Americans are lazy cooks

[Dogonthebed]

I’m an avid Pinterest collector of recipes. I see something I like the look of then pin to that’s week meal plan only to find out it is an American recipe Recipe stretching it as they seem to have shortcuts for everything we can’t get in the UK. Can they actually cook? It is the equivalent of us making a cottage pie from a Coleman mix. Anyone else find it bizarre how much help they get for basic recipes then having the cheek to set up a blog as recipes??? They could just read the back of the instructions fgs!

The title is bashing, but the posts are not.

So it’s ok if it’s just the title? (not that I entirely agree the rest isn’t) 🙄

Its 250 grams if you're too lazy to Google.

A cup is a volume, not a weight. It's only 250 grams of something that weighs 250 grams per 237ml.

Way to show your ignorance here.

Cups is a US measurement. They make standard measures for them.

thank you bara
1 .new york apts have kitchens unless they are studios made from old huge housess
2 for the people who say they live in states and no one cooks you must be in a cave
many other things tooo much to write about
this is one of the most nasty threads

Measuring cups:
https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/295751552

I've got a set, but much prefer weighing.

That’s quite a generalisation, isn’t it?

Ive made quite a few recipes that are American and don’t include short cuts

What a lazy generalisation.
I use Pinterest a lot for recipes & yeah if I come across a recipe which lists cake mix etc, I scroll on by.
But if it's got different measurements it's really not hard to either convert to metric or buy a set of actual measuring cups (all supermarkets etc sell them, we have several) - lazy to just not bother tbh.
Also whoever said all the baking books were full of cake mix clearly wasn't looking very hard - Martha Stewart, Barefoot Contessa, Magnolia Bakery, hell even Williams-Sonoma have fab cookery & baking books.
Martha Stewart is the queen of cake - practically US royalty even with a stint in luxury prison.

To be fair I lived there for years and there are so very good chefs. However there are are a few when it comes to family meals, not chefs that omg you would not believe when they say oh it’s fresh and it’s a plate if processed stuff. Then you get the other extreme that they only eat vegan. Really depends where you are.

You said you prefer to use grams instead of cups. Hence pointing out 250 grams.

A cup can be used for either weight (250 g,) or volume (236 ml)

I’m American but live in England, I’ve bought measuring cups here. I’ve also lived and been in many New York apartments with kitchens.

I wasn’t impressed with some in your London homes, tinier kitchens than anything I’ve seen in NY. Just saying.

(a) I follow some great American cooks who cook from scratch. Not a boxed cake mix in sight.

(b) Cups and tablespoons are fine. A tablespoon of butter is 15g. There are lots of conversion tables widely available on the internet. I don't use cups for yeast recipes but they work for virtually everything else.

(c) Women who use shortcuts to cut down on their cooking time are not lazy, they've just got other stuff to do. I love cooking and generally do cook from scratch but that's not everyone.

This is very interesting, thanks for the clarification! I wouldn't be classed as an avid baker by any stretch but the whole " a cup of this" Or that used to confound meso I'd just guess & hope for the best!

I also think that's a clever way of measuring butter, here we have the butter measured off in grams on the side... so same same but differnet as the say in Thailand

And they don’t know a single American.
They’re getting all their info off YouTube and TikTok and other social media and making broad generalizations.
Typical bitchy women from any society, even the U.S. Women are the worst, most bitchy against each other when they should be the most supportive.
Nobody stopped to think that these shortcuts are because women work their asses off and the last thing they want to do is come home and spend 2 more hours in the kitchen making an elaborate meal while their ungrateful husband sits on his ass in the den scratching himself while drinking his fourth beer.
Sheezus.

Good lord, stop digging!

No it can't.

The weight of what's in the cup depends on the contents.
If this needs illustrating, think of a cup full of feathers and a cup full of lead.
Do they both weigh the same?

Just in case someone thinks they are serious, theTikTok recipes with Doritos, mince and processed cheese or whatever are generally either rage bait or specifically targeted to specific fetishes (note the usual crazy manicure and mixing every thing messily by hand)

It's the portion of cheese they use that absolutely destroys the recipe, I mean its just overloaded.

@GarlicMaybeNot do you have the same antipathy for tablespoons/teaspoons as a measure? They are also volumes not weights. Weird hill to die on.
I will say every American blog or recipe that pops up on Insta/google feels slightly weird to me, random insertion of tins and packet mixes and taken altogether it does rather give the impression that Americans consider using heavily processed convenience foods is the same as cooking from scratch. You just wouldn’t get that in a British recipe, if they were using Kraft mac and cheese there would be an enormous spiel at the beginning justifying why. Delia bought out a book using “shortcut” ingredients, which were things like tinned potatoes and it was debated in the papers for weeks. Viewed from what I can find online here, it feels like an unappealing food culture.

I completely agree. I looked up a recipe and it was ’open this can of biscuits, add hot dogs’.

or it’s something covered in Parmesan. Why so much Parmesan?!

Let's not forget our own...

Yes - they are actual measurements and the butter comes in convenient half sticks with the tablespoon measurements marked on the outside paper - it’s actually a lot more convenient when baking once you get used to it. You can just slice off as many tablespoons as you need.

I moved from the UK to the US and I ended up rebuying some of my favourite cook books here so I have the American version as it’s easier to do the measurements - and as I’m doing recipes I’ve done loads of times using a weighing scale vs cups etc - you get exactly the same result.

American women don’t have a monopoly on working long hours.
It doesn’t take 2 hours to make a proper home made meal.
I didn’t realise American women were so oppressed? Do your partners not cook at all?

It’s bashing mainstream American cooking, not the people.

Of course it's bashing people. And just one more example of what we Americans have to put up with periodically to belong to this site.

And so many incorrect assumptions. As to measurements, we are a different country. We do things differently.

No, @Flamango, I have an antipathy for people who don't understand basic mathematical concepts, and keep haranguing people who do.

Volume is not interchangeable with weight.

FFS.

I worked as a nanny in the States when I was 18. It was my first week and was babysitting for my two kids and another couples two and it was already nearly bath and bed time. . I was told they liked Mac and Cheese. I thought was a bit off and they should have told me earlier as it takes 15 mins for pasta another ten under the grill or oven etc. . I was actually shocked when I was the handed a box of tiny macaroni that came with a packet of vivid orange powder to mix with milk. More shocked when they ate the revolting stuff.
They’re mum still prides herself on being a great cook. It’s literally just oven cooked veg or meat with some ready made seasoning mix every time.

I agree Brits do this as well but we don’t call it a “recipe”.

This, but hateful worded title as well.