65 replies to this topic

[sparrowgrass]

Andie, for as long as I can remember, my mom's laundry basket was (and still is) a wooden bushel basket, lined not with a sheet, but with the skirt of an old dress, red with black print. That dress must be from the fifties, and still on duty.

A 'hand' of bananas--does that count?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

A 'hand' of bananas--does that count?

Only if you consider that the entire bunch is an "arm" (brazo) and that a single banana is a "finger" (dedo.) These are the trade terms, folks!

For me, the oddest ones are from Ecuador. A single clove of garlic is a "tooth" but a whole garlic is a "fist" (and a fist of garlic is very difficult to come by - most places just sell peeled teeth.) And don't get me started on the customary units of weight! I buy flour in arroba sacks - the definition of this being one quarter of the amount a donkey can carry. Arbitrarily, it's either 25 lbs or 25 kg, depending on the merchant. I buy other things by quintales - the quintal being the full donkey-load, 100 lbs or 100 kg, again depending on the merchant. I buy salt in "fistfuls" (5 lbs), and cacao in a unit that I still don't fully understand, but which translates as "grains" - which is odd, because I end up with an even number of pounds, but that amount varies from merchant to merchant.

Edit - that should have read "cacao" not "cocoa" - I buy the latter in kilos.

Edited by Panaderia Canadiense, 06 June 2012 - 08:00 AM.

[Beebs]

"Two-fer".

As in "a two-fer of beer", which is Canadian for a 24 pack of beer. Not really a strange word for measurement, but definitely colloquial and commonly used. Although I've never heard it used to refer to anything else but beer....

[David A. Goldfarb]

Carl's Steaks--a Philly cheesesteak joint on E34th st. In Manhattan has five or six kinds of beer--all popular American brands--in those little 7oz. bottles.

[haresfur]

I would like to contribute "punnet," which is the basket-like container you buy berries in. I think it's a British term, I learned it from my Aussie husband. Interestingly, he also uses it for half-gallon containers (or whatever the metric size would be, 2000 ml?) of ice cream.

I can second punnet, always used for soft berries (in the UK at least). Its bigger brother is the chip. You can get around 6 punnets in a chip. It is a minefield of units over here, we have sort of gone metric, but still stick with imperial when we can (just in case metric doesn't catch on?). Large quantities of vegetables (particulary root veg) can be purchased by the stone, which is 14lb. Onions are often purchased by the net.

Cooked shellfish is often purchased by the pint (or half pint).

I still haven't figured out the volume of a punnet - or does it vary?

[Broken English]

Eleven Madison Park cookbook, as great as it is, uses exclusively the whole "cups and spoons" measurements, and the one that got me was the recipe calling for three cups of sliced potatoes. The mind boggles.