Olde Scandinavian Cooking

by The Metric Maven

Happy Metric Day

My friend Pierre has introduced me to many interesting aspects of cooking. I’ve been interested in his recipe for bacon explosion, but apparently do not have the nerve to pursue it. Pierre began to watch a program called New Scandinavian Cooking. He could not but achieve some metric schadenfreude, and surprise, when he reported the presenting chef, Andreas Viestad, was using deciliters in his recipes!

I like Scandinavians as I grew-up around their descendants in Minnesota. They are always portrayed as sanguine, happy, and calm. I heard many Sven jokes (sorry Sven) as I grew up, and they all involved Sven as clueless and happy. I would relate one, but all those I know are probably not appropriate for this blog.

I investigated the program, and to my horror, not only did he use deciliters, but their milk was in deciliter packaging! Below you will find a 3 deciliter carton of milk. Not 300 mL, but 3 dl !

Three decilitres of milk

I have watched a considerable number of the programs. The Scandinavian cooks seem to fearlessly use grams, so where are the milliliters? I randomly looked through a number of NSC recipes and found that Scones with Red and Yellow Beets had a number of volume measures. Here is the recipe:

Why on Earth would NSC use teaspoons and tablespoons instead of milliliters? I have no idea what the measures would be for a non-English version of the program, but would it be teaspoons and tablespoons? This seems unlikely, but my non-extensive, non-exhaustive internet search offered no clue. I emailed NSC and Anders Viestad. I asked what they use in Scandinavian countries for teaspoons and tablespoons.

Anders actually replied:

Hi Randy

Since the show is airing in the US and in countries using metric, I have to use both. However, when possible I use teaspoons/tablespoons, which works in both areas.

Andreas

Apparently, teaspoons and tablespoons are used in Scandinavian countries? Sweden had a ten year plan to become metric. They procrastinated for 9 years and rushed the change. Teaspoons and tablespoons might not have been addressed. Anders apparently did not feel the need to address milliliters versus deciliters.

The logical volume measure for teaspoons (5 mL) and tablespoons (15 mL) is milliliters. Confusing teaspoons and tablespoons is always a danger, esp., when it’s abbreviated tsp and tbl. New Scandinavian Cooking is not exactly Mormons Making Coffee, but they are too close for comfort using runic metric units like deciliters. Indeed, when making Danish Meatballs, Andreas indicated that one should use 1.2 deciliters of milk rather than one-half cup. Why not 120 mL?

In one recipe I noticed Andreas used a measuring vessel which is marked in deciliters. It goes from 1 through 9 dl and then becomes 1 lit and returns to 11 deciliters at the next graduation. Apparently in Scandinavian cooking one does not need to be closer than a deciliter in volume, but grams are just fine as he uses 100 grams of butter.

Andreas makes an apple dish called “Veiled Farm Girls”, and after he puts apple halves in a baking dish, he indicates that is requires a “generous amount of sugar.” How much?: “A good fist-full” That’s even less precise than deciliters.

Andreas’ favorite bread recipe uses grams, deciliters, and teaspoons–and later tablespoons—never say milliliters apparently.

What does become obvious how Andreas often cooks. The majority of time he just guesstimates the amount of ingredients. He has a captivating smile as he vanquishes measurement in his cooking. He is far too close to the happy Sven I grew up with, but I wish I could pull him aside and try to implore him to read Naughtin’s Laws. I have a feeling he would politely read the rules and carry on like the Swedish Chef might. Well, I guess it could be worse, it could be fractional cups and fluid ounces—but it could be so much better.


If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.

Stream of Metric Consciousness

By The Metric Maven

A coffee klatch denizen, NY Joe, kindly brought me a book titled The Macmillan Dictionary of Measurement. It has over 4250 entries and Joe was sure I’d find it interesting reading. He was right, there are many interesting aspects of the book that caught my attention, and some not in a good way. One entry took me by surprise and would have been a nice addition to my DBTC chapter Multiple Metric Systems and Metrology. There I point out the existence of the MKS (meter-kilogram-second), CGS (centimeter-gram-second) and MTS (meter-tonne-second) systems. I encountered an entry about the crinal in this dictionary, which I reproduce below:

Yes, the DKS decimeter-kilogram-second system!? I’ve encountered this system no where else in my research over the years. One might almost think it a joke, but then I’ve seen the seemingly unending historical pre-metric units, and many of them also appear to be jokes. My favorite reference has a crinal in it, and the first definition is 1 decinewton. Indeed, let’s just rid ourselves of the prefix cluster around unity. This is unit proliferation, pure and simple.

