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Don't get me started! SO many cookbooks have useless indicators of size: eg: a thumb of fresh ginger - whose thumb?; 1 carrot: how big?; 3cm of fresh ginger: what diameter? What is wrong with the good old avoir dupois/weight system!!! Or the metric system : I really don't care which but please, authors, be really specific!!

So many examples to add but I'll stick to 2 :)

I am positive that the red onions I get in my stores are significantly larger than Jamie Oliver (as one exmple of many) gets.  When he calls for 5 red onions and mine are the size of softballs...that can't be right?!?  A mass or even cups of sliced/diced expected would certainly help.

And a particular favourite of mine from a book on my shelves is "half a bag of orzo"....uh...how much? I figured it out based on what I was making but I can imagine the frustration of novice cooks!

Originally Posted by: Fyretigger

And cookbooks from the 50s and 60s loved to use can sizes (e.g., #6) instead of weights or volumes.

Having learned to cook in that time period, I can tell you this made perfect sense. Some cookbook authors and women's magazine made it their mission to teach home cooks how to use canned and frozen ingredients. Think Poppy Cannon (Cookbooks | Eat Your Books) The basic idea was throw the contents of a few cans into a pot and have a gourmet dish. My quick chili recipe and my tamale pie recipes are still can based. If the cans have grown or shrunk a bit, it really doesn't matter. What I love are recipes that call for spoonfuls or cupfuls referring to the dinner ware in you kitchen ... the amounts can vary wildly. Not to mention that the sizes of small, medium, and large are so subjective and so dependent on where you live.

I think my "favourite" is a bunch of herbs I can turn right out of my door and go to the supermarket and buy a bunch of parsley (or coriander or dill or basil) that is about 25g/1oz Or I can turn left and go to the green grocer and buy a bunch almost the size of a bridal bouquet for much the same money; if I go to the Farmer's Market I get a slightly smaller bouquet I've no idea how big a bunch is in, say, Sacramento or Rome I quite like the way Sabrina Ghayour handles it, she encourages you to buy the big bunches but gives quantities in terms of the supermarket packets, as most people can visualise that, or weigh it if worried,

Originally Posted by: averythingcooks

So many examples to add but I'll stick to 2 :)

I am positive that the red onions I get in my stores are significantly larger than Jamie Oliver (as one exmple of many) gets.  When he calls for 5 red onions and mine are the size of softballs...that can't be right?!?  A mass or even cups of sliced/diced expected would certainly help.

And a particular favourite of mine from a book on my shelves is "half a bag of orzo"....uh...how much? I figured it out based on what I was making but I can imagine the frustration of novice cooks!

I wondered about vegetable sizes.  Are my American zucchini larger or smaller than those of the British authors I love?  How much is half an eggplant (and what am I supposed to do with the other half)?  I usually add the amount I think I will like, but that's with 40 years of experience.  My detail oriented son wants weight, ideally metric.

zephy

Yeah potatoes and onions are the worst, especially for things like gnocchi where the amount really matters!  Also as a gardener bunches of greens really throws me as I rarely buy things like kale ha.  I generally am trying to pack a lot in.  Ooh and my garlic cloves are HUGE so I tend to adjust if it's a 20 clove recipe 😉

Originally Posted by: SKidd

Yeah potatoes and onions are the worst, especially for things like gnocchi where the amount really matters!  Also as a gardener bunches of greens really throws me as I rarely buy things like kale ha.  I generally am trying to pack a lot in.  Ooh and my garlic cloves are HUGE so I tend to adjust if it's a 20 clove recipe 😉

I was looking at a latke reipe the other day - 3 eggs, precise measures of flour, salt, pepper and baking powder,
But the main ingredient was 6 potatoes, size and variety not specified, which iseemed silly to me

Although as a Brit I wouldn't use cup measure for most things I do quite like it when US authors specify something like 
"3 carrots, finely dice, (1 cup)" - I can visualise that and see if 2 of my carrots is plenty or what other adjustment is required

Originally Posted by: Fyretigger

… Wikipedia … have a handy guide to Chicken Egg Sizes.…

This page lists the UK sizes https://www.egginfo.co.u...ry-information/egg-sizes In my experience extra large eggs are rare. Most supermarkets have medium or large and sometimes a mixture of both.

I'm finding that random (mixed, assorted) weight eggs are increasingly sold here in London UK, especially organic eggs - as those come from smaller producers in general I guess there would be excess wastage in grading. There's usually a minimum weight somewhere in the small print, though not obviously on my current box, the 2 remaining eggs are 55g and 61g,

Ingredients measured by volume can be a problem for us Brits. Liquids and fine grains (say flour or sugar) are OK, but a cup of chopped onion depends very much on how fine or coarse you chop it, whilst 100g or 1 oz will always be the same no matter how you chop it. 

Weight is not a flawless measure either. I recently made Pão de Queijo from The Savory Baker. It calls for 3.5 ounces 1.75 cups each of grated parmesan reggiano and pecorino romano. I measured by weight. But my cheeses were both considerably dried out. It didn't occur to me how much it would throw off the recipe. It looked like an awful lot of cheese, but I went with it instead of cross checking with the volume measure. Instead of cheese bread, I ended up with bread cheese! It's edible, but as something like cheese, not something like bread.