>From the few cookbooks published for the international English-speaking audience, I noticed the 250 ml cup, and the 500g pound, but nothing like what you've seen with the ounces. The books I have print dual-unit recipes, but expressly warn the cook to stick either to metric or Imperial measures. And when you see 1 cup being called for on the Imperial side, the metric equivalent is always 250 ml. So I'd say it's safe to say that internationally, at least in an informal sense, the cup is 250 ml.Dear John and Remek,
Remek
On 11/17/05, john mercer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Hi The other day i phoned a local book store and asked if they had a copy of better homes and garden cook book in stock. I wanted to know if they had any metric info in the book. The person looked for me, i wanted to know how many ml's are in a cup and how many g in an oz. The book said that there are 250 ml's in a cup and 25 or 30 g in an oz. How can there be 2 different number of g in an oz? Is the 250 ml cup accepted around the world? Thanks for any info.
Cups in Australia are legally -- and practically -- all 250 millilitres. I have not seen an exception to this since the early 1970s in any Australian cook book.
However, having said that let me tell you that I cheat (a little bit). I use the full 250 millilitres for one cup or for any multiple of cups; for example, 4 cups is 1 litre, 8 cups is 2 litres. But when I have to use fractions of cups, I think of a cup as being 240 millilitres -- this make it easier to work out halves (120 mL), thirds (80 mL), quarters (60 mL), and even eighths (30 mL). By the way, my wife is very careful to buy measuring cups for the kitchen that comply to the Australian standard of 250 mL as there are traders who will import cups that were intended for the UK or USA markets where I'm not sure if there are any official standards for the size of a cup.
On the subject of ounces, a problem is that when someone uses the word ounce they are perhaps not sure of which ounce they are referring to. Is an ounce:
- an ounce (apothecary) = 31.1 grams
- an ounce (avoirdupois) = 28.3 grams
- an ounce (troy) = 31.1 grams
- an ounce (UK liquid) = 28.4 millilitres or
- an ounce (USA liquid) = 29.6 milliliters
Australia also uses a teaspoon of 5 millilitres and a tablespoon of 20 millilitres. These work well. Some other nations have recommended a teaspoon of 5 millilitres and a tablespoon of 15 millilitres. I think that this tablespoon is a sort of hidden half-ounce (UK and USA liquid or fluid) that will be a hindrance to fast and economical metrication as chefs and cooks will remember that 'two tablespoons is an ounce' and then they will continue to use their old recipes or to use the old side of dual unit recipes.
I base the observations above on our extensive collection of cookbooks from all around the world. We have a collection of over 1000 cookbooks and we have owned or read many others. Australia, where metrication in the cooking industry was done fairly well, has quite consistent units using grams, kilograms, litres and millilitres. Books from any other parts of the world do not have this consistency and we treat them with a great deal of caution when we cook from them.
I have written about this in an article called, 'Metric cooking with confidence' that says more about cups, ounces, spoons, and many other cooking measures, You you can find it at http://metricationmatters.com/articles -- it's near the bottom.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216
Geelong, Australia
61 3 5241 2008
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.metricationmatters.com
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