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sooo, sooo true - I'm always having to convert! A Britisher living in Oz with a lot of American books!.. 

Let's call it a pint.....then it's the same!

Actually.....I'd be fine if the US converted to metric..................

Originally Posted by: JimCampbell

Let's call it a pint.....then it's the same!

Of course a US and a UK pint are actually different volumes of liquid!! Don't ask me how much by, but I know my husband complained a lot that US pints are tiny when we lived in the States.

Thank you for sharing this article.

I grew up in the US and still have my great grandmother's measuring cups. I have lived in the UK for 18 years though and have changed my way of cooking/baking completely. I now prefer weighing and my books are littered with pencilled in grams where there were once cups. 

I also find myself cheering on chefs who provide weights for things that can vary wildly. How much does one butternut squash weigh? One courgette? We grow a portion of our own food on our allotment and leaving a courgette on the vine for just an extra day can change that number drastically! 

Having said all of that, I still use my American cookbooks occasionally and it helps to be "bilingual" in the kitchen. I remember learning the "right" way to measure flour, sugars etc. My large family loved to try new techniques and gadgets and cuisines. It imprinted on me a fearless way to look at food and I still love to try new things, even if they don't ever make the cut again. 

Originally Posted by: FJT

Of course a US and a UK pint are actually different volumes of liquid!! Don't ask me how much by, but I know my husband complained a lot that US pints are tiny when we lived in the States.

According to a quick calc in the browser a US pint is 0.8326743 of an imperial pint. Your husband is correct.

Originally Posted by: Rinshin

I am used to using cups cooking from American sources but I find it hard to downsize recipes using cups and spoons. Now that I prefer to make no more than 3 servings of recipes, it is sometimes hard to quickly reduce appropriately. If weight was used I can quickly calculate except things like 1 egg for 6-8 servings down to half which requires me to crack the egg and eyeball half.

A very valid argument for cutting, or increasing, recipe proportions.

I would like to see cookbook authors include the US and metric proportions next to each ingredient.

I see value in weighing ingredients for things like bread. From the bread books I've read, moving to weight seperates the bakers who make good bread from the bakers who make really good bread.

In terms of liquid, I would think it's more of a push, although the point mentioned earlier about the variance of a US vs. UK pint argues for weight.

It's nice to follow the authors measurements for a dish the first time I make it in order to have a sense of the taste profile they are after.

But in the end I tend to use the measurements more as guidelines than rules/specifics. I often play with proportions in protien, vegetables, herbs, and spices. For me it's moving away from specific measurements which allows us to play with food.