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As someone not from the US, a "stick" sounds as precise a quantity as a "handful", a "dollop", a "pinch", a "dash", a "splash", or a "spoonful". An obvious ana
by EdwardDiego 5y ago
As someone not from the US, a "stick" sounds as precise a quantity as a "handful", a "dollop", a "pinch", a "dash", a "splash", or a "spoonful".
An obvious analogy for the lack of precision of "stick of butter" outside of US culture is my culture's "block of butter" - typically, a block of butter in my country is 500g. But not always.
So how do you know how much butter I intended you to use if I say "add half a block of butter" in my biscuit recipe?
How big is a block of butter where you live? Do they even sell it by the block? Or is it just sticks? Rough mental calculation, there's about 4 and nearly a half sticks to the block.
I guess there's a reason humans developed and use units of measurement.
Anecdote time! When I was young I tried to follow a recipe off the Internet that specified a stick of butter. So I diligently cut a long skinny bit of butter from my block of butter, a little confused as to what difference the shape made. The biscuits were rather awful.
- wil421 5y agoA stick is a shape. There are various shapes of butter in the US. Almost all butter that is wrapped in soft paper and has a “stick” or rectangle shape is 8oz (227g) for 2 “sticks” or 1 stick (block) that’s basically 2 sticks put together (Kerrygold). The larger packages are a pound, 16oz (~253.6g) and usually contain 4 sticks. There are some exceptions like Amish butter that come in a 2 pound roll (round block). Kerrygold and Finlandia butter from Europe adapt to the 8oz and 16oz standards just like a US company would adapt to UK or likely EU standards.
- themaninthedark 5y agoIf you said block of butter to me, I would assume 4 sticks or 1 lbs as you can buy it as such unseperated for bulk baking. See: https://www.495expressfoods.com/products/butter-salted-1lb-block https://www.495expressfoods.com/products/butter-salted-1lb-b...
- EdwardDiego 5y agoAh yep, so similar, but smaller than our typical block size of 500g. Although these days a lot of the fancier butter comes as 250g. This is probably one of my country's fanciest butter makers: https://lewisroadcreamery.co.nz/collections/butter https://lewisroadcreamery.co.nz/collections/butter
- acheron 5y agoA dash is 1/8 teaspoon and a pinch is 1/16 teaspoon, if that comes up.