United States Measures
The US uses pounds and ounces (avoirdupois) for weight, and US customary units for volume. For measures used in cookbooks published in other nations navigate to the apropos regional section in Traditional measurement systems.
Measures are classified as either dry measures or fluid measures. Some of the fluid and dry measures have similar names, but the actual measured volume is quite different. A recipe will generally specify which measurement is required. U.S. recipes are commonly in terms of fluid measures.
| Fluid Measures | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit | Abbrev. | Defined | fl oz | mL |
| drop | – | 1⁄96 tsp. | 1⁄576 | 0.05 |
| teaspoon | tsp. or t. | 1⁄3 tbsp. | 1⁄6 | 4.93 |
| tablespoon | tbsp. or T. | 1⁄2 fl.oz. | 1⁄2 | 14.79 |
| fluid ounce | fl.oz. or oz. | 1⁄128 gal. | 1 | 29.57 |
| jigger | — | 11⁄2 fl.oz. | 1.5 | 44.36 |
| gill | gi. | 1⁄2 cup | 4 | 118.29 |
| cup | C | 1⁄2 pint | 8 | 236.59 |
| pint | pt. | 1⁄2 quart | 16 | 473.18 |
| fifth | — | 1⁄5 gal. | 25.36 | 750 |
| quart | qt. | 1⁄4 gal. | 32 | 946.35 |
| gallon | gal. | 231 in3 | 128 | 3,785.41 |
| Dry Measures | ||||
| Unit | Abbrev. | Defined | cu.in. | mL |
| pint, dry | pt. | 1⁄2 dry qt | 33.60 | 550.61 |
| quart, dry | qt. | 1⁄8 peck | 67.20 | 1,101.22 |
| peck | pk. | 1⁄4 bushel | 537.61 | 8,809.77 |
| bushel | bu | 684.5π in3 | 2,150.42 | 35,239.07 |
Dashes, pinches, and smidgens are all traditionally very small amounts well under a teaspoon, but not more uniformly defined. In the early 2000s some companies began selling measuring spoons that defined a dash as 1⁄8 teaspoon, a pinch as 1⁄16 teaspoon, and a smidgen as 1⁄32 teaspoon. Based on these spoons, there are two smidgens in a pinch and two pinches in a dash.
In domestic cooking, bulk solids, notably flour and sugar, are measured by volume, often cups, though they are sold by weight at retail. Weight measures are used for meat. Butter may be measured by either weight (1⁄4 lb) or volume (3 tbsp) or a combination of weight and volume (1⁄4 lb plus 3 tbsp); it is sold by weight but in packages marked to facilitate common divisions by eye. (As a sub-packaged unit, a stick of butter, at 1⁄4 lb, is a de facto measure in the US)
Cookbooks in Canada use the same system, although pints and gallons would be taken as their Imperial quantities unless specified otherwise. Following the adoption of the metric system, recipes in Canada are frequently published with metric conversions.
Read more about this topic: Cooking Weights And Measures
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states and/or measures:
“Because of these convictions, I made a personal decision in the 1964 Presidential campaign to make education a fundamental issue and to put it high on the nation’s agenda. I proposed to act on my belief that regardless of a family’s financial condition, education should be available to every child in the United States—as much education as he could absorb.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“The United States is the only great nation whose government is operated without a budget. The fact is to be the more striking when it is considered that budgets and budget procedures are the outgrowth of democratic doctrines and have an important part in developing the modern constitutional rights.... The constitutional purpose of a budget is to make government responsive to public opinion and responsible for its acts.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The admission of the States of Wyoming and Idaho to the Union are events full of interest and congratulation, not only to the people of those States now happily endowed with a full participation in our privileges and responsibilities, but to all our people. Another belt of States stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right and wrong:MThe first of these will comprehend the duties of religion;Mthe second, those of morality, which are so inseparably connected together, that you cannot divide these two tables ... without breaking and mutually destroying them both.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)