I can be a very stubborn person with certain things. I mean very stubborn. And one thing that I really don’t like is any measurement system apart from metric. Would you like to spend the next 5 hours trying out different pesto recipes? Sure! How about taking 5 minutes to convert pounds into grams? Not a chance. This however changed when the history nerd in me got its hands on some recipes from old cookbooks. There is no way of getting around it. So to make the process as painless as possible, I decided to make a handy dandy reference chart.

Recipe for Artichokes with white sauce from John Nott cookbook The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary published in 1723 — Recipe for Artichokes with white sauce from John Nott cookbook *The Cooks and Confectioners Dictionary* published in 1723

It is important to remember that these old recipes weren’t written for the precision and consistency as their modern contemporaries are (or in some cases pretend to be). They were written more as guidelines or suggestions, because people who most likely would be using these books already knew a thing or two about cooking and at the very least had a vague idea what the final dish would look like. Open any old cookbook and very quickly you are going to encounter more intuitive measurements such as a pinch, a dash, as large as a walnut/egg or a smidgen. Sometimes instead of measurements, there are instructions to add enough of something to achieve a certain consistency, for example, add enough flour to make a stiff paste.

On the other hand having measurements doesn’t make things that much easier. Like John Townsend notes in his blogpost, even one measurement can have variations of the actual weight or capacity. He takes gallon as an example. As it turns out there are more that one type. For liquids there ale gallon and wine gallon, with the former being 20% larger that the latter. And don’t forget the gallon to measure dry ingredients (such as grain and flour) which was 16% larger than a wine gallon.

Then there is the topic of UK (imperial) measurements vs US measurements. Both British and American systems derived from the old English measurements and up until the 19th century were one and the same. In 1824 the British passed The Weights and Measures Act when they redefined some of the old measurements, while the Americans kept to the old saying the ,,if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”. So the date when the book was published is also important as that could affect your measurements as well. And lastly the older the recipes the more chance there might be some regional differences, in which case either you can do the responsible thing and do more research or do the period thing and use the recipe as a guideline.

Confused yet? No? Well don’t forget to account that the ingredients themselves might have changed as well. A classic example are eggs. It is a common belief nowadays that the chickens used to lay smaller eggs, which makes sense because their descendants are bred to be bigger nowadays. Which begs the question how much bigger are the modern eggs compared to the one in the 18th century? And how should I adjust the recipe to work with the ingredients available to me? So far I have been buying the smallest eggs from my grocery store and haven’t encountered problems. Of course now that I put it on a be it virtual paper, the curse has been cast and my first born brioche will need to be sacrificed to the chicken to restore force in the kitchen.

I am not after the truest and most accurate recreation. I will leave that to the academics and people who have the access to a period kitchen for now. Instead I work with what I have, i.e. a modern kitchen, electric stovetop and produce from my local grocery store, and with what I have learned so far, always acknowledging there is so much yet to learn.

With all of that in mind, these are the measurements that I use when I make a recipe for the very first time and then adjust from there.

Oven temperatures

Weights

* all metric measurements have been rounded to the nearest round number for ease. If you are working with large quantities, I would suggest to look at the official measurement conversion as the rounding of number while not so important when cooking with small quantities it will affect the final product in a large scale cooking.

NB! The pound and ounce (avoir.) measurements are the same for both Imperial and U.S. Customary systems of measurement. After 1824 the units for liquid and dry capacity in the British system became the same.

Notes on measurements from the cookbook Cookery and Pastry by Susanna MacIver published 1789 — Notes on measurements from the cookbook *Cookery and Pastry* by Susanna MacIver published 1789

NB! Cookbooks published in Scotland are used a slightly different liquid measurement system than the English before 1824. Both Mrs Fraser and Mrs MacIver has included notes on the topic in their cookbooks. Since we are all lazy in heart, above is a screenshot from Mrs MacIver cookbook to keep things easy.