American/British measures to metric

While most of the recipes in this archive use American measurements, not
all do--some might use British-style measurements.  I've done my best to
make this easy to use, but it's an inherently confusing system. I've
included a short list of equivalences at the end to try to clear things
up a little.

A couple of notes:

American recipes rarely use pints and quarts as dry
measures, except perhaps for things like pints of blueberries or ice
cream or the like. I have included the dry measures for completeness'
sake, but the two measures are close enough that I usually just use a
liquid cup measure to measure out pints and, sometimes, quarts.


American recipes are more likely to use teaspoons and tablespoons than
fluid ounces for the purposes of measurement in cooking.

TERM          ABBREVIATION       MEASUREMENT


cup            c., C.            a unit of volume equal to 16
                                    tablespoons or 8 fluid ounces (237
                                    milliliters)

fluid ounce   fl oz, fl. oz.     American: a liquid measure equal to
                                    29.57 milliliters
                                 British:  a liquid or dry measure equal
                                    to 28.41 milliliters

gallon         gal.              American:  a unit of volume used in
                                    liquid measure, equal to 3.785
                                    liters or 4 quarts or 64 fluid
                                    ounces
                                 British:  a unit of volume, used in dry
                                     and liquid measure, equal to 4.546
                                     liters or 4 quarts

inch          in, in.            a unit of length equal to 2.54
                                     centimeters

ounce         oz, oz.            American: if dry, a unit of weight
                                    equal to 28.35 grams;
                                    if liquid, see FLUID OUNCE

pint          p., pt.            American:  if liquid, a unit of volume
                                    equal to 0.473 liters, or 1/8 gallon
                                    or 16 fluid ounces;
                                    if dry, a unit of volume equal to
                                    0.551 liter or 1/2 quart
                                 British:  a unit of volume, used in dry
                                    and liquid measure, equal to 0.568
                                    liters

pound         lb.                a unit of weight equal to 453.592 grams
                                    or 16 ounces

quart         q., qt, qt.        American: if liquid, a unit of volume
                                    equal to 0.946 liters or 1/4 gallon
                                    or 32 ounces;
                                    if dry, a unit of volume equal
                                    to 2 pints (1.101 liters)
                                 British:  a unit of volume, used in dry
                                    and liquid measure, equal to 1.136
                                    liters 

teaspoon       t., tsp., tsp     a unit of volume equal to 1/3
                                    tablespoon (about 5 milliliters)
                                    
tablespoon     T., tbs., tbsp.   a unit of volume equal to 3 teaspoons
                                    or 1/2 fluid ounce (about 15
                                    milliliters)

EQUIVALENCES:

  3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon = 1/2 fl. oz.
  16 tablespoons = 8 fl. oz. = 1 cup
  16 ounces (dry) = 1 pound
  1 gallon = 4 quarts = 8 pints = 16 cups