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What is the difference between dry and liquid measure when cooking?
There is a difference between dry and liquid volumetric measurements in the American system of weights and measures: for example, one dry pint (1/64 of a bushel) is 0.551 liters, while one fluid pint (1/8 of a gallon) is 0.473 liters. However...As a cook myself, I can say that there is no difference between dry and liquid measure in cooking; notice that you often measure flour and water in the same cup. Occasionally you see double cups with one side for wet and the other for dry ingredients, but that's a convenience for the cook. In the kitchen we use (I think) the fluid ounce, cup, pint, quart and so forth even when measuring dry ingredients. Elsewhere in the world, recipes are typically given in milliliters (or liters) and grams (or kilograms), again for both wet and dry ingredients.If you can find it, I recommend Isaac Asimov's essay "Forget It!" which goes into nauseating yet amusing detail about the unit conversions people were stuck with in order to do business in the olden days. Asimov's source was a 1000-page book of small print, called Pike's Arithmetic and published in 1790.
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