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
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“What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others.”
—Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928)
“In the United States there’s a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“It is impossible for a stranger traveling through the United States to tell from the appearance of the people or the country whether he is in Toledo, Ohio, or Portland, Oregon. Ninety million Americans cut their hair in the same way, eat each morning exactly the same breakfast, tie up the small girls’ curls with precisely the same kind of ribbon fashioned into bows exactly alike; and in every way all try to look and act as much like all the others as they can.”
—Alfred Harmsworth, Lord Northcliffe (1865–1922)
“The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)