tell me you've never actually worked in a science lab without telling me you've never worked in a science lab.

It's funny how people on DCUM think they're smart and educated when they're clearly not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For over two hundred years home bakers had bowls and a set of standard measuring cups and spoons for baking. They were affordable and portable, scales weren't. So, this is how recipes were written and taught for the home kitchens by generations of home cooks and bakers. Today scales are affordable, portable and very accurate. But, good luck finding cookbooks using weight rather than volume. Also, it upset the Europeans. Which makes us laugh.

I don't think recipes were very precise until the last 50 years or so. Around the turn of the century you would see things like "3-5 carrots." Obviously, there is no standard carrot and the number of carrots was dependent on he size of the carrots and the cooks idea of how much carrot a dish needed. It's cooking, not chemistry.

If you aren't using moles of carrots, it's not chemistry.

Wait until you learn the concept of equivalents.

How to tell me you've never actually worked in a science lab without telling me you've never worked in a science lab.

It's funny how people on DCUM think they're smart and educated when they're clearly not.

I have worked in a science lab. We never ate anything we made there. You didn't eat anything in the lab either, because "reasons." You weren't supposed to be drinking either, but it's hard to work without coffee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For over two hundred years home bakers had bowls and a set of standard measuring cups and spoons for baking. They were affordable and portable, scales weren't. So, this is how recipes were written and taught for the home kitchens by generations of home cooks and bakers. Today scales are affordable, portable and very accurate. But, good luck finding cookbooks using weight rather than volume. Also, it upset the Europeans. Which makes us laugh.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For over two hundred years home bakers had bowls and a set of standard measuring cups and spoons for baking. They were affordable and portable, scales weren't. So, this is how recipes were written and taught for the home kitchens by generations of home cooks and bakers. Today scales are affordable, portable and very accurate. But, good luck finding cookbooks using weight rather than volume. Also, it upset the Europeans. Which makes us laugh.

What makes you think scales weren't affordable and portable 200 hundred years ago? What kind of nonsense is this?

[Anonymous]

My guess is that most people never owned scales and they weren’t really very accessible to most people until recently. If you are really interested in baking fairly complicated foods, buy a scale. If you are only interested in occasionally baking some cookies or a simple cake or pie, volume recipes will work fine.