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Naftoor

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I'd suggest entering the 21st century and switching over to the metric system, but it would probably just become another hot divisive political issue and the next chapter in the culture wars... :rolleyes:

only weirdos use Fahrenheit and Feet & Inches
In engineering school, I was enamored with the simplicity of unit conversions of the metric system. In an engineering job, you can take my thou, inches and feet from my cold, dead fingers.

The jump between cm and m is too large to be practical for a lot of things. There needs to be something between the two. Even the decimeter is too small to be really useful. Something that’s like a a half, or even a third of a meter. Almost like a foot.

And kilometer/hour for speed? It’s as bad as the celcius system is for daily temperatures. I don’t need to know the temperature of boiling water when I go outside, I need to know if it’s shorts weather. I don’t need to be going into triple digits for speed, when fewer digits convey the information more quickly.
 

esoo

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In engineering school, I was enamored with the simplicity of unit conversions of the metric system. In an engineering job, you can take my thou, inches and feet from my cold, dead fingers.

The jump between cm and m is too large to be practical for a lot of things. There needs to be something between the two. Even the decimeter is too small to be really useful. Something that’s like a a half, or even a third of a meter. Almost like a foot.

And kilometer/hour for speed? It’s as bad as the celcius system is for daily temperatures. I don’t need to know the temperature of boiling water when I go outside, I need to know if it’s shorts weather. I don’t need to be going into triple digits for speed, when fewer digits convey the information more quickly.

All of those "complaints" about metric is because you are used to imperial. If you've grown up with one system, it becomes habit. Your interaction with the scale is what you've grown used to. You only know shorts weather in Fahrenheit as that's what your used to. I don't have a clue as I'm used to metric - shorts weather is >15C
 

Qapla'

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As in Alberta Premium?
Just did a bit more looking-up; apparently Alberta Rye (as in Dark Batch) and Alberta Distillers (as in Alberta Premium) are unrelated.

What are your views of either of them, if any, then?
 

ian

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Fahrenheit is the only part of the imperial system that makes sense.

I'd also like to point out that the "imperial system" has a branding problem. Imagine the inventors of the two systems throwing their ideas back and forth at a bar.

"What're you gonna call yours?"

"Well, I'm thinking the measurement system, or something close to that, just to indicate well what it's used for."

"Wow, that's pretty basic and not very forward thinking. I'm going to honor the king with my system. The monarchy is forever and so is my system."
 
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I'm fine with both just don't use Kelvin.
On that note, every weather forecast should have an apparent temperature alongside the actual one, 70F/21C are very different in Seattle and LA.
 

HumbleHomeCook

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I've always wanted the USA to join the sensible world and transition to metric, a better system for sure—President Carter tried, sadly the actor fella that followed him put a stop to it.

His name was Ronald Reagan. A Unites States president. You know, like Jimmy Carter.
 

MSicardCutlery

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Just did a bit more looking-up; apparently Alberta Rye (as in Dark Batch) and Alberta Distillers (as in Alberta Premium) are unrelated.

What are your views of either of them, if any, then?
I haven't had the rye, but AB Premium is ok, but boring, very generic for a whiskey.
 

Jovidah

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What’s next?—ten days in a week, numbered 1-10, because it’s too hard to remember Monday comes after Sunday?
Calendars are a bit different since it makes sense to tie at least some of it to solar cycles or lunar cycles. The one we currently have isn't entirely ridiculous.
I'm for every country using their own medieval measurement like how Jiro use Sun, the pure chaos would be fun.
I think this was exactly the issue the metric system tried to solve, with lots of local measuring systems being in existance.
0.025m ginger
12.5ml garlic
0.11kg chicken thighs, deboned
2.37 deciliters chicken stock
29.57 ml egg
Etc

Definitely an improvement.
Problem is you're mixing volume and weights... of course it's not going to work like that. Althoguh admittedly plenty of US recipes do the same, only with imperial measurements.
But volumetric measurement is inherently inferior.... if you wrote it all out as grams it wouldn't be such a problem, and that's exactly what bakers do.
 

Jovidah

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In engineering school, I was enamored with the simplicity of unit conversions of the metric system. In an engineering job, you can take my thou, inches and feet from my cold, dead fingers.
You don't happen to have worked on the Mars Climate Orbiter?
The jump between cm and m is too large to be practical for a lot of things. There needs to be something between the two. Even the decimeter is too small to be really useful. Something that’s like a a half, or even a third of a meter. Almost like a foot.
That's why we invented decimals. You should try them some time!
And kilometer/hour for speed? It’s as bad as the celcius system is for daily temperatures. I don’t need to know the temperature of boiling water when I go outside, I need to know if it’s shorts weather. I don’t need to be going into triple digits for speed, when fewer digits convey the information more quickly.
KM/H is arbitrary because our measurement of time is relatively arbitrary and still based on a rather old system. But the same applies to MP/H. But at least the part before the /H makes a lot more sense.
And I fail to see the consistency in requiring triple digits to decide upon clothing yet despising them to denote speed.
 

Michi

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But volumetric measurement is inherently inferior.... if you wrote it all out as grams it wouldn't be such a problem, and that's exactly what bakers do.
Amen.

The volumetric stuff keeps kicking around because, even after all this time, a scale is not a piece of standard kitchen equipment. I strongly suspect that households with a scale are a (considerable) minority.
 

M1k3

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Amen.

The volumetric stuff keeps kicking around because, even after all this time, a scale is not a piece of standard kitchen equipment. I strongly suspect that households with a scale are a (considerable) minority.
And if they do happen to have one, in the states, it's in imperial. 😐
 

Michi

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And don't get me started on bloody cups.
  • Metric: 250 ml
  • US customary: 236 ml
  • US legal: 240 ml
  • Korea and Japan: 200 ml
Every time I see a recipe with cups, I have to figure out which one it bloody uses… And then, because for things like bread, small errors make a big difference, I then find an online table that tells me the density of flour and, armed with that, I can finally turn that into grams.

Life as a cook is hard. Really hard…
 

Michi

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Oh yeah, tablespoons…
  • Metric: 15 ml
  • US: 14.8 ml
  • Australia: 20 ml
Real fun when a recipe calls for a tablespoon of salt, and I accidentally use the Australian one for a US recipe. But, of course, depending on the salt, it can weigh anything from 0.8 g/ml to 1.25 g/ml. A US tablespoon of sea salt flakes weighs 11.84 g, and an Australian tablespoon of table salt weighs 25 g, which is more than double.

To add to the fun, a tablespoon of "kosher salt" is a meaningless measure unless I know the brand: Morton kosher salt is almost twice as dense as Diamond Crystal.

Glad to have gotten that off my chest…
 

Justinv

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Oh yeah, tablespoons…
  • Metric: 15 ml
  • US: 14.8 ml
  • Australia: 20 ml
Real fun when a recipe calls for a tablespoon of salt, and I accidentally use the Australian one for a US recipe. But, of course, depending on the salt, it can weigh anything from 0.8 g/ml to 1.25 g/ml. A US tablespoon of sea salt flakes weighs 11.84 g, and an Australian tablespoon of table salt weighs 25 g, which is more than double.

To add to the fun, a tablespoon of "kosher salt" is a meaningless measure unless I know the brand: Morton kosher salt is almost twice as dense as Diamond Crystal.

Glad to have gotten that off my chest…
You’re good. I have encountered only one recipe that calls for enough salt. And that was because it mistakenly used TB instead of ts.

Oh, death to unsalted butter. Begone!
 
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