I interspersed some remarks in GREEN below.
________________________________ From: Pat Naughtin <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, April 5, 2009 4:39:26 AM Subject: [USMA:44368] Re: Even with "dual," you can't please everybody Dear John, I have interspersed some remarks in red. On 2009/04/05, at 1:35 AM, John M. Steele wrote: Pat, You understandably write from a Commonwealth or Australian perspective (I don't mean spelling), True. and as a metric consultant, you may have a vested interest in making old measurements sound more confusing than they are.. I have very little need to do this. Old pre-metric measures are generally more difficult that their metric equivalents without any help from me. I am confused by spoons and cups in recipes from Commonwealth nations.. You have every right to be confused. There has never been, to my knowledge, any international co-ordination of cooking measures. Most nations simply used soft conversions and rounded them to end with a 5 or a zero. For example, the UK and the USA took the old half ounce 'table spoon' and relabelled it as 15 millilitres; then they took the old pre-metric 8 ounce cup and relabelled it as 240 millilitres. To the best of my knowledge only in Australia and New Zealand did leading cooks choose the metrication process in the 1970s as an opportunity to completely rethink all kitchen measurements. Here are some examples of rounding to achieve slight increases of between 6 % and 10 %: 454 grams was rounded to 500 grams (+ 10 %) from 1 lb. 568 millilitres was rounded to 600 mL (+ 6 %) from 1 pint (Imp.) 28.3 ounces was rounded to 30 mL (+ 6 %) from 1 Imperial ounce. This method gave Australia cooks the rational methods we use today.. The problem was that, as a multicultural nation, we had many different sources of traditional recipes from every nation in the world. For example, when my wife and I volunteered to compile a recipe book for a retirement village based on the residents recipes, we encountered these old pre-metric measures: bushels, coffee cups, degrees Fahrenheit, demitasse, dessertspoons, drams, drops, gallons, gas Regulo, gills, glasses, grains, hundredweights, Imperial gallons, noggins, ounces, packets, pecks, pennyweights, pints, pounds, quarters, quarts, sacks, salt-spoons, scruples, tablespoons, teacups, teaspoons, tins, U.S. quarts. These were all component parts of old family recipes that had been treasured in the donor's family sometimes for generations. One old lady told us, 'This recipe came to me from my great, great, great, grandmother.' Had we simply recorded the recipes then bound and published the book, the treasured old recipes could well be lost to all future generations because the children of the 21st century who will inherit this book would find these measures totally incomprehensible; the book would sit unused on the shelf, and the recipes would eventually be lost. We had no choice but to write the recipes in metric units and then test every recipe. It is interesting that John had a problem with the up-sizing and Australia did not. But even so, these conversions need only be used once and only as a rough reference. Once the change is made, then the old recipe can be destroyed. Of course with any change as you note from all of these strange and obsolete units, the product needs to be tested and then adjusted for the taste and consistency to come out right. Then once the right amounts are agreed upon, then they will become the new standard and the old one can be destroyed forever. It really doesn't matter if some choose to make a cup 240 mL and others 250 ml, as these will only be a rough estimate for the conversion. It can then be decided during the test as to how many millilitres the product will be. Once in millilitres all references to cups and spoons can be eliminated. Also, if recipes are further converted to mass measurements, then volumetric measures can be discarded. However, if you receive a recipe from the US, there is no confusion; the terms are well-defined and have been for some time. I regularly use a recipe from my greatgrandmother which dates to around 1890. Common cups and spoons may be of any size, but measuring cups and spoons are well defined. They are as important to us as your scales (most are marked in metric as well). But are the definitions exactly the same as in your grandfather's day? Most likely not. Nor can we assume that in grandfather's day did they pay close attention to the standards. Nor do we know how often the recipe was altered through the years. So to follow NIST precision where it isn't warranted is ridiculous. Each term is followed by a definition in Customary units, an overly exact metric conversion, and a practically rounded metric conversion: cup: 8 US fl oz, 236.5882 mL, 240 mL ounce: 1 US fl oz, 29.573 53 mL, 30 mL Tablespoon: 0.5 US fl oz, 14.786 76 mL, 15 mL teaspoon: 0.1666... US fl oz, 4.928 922 mL, 5 mL It's probably not an over exact metric conversion. It looks like it was converted from an over exact cubic inch. This is a very interesting point. Since the inch has change noticeably with time then all the volume measurements have also. I wonder when the NIST formulated their conversion factors and if they took into account the changing value of the inch. Maybe it is time for the NIST to officially redefine the spoons and cups to the metric sizes that the spoons and cups are made to and not the nonsense they want them to be. Let me quote from something you wrote in about mid 2007 (http://www.metricationmatters.com/mm-newsletter-2007-06.html ) John M Steele wrote to add to the discussion that Bill Hooper and I had shared over the size of a tablespoon. To remind you, I had suggested that the tablespoon in the USA was a 'hidden' half-ounce but Bill Hooper disagreed. John M Steele noted: However, in the US all measuring spoons have been marked 1 Tablespoon/15 mL, and 1 teaspoon/5 mL for some time. John referred to NIST Handbook 44 where Appendix C provides definitions of teaspoons and tablespoons on pages C18 and C19. The NIST Handbook defines the measuring cup as 8 fluid ounces exactly. It defines the tablespoon as 3 teaspoons exactly, 1/2 fluid ounce exactly, and 15 milliliters. It defines the teaspoon as 1/3 tablespoon exactly, and 5 milliliters adding that a teaspoon and a tablespoon are rounded to the nearest milliliter. John then added: 5 mL and 15 mL is sufficiently accurate for any rational purpose, but teaspoon and tablespoon are defined precisely as rational integer ratios of fluid volume measure. If you pound through the chain of NIST Handbook definitions, 1 tablespoon = 231/256 cubic inches and 1 teaspoon = 77/256 cubic inches, and 1 cubic inch = (2.54 cm)^3, thus the exact conversion is more like 14.787 mL and 4.929 mL. Dry and wet measuring cups are of different designs, but the same capacity. Dry cups are brim fill, stricken level with the back edge of a knife. Wet cups are fill-to-mark. American cooking is entirely volumetric, and it is probably easier to convert to metric volume than determine the density of everything. The cup and tablespoon are noticably different than Australian, but no confusion as the terms are well defined and standardized by NIST (handbook 44 Appendix, C, SP811, etc) Again, Australian cooking leaders chose to increase the size of a cup during the metric transition. An Australian cup is 250 millilitres (up from 8 ounces or 10 %). This gave Australians the convenient relationship of having 4 cups to the litre, but it made it a little more difficult to divide into 1/4 cups and 1/3 cups. At our house, we cheat. When we are dividing cups, we think of them as holding 240 mL rather than 250 mL; then 1/4 cup is 60 mL, 1/3 cup is 80 mL, etc. The relationship between cups and spoons should only be a one time reference. Once the recipe is converted to metric and tested, then the metric ingredients become the official amounts and any past reference to old measures is discarded. Now, if only we could get Americans to convert the above volumes to metric. If you're looking for a model to copy, I can recommend the Australian way — because it works. One good reason not to follow it. Why follow a perfect working example when you can keep yourself confused forever? Jerry Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/ or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
