A Measure of Cups

Not all cups are the same

It came to me suddenly; late one Friday night - cups?  Why do Americans use cups to measure? It's daft if you think about it.  A cup is a cup - is a cup - if it's not a mug right?

A cup, anything from a tiny espresso cup to a big clunky mug - the type my mother refuses to drink out of....

Tea tastes nicer drunk from a china cup.  Espresso must be drunk from a pfaffy little cup that invariably you can't lift without burning your hand.  Builders favour mugs.

How can you bake using a cup?

But then if you really think about it - it's all proportional - except when you want to make a cake for 10 and end up with one for 2.  Should the recipe not include a definition of a cup?  I mean are you to use an espresso cup or a big, ignorant mug?  Is there some covert definition of a cup that us Europeans are not privy to?  I immediately come out in a cold sweat when I try to follow an American recipe.  Even the ingredients have strange names - cornstarch and Graham crackers for heaven sake. 

We also measure bust size in cups.  Do big cups mean more milk?  Who thought of cups as a measurement and why?  Had to be men though because let's face it babies not the best at articulation.

So cups for butter, flour and sugar.  Cups for tea and coffee.  Cups for when you have no glasses and cups for boobs.

Next I am going to write a recipe for making a cake using a bra cup.  And It will be left to the imagination which cup to use, depending on how greedy you are...........

Cup Measures   American Measures  Imperial Measurement  Metric Measurement