Forum

Looking through the descriptions of Books available at this site, I found several books that seemed perfect.  The only problem is they have American weights and measures.  I don't want to convert them every time I want to cook.  Is it possible to indicate on the site whether the book has the two forms listed in the recipe?  It's easy to do this when you examine a book in the store and discard it if does not suit, but there may be no way of knowing this if it is bought from EYB. 

It works the other way around, too -- Americans have to convert if the measurements are in Imperial or metric units!  But I've noticed that many books include conversion tables, so you don't have to do all the math yourself.  I'm sure there are also conversion charts available online that can be printed out and stuck up on your fridge, so if a book doesn't have a chart you're not standing there doing math!  

I wouldn't avoid buying a book just because the measurements aren't American!  It's pretty easy to find (and buy) kitchen scales and measuring cups that are calibrated in metric, American and/or Imperial units, which also simplifies things and lets you use books published in a variety of countries!  

Another option might be to write in the conversions next to the measurements. A little pre-cooking work would save you from trying to do the math while sauteeing at the same time!

Thanks for the suggestions.  I'll certainly try them and see which are most helpful.  I'll start with trying out some of the recipes in The Silver Palate Cook Book, a book recommended by a stranger at a second-hand book sale.  She told me the recipes were excellent, so I'll give them a go (using my new strategies for "conversion"

Elise

Hi,

As another solution, it could be useful to have a static page available on the site (in the bookshelf somewhere) that would list all the common conversions, so it can be a handy reference when people are looking for something.

I'm having similar problems with the recipes on the site, the ingredient lists in the books i've been looking at have no quantites listed.  This makes the shopping list somewhat less then useful, as I'd get to the shop and not know how much of a ingredident I need.  So i'll either under-buy and end up unable to make the recipe, or over-buy and potentially lead to food wastage. 

As one of the reasons I signed up here was to take advantage of being able to check my cookbooks from the store/market when goods are on special or of good quality. Its somewhat disappointing.

I thinkg that simply being able to add quantities to the shopping list would solve this problem.

This seems counter-intuitive to how I understand EYB. As an index to cookbooks, EYB provides a way to look up recipes in many different kinds of ways "across your entire library". And it incorporates slick cross-references and links multiple editions of cookbooks together. But it doesn't store any of the contents of the recipes. So EYB's database doesn't know that a given recipe calls for 1/3 cup of milk (or 80 ml of milk, if it's a metric recipe).

Regarding conversion, here's a handy link that I use from time to time. There are lots of them out there. When I'm cooking from a metric recipe, I either open the link and keep it open while measuring, or I just jot the appropriate measurements in my recipe. They join the grease spots and other spills that show I've used that recipe!

http://www.jsward.com/cooking/conversion.shtml

This online site has several converters for cooks, and does conversions between metric, US and Imperial measurements. http://www.onlineconversion.com/cooking.htm

This is another that seems easy to use:  http://www.cooking-conversion.com/

Just Google for other converters, like Fahrenheit to/from Celsius.  These do all the work for you and let you enjoy cookbooks no matter where they are published!

Once you've converted the measurements in your recipe, just jot them in the recipe itself, or if you're trying to keep your cookbooks pristine, use a sticky note.  Then you'll always have the measurements to easily make the recipe again!