UK and America are two countries separated by a common language, UK and US Q&A

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Continuation of the previous thread where posters from the UK ask questions like 'what the hell is going on with the gaps in US toilet doors'; and posters fro the US ask things like 'what is with wearing stripes'

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a2149133-to-think-there-is-something-wrong-with-Americans?msgid=48969042#48969042

Capitol is for the building. Capital is for the city.

Scone beat me to it. That's a weird spelling thing I always forget. :(

Capitol is for the building. Capital is for the city.

How have I made it my entire life without knowing that? My teachers never corrected me when I wrote "capital building" in papers...

Angel Food (or Devils Food) are not common cakes over here. Brownies are a (relatively) recent thing too. The most common cake is the Victoria Sandwich, or a sponge cake (which is similar but much lighter and has no fat in it). A chocolate cake/sponge is the same recipe as the others but you take out an ounce of flour and replace it with cocoa.

You have to grease your pans otherwise they stick to the sides of your cake tin (not pan!) because until relatively recently cake tins were make of steel not non stick. Even now, unless you spend ££ on non stick, its best not to bother and just buy stainless steel and line them with greaseproof paper (baking parchment I think in the US?).

Oh and we call it cake mix, not batter.

A lot of the recipes now in common use in the UK are a direct result of the war. When you didnt have much, you made it stretch so thats why a lot of our cake/biscuit recipes are less luxurious than the US versions.

Just checked and it says "State Capitol" in my book, so presumably that means they went to the building?

I always grease my cake pans, too. But if you grease an angel cake pan, it won't climb up the sides like it's supposed to. You're not meant to grease it.

There's a Capitol City, Kentucky. I would guess that's what the book referred to.

Each state has a capital, but I would never refer to it as Capital City - either by it's name, or possibly The Capital. (And depending on context, if I said that I might be referring to Washington D.C., the country's capital.) There might be a regional difference I'm not aware of.

I'm not much of a baker, but I have always thought you weren't supposed to grease an angel food cake pan, something to do with grease affecting the egg whites. My grandmother would invert it over a Coke bottle.

Just goolged and AF cake seems to be almost the same as a basic sponge over here but we use whole eggs and you use just the whites. And DF seems to be a slightly heavier cake, so more like our standard chocolate cake except it has melted chocolate and cocoa, so not much difference really apart from the names!

It makes sense to not grease a sponge tin actually, as it is fat free, maybe thats why some recipes say to grease the tin to avoid sticking but then to coat the tin in flour, presumably to prevent the grease interacting with the cake mix.

I never bother with making a sponge, too much hassle, I just make a victoria sandwich mix!

I notice that here (in new England) the boys names "Craig" and "Greg" are pronounced almost identically. Craig gets pronounced "creg". In the uk (esp Scotland) they are quite different: Cray (rhymes with may)-g and Greg (rhymes with peg). Is this true for all the US or just this part?

Cray (rhymes with may)-g and Greg (rhymes with peg). Is this true for all the US or just this part?

^^This is how I pronounce it. I think it's probably local to where you live, and maybe some other places. I was chatting with a lady from out west somewhere who told me that "pin" and "pen" are pronounced the same, when I clearly say them differently. Then, my FIL says "pitcher" when he means "picture." I think it's all down to where you're from.

I think most Americans say it to rhyme with peg. I have tried to find out why but no luck.

Plaid, which has the same "ai" combination is pronounced to rhyme with lad in the US; isn't there a split in the UK, with some people pronouncing it to rhyme with played?

I've never had anything like an angel food cake in the UK.

It is very light and fluffy, much more so than a regular sponge cake it has a more chewy consistency. You cool it upside down so it doesn't sink.

I live in California and most people do say Creg not cray-g here. They also pronounce Don and Dawn exactly the same.

The one that kills us though is 'awesome' -- 'ahh-some"

Weirdly, egg is pronounced aig as in British Craig around here, whereas Craig is pronounced Cregg.

And milk is melk.

I think Pin and Pen sounding the same is a southern thing.

Bogey -- a 'cake mix' in the US would imply a box of ingredients you would add water, egg and oil to. A cake batter would imply homemade.

I had devil's food cake regularly as a child in Ireland, but never angel food cake. The first time I had some it was baked by a neighbour who served it with whipped cream and sliced peaches on top and as a filling. She was half German.
My first effort at baking angel cake failed because I carefully buttered my cake pan.

Angel food is nothing like a regular sponge cake. And yes, they cool upside down - the coke bottle method was used in our house too.

I make brownies all the time here in the UK - from a recipe I got in a British children's cookbook.

I have always heard "Greg" as rhyming with peg, however, I have heard "Craig" as rhyming with peg AND as cr-ayg.

Oddly, I got a lot of teasing over "crosswalk" over here. And my 8yo corrects me regularly on how I say tomato. "It's to-mah-to, mummy."

I feel the need to interject here that a fat less sponge is a genoise sponge. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/mar/22/how-to-make-genoise-sponge-recipe-ruby-tandoh

Why don't Americans go 'to hospital' but 'the hospital', as though there is only one of them?

E.g. we would say something like ' he got knocked down, and they took him to hospital', meaning whichever hospital could treat him. The only time we would insert 'the' would when we were naming a specific one when we would use its name (Or abbreviations e.g. the JR, the NSRI).

"Took him to hospital" looks grammatically incorrect. To us, "hospital" is a building, and a noun would have 'the' in front of it, unless a proper noun, like "Took him to Seattle Grace Medical." Well, that may be simplifying it, but it's tricky to explain. It seems your rule is the opposite.

"To hospital" just sounds wrong, almost like it's a verb. Or like there's one place called Hospital.

On the last thread I got into a bit of an argument along similar lines, trying to explain why we would say "go to the restroom" rather than "go to the toilet". In that case toilet was an object you use, not the place you go.

I had to check out the recipe for the Angel Food Cake. It uses a lot of egg whites.

I have seen the egg white in cartons - but it's not available in every supermarket. In the US is that very common?

I don't think I could bear to have to crack 12 eggs and only use the whites!!

Are some states more anti-drinking than others?

My DF lives in California now. He used to like a beer or three -but it seems that he and most people he knows abstain? Health thing?

We were in N Carolina a couple of years ago, and there was a lively bar scene where we visited - so it seemed more relaxed about a tipple or two?

I have seen the egg white in cartons - but it's not available in every supermarket

In the meringue girls book they recommend using cartons of egg white. I just can't get my head round that.

Nah, there's alcoholics all over the country, just like in the UK. I think that some states like to promote a healthier image, but there's just as many unhealthy people as there are healthy people IMO.

Took me ages to find the eggs the first time I went to the supermarket in England. I walked through the refrigerator dairy section 3 times before I finally asked and was shown where they were... non refrigerated. And in the states I always kept the eggs in the fridge. Never do here.

Ha Alice I thought it might have been the case.

I guess there just aren't as many bars where he lives. Last time he came over here, he said he was worried about my drinking. I am not -and only drink on social occasions. A family visit from overseas involved many social occasions. Jeez. ;)