|
| |
Measurements and Old &
Unusual Cooking Terms
How can any one tell how much a pinch is,
Aunt Jane?" asked Rose,
"Is it about as much as when you take
a pinch of anybody's arm?
Six Little
Cooks, 1877
In many of the old cookbooks, recipes and ingredients called for weighted
amounts like pounds, pints and quarts, but oftentimes, the recipes called for
measurements like a wineglass, a gill, a spoonful, butter as big as a hen's egg
and so on. Your grandmother's recipes may have strange terms. Below are a few.
It would be fun to journal this on a tag and attach it to an older recipe.
Addled
|
Rotten or spoiled
|
|
Butter the Size of
an Egg
|
About
1/4 cup of butter (2 ounces)
|
Butter the Size of a
Walnut
|
About two
tablespoons of butter
|
Coffee Spoons, Two
|
One teaspoon
|
|
Coffin
|
Pie crust or the dish or mold in which the pie
was baked
|
|
Cornmeal, 3
cups scant
|
One pound
|
Eggs
|
Use medium eggs in old recipes as extra-large eggs did not exist at the
turn-of-the-century
|
Few
grains
|
Less than 1/8 teaspoon
|
Five-cent jar
|
Usually an 8- to 12-ounce jar
|
Frizzle
|
Cooking an item in butter or fat, such as dried beef, until it curls or crisps
|
| Gem |
Muffin or cupcake (you will see this in a lot of
old cookbooks)
|
|
Gill
|
1/2 a cup
|
Handful
|
About one ounce
|
Hot
Oven
|
400 to 450 degrees
|
Indian Meal
|
Cornmeal
|
Lump
|
About two tablespoons
(usually referring to butter)
|
Moderate Oven
|
About 350 degrees
|
Pinch
|
1/16 teaspoon
|
Pound of eggs
|
About one dozen small eggs
|
Saltspoonful
|
About ¼ teaspoon (form a small spoon used to ladle salt from a cellar – a small
dish – before shakers were brought to the table
|
| Slow
Oven |
300 to 325 degrees
|
| Teacupful |
About 3/4 cup
|
| Wineglassful |
About ¼ cup
|
  |
