Dear Jim, I believe that there was a standard for cooking measures adopted in the USA in the late 70s or early 80s. I think its number was ANSI Z61.
I believe that this was the document that set the standard tablespoon as 15�mL and the standard teaspoon as 5 mL in the USA. In contrast the Australian tablespoon is set at 20�mL and the Australian teaspoon is set at 5�mL. I don't have a copy of the standard (ANSI Z61) to check on whether it referred to the size of cups. Perhaps somebody else can help. Cheers, Pat Naughtin LCAMS Geelong, Australia -- on 5/2/04 2:47 PM, James Frysinger at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > On Wednesday 2004 February 04 00:19, Chimpsarecute wrote: >> When you say cup (US), how many millilitres are we talking about? US cups >> are also marked up to 250 mL. I've seen people fill the cup to the rim, >> meaning they are filling the cups more to the 250 mL value then to the >> intended 230 something value. I also use 250 mL when a cup is required. >> And never had a problem. > > There is no "metric cup" defined by the U.S. government or its agencies, as > far as I know, though some agencies may have promulgated such a "cup" > informally (i.e., not by regulation or law). The booklet assures us > indirectly that they don't mean a "cup" of 250 mL because it equates 250 mL > to 1.06 cups. It also equates 1 L to 1.05 quarts. Weird, eh? > > The U.S. has two volumetric systems of non-metric measurements but most > anti-metric folks are not aware of that anymore. Dry measures are based on > the bushel of 2150.42 in3 and follow the series > 1 bushel = 4 pecks = 32 quarts = 64 pints = 128 cups. (no gallon) > Liquid measurements are based on the gallon of 231 in3 and follow the series > 1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 32 gills. (no cup) > Even though no cup is defined in the liquid capacity system, common practice > considers it to be 0.5 pints or 2 gills. Note that 1 dry pint does not equal > 1 liquid pint and 1 dry quart does not equal 1 liquid quart. The dry versions > are larger and the liter falls in between the dry quart and the liquid quart > in size. When the U.S. changed the size of its inch in the 1950s then > presumably the bushel and gallon changed sizes also; I know of no > "correction" analogous to the one made to provide for the survey foot and > statute mile. Are you thoroughly confused yet? If so, then I strongly > recommend chucking the whole mess and going metric! Grin. > >> What effect would one experience if those grams were rounded to the nearest >> 10 g? Or even rounded up to the nearest 10 g? I doubt metric recipes are >> accurate to the nearest gram. > > Most recipes probably would not suffer noticeably for quantities above 100 g > or 200 g. > > Jim
