Just Hungry

I bought my scale the day after I received my KitchenAid (and then threatened each of my housemates with severe consequences should either be mis-handled). It drives me crazy when baking recipes do not give weight- and as an American, I don't care what weight measurement is used, as long as any weight is given (scales that have multiple options are my friend). Even when cooking, I'd rather have weight than "1/2 c. of chopped onions". What if my chopping is different than yours? Just tell me that you used 3 oz. of chopped onion and be done with it!
So- I am at least one American who concurs that weight is most important for baking ingredients.

Added bonus: I am so lazy that if I weigh it all into the bowl I am using to mix, I have fewer dishes to wash).

Maki-san,
Perhaps it's the 10 years I spent in Japan or the fact that I have a Japanese husband though I now live in the Midwestern US; in any case, I have a kitchen scale AND a Kitchen Aid mixer. Though I thoroughly enjoy the latter and am thankful I have the space for it, it's the former I can't do without. Thankfully, my scale came with a conversion chart, so those annoying American recipes that give me nothing but cups to work with can be salvaged. I agree with you; everyone should cook/bake with a scale!
Jamie

Ummm, that's a stick of butter = *8* Tbs= 4oz, I think...

Hate to have you short yourself on the lovely, lovely butter :o).

Kathy

Why do Americans speak English that's not the same as they speak in England?

We like to be different.

And we hate the metric system, too.

Other than that - I've got nothing ;-)

I can't speak as to why more American's don't use kitchen scales. I grew up not using one, so it is my first nature to not measure ingredients. What is funny is that when making pizza dough (or any bread products), I use measuring cups for a guideline, but use the "feel of the dough" to determine how much flour is needed. My mother taught me that the feel is more important than the recipe. My mother was a professional baker who used very large, old fashioned scales in her kitchen (that used removeable cast iron weights)since she was always cooking in bulk. I'm going to need to purchase a scale because some of her best dessert recipes are still designed to use 26 lbs. of flour at a time. It would be easier to break that weight down using weight, rather than cups.

The Carmel issue? I think it is just one of pronunciation. Some say car-muls, other say cara-mels. Or, Pea-cahns versus puh-cahns versus pea-cans for Pecans. Too many states and too many dialects. :-)

I love this discussion! I have never been able to remember conversions between teaspoon, Tablespoon, cup, quart, pint, etc. I keep a list of equivalent measures in the front of my recipe box.

I've always had the stereotype that food scales are for people on specific diets, like body builders measuring out their protein. I'll admit I didn't know people did "regular" cooking with a scale! My mother in the US and my mother-in-law in Japan both cook freestyle (practically no measurements going on), and they are who I learned from :)

This American likes the metric system, but doesn't own a scale--you're right, too fiddly. But then, I am an engineer, and metric is powers of ten while standard cup quart gallon is not.

My first major purchase after I went back to work after staying home raising my kids to kindergarten age was a red KitchenAid stand mixer. I used to work in commercial kitchens when I was in school back in the day, and nothing whipped a batch of potatoes or whipped cream like a KitchenAid. I always wished they made a slicer for the little KitchenAid that worked as well as the slicer attachment for the 5 foot tall industrial model, but they don't, so I use a knife. I used the KitchenAid for batch after batch of whole wheat refrigerator rolls when I used to bake. Now the poor thing is lucky to get to mix a batch of waffle batter every 6 months, because, sadly (or not so sadly?) my kids grew up and moved out. My daughter covets my KitchenAid--but she'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands!

Any baker who really cares about their bread should be using a scale to measure ingredients. I've worked in several restaurants over the years, in addition to being head baker at a bagel shop back on the East Coast, and anything that was going to be baked in an oven was carefully weighed beforehand.
I'm no longer in the food industry, but I nearly exclusively cook Japanese food at home, so I am never without my scale. (I don't even own a mixer - all my mixing is done by hand). Why risk the off chance that the flour will be a bit more dense then usual? Old-school bakers weigh their ingredients. Baking is straight-up chemistry, and weighing everything makes for a consistently good product every time.

I have a KA mixer, KA processor and kitchen scale in nyc. quite silly but true. I do love recipes with weights since the whole fluffing and leveling thing is fussy. and I forget how many 1/2 cups I've measured...

lots of ppl pronounce caramel as 'carmel' over here.

I feel the same way...but about the American system vs. the metric system. As a Canadian, I've had to learn that one cup is 250 mL and I always have to double check how many millimetres a tablespoon is. But we don't weigh any ingredients. I guess it is the same thing, I never learned how to bake using weight, but using cup and tablespoon measurements (and later, mL ones when I forced my mom to buy them). Few of our cookbooks have weight measurements, and the recipes that have been passed down through family definitely don't.

Where I live it is so dry that flour wouldn't actually gain any mass from humidity. We never have to sift flour to remove lumps and we have to ADD moisture sometimes to our brown sugar when it dries out. I always assume that one cup of flour will always weigh the same the next day. It would be an interesting experiment to see if weighing makes a difference.

Honestly? That's how I was raised to cook, and my mother is English (my folks met, married and had my brother and I over there!). I can't say I've ever had an real issues with using cups, and the only time I used a scale (when I had one) was if the recipe used weight instead of cups, teaspoons, etc. And to be perfectly honest, I've had many, many wonderful meals that don't even get that exact!

There are many wonderful cooks with family recipes that use "a pinch of this," "a little of that," and other amusing phrases, handed down from parent to child and frustrating those of us outside the family from getting the recipe! Trust me. I lived in the south for 9 years, and could never get an actual recipe for southern biscuits, as everything was memorized and eye-balled. But oh jeez was it good.

Maybe scales were expensive, unreliable, or hard to come by "back in the day"? I'm not sure. But, cups can be dead simple, inexpensive, durable and compact. I love American food, but lets be honest - its generally not the most sophisticated stuff out there - so the perceived need might not have been there. Scales and other such things might've been viewed as only being needed for restaurants, cooks and bakers (ie, "the pros").