I also learned that base ten logarithms, like that used to define the decibel, are called Briggs logarithms after the early British mathematician Henry Briggs (1561-1631). In 1616 he drew up the first base ten logarithm tables. Who knew? For those who find British Thermal Units too straightforward, there is also the CHU or centigrade heat unit, equal to the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 pound of water by 1 degree celsius. That is a serious pigfish definition. It is also known as the pound-calorie. The international angstrom is a unit of length, but it is defined with a red line in the cadmium spectrum, at a temperature of 15 C and a pressure of 760 mm of mercury which is 6438.4696 international angstroms. “It is very nearly the same as an ANGSTROM UNIT (10-10 m).” What? very nearly the same? Why not call it “the horseshoe?” We also encounter a prefixed angstrom called a milliangstrom. We need a unit that is 10-13 m in length? There is also the kip, which is a: “Little-used unit of mass for measuring the load on a structure equal to 1,000 pounds avdp. (half a short ton). It was named after the first letters of kilo imperial pound.” This is serious pigfish on parade. Shoe sizes are defined, but mondopoint does not have an entry, or a single mention in the dictionary. I have written about mondopoint here and here.

The dictionary even relates a unit called the eric:

Eric [comparative values] In medieval Ireland, the blood money paid by a murderer or accidental killer (to his family) to the victim’s family in full and complete satisfaction for the death, so that no further punishment or obligation would be imposed or sought.

There is also “the finger.” As we know a hand is about 100 mm in width. Four fingers of width implies a finger would be about 20 mm (25 if the world made sense). Of course in old timey movies we see western characters order two or three fingers of alcohol, which is not exactly independent of the size of the glass.

This dictionary has very little use for milli. Millimeters and milliliters appear depreciated for centimeters and centiliters. When millimeters do appear it is often with mixed fractions.

The dictionary has the Kilotonne, which is a metric prefix applied to a Megagram which is actually a Gigagram as I point out in my essay A Kilotonne is how much in metric? The dictionary lists (with lower case of course) a megabar, megabit, megacurie, megadyne, megahertz, megajoule, megaparsec, megarad, megaton, megavar, megavolt, megawatt, and megaohm, but no Megagram! Clearly the authors of this reference, need to become a bit more acquainted with the metric system in my view. They proudly have listed tonne and kilotonne, but no megatonne, or gigatonne. Both of these nested concatenated prefix “units,” which are megamegagrams or gigamegagrams are seen constantly in reporting about global warming and elsewhere, rather than using Teragrams or Petagrams, which are properly expressed, and devoid of the archaic pre-metric “ton”, which only serves as a thumb to suck, or a skirt to hold are absent. Of course the dictionary also has metric ton and tonne

One day while using public transit to meet with me over brunch, Sven noted a fellow wearing a tee shirt like the one below:

Over the years, there has been a meme of sorts that indicates that spelling is somehow a measure of something that is intellectually indicative about a person. As I’ve pointed out, we have a number of Shakespeare’s signatures, and no two are spelled the same. The two people who wrote this book identify themselves on the dust jacket: “[one]….is a packager who produces popular dictionary and reference books in the fields of science, semantics and medicine” and “[the other]…is an editorial consultant who specializes in religion, foreign languages, place-names, and music.” They both spend an inordinate amount of time defining collective nouns, such as a murder of crows, murmuration of starlings, or a muster of peafowl. These are not exactly precisely defined units or values. The reference is indeed written like what one would expect from specialists in language, who I’m sure can spell, but have no metrology background.

Often people ask me to talk about old archaic pre-metric units, but I have no interest in doing so. There are so many “metric” and “pigfish” sub-optimal units to discuss, and then plead for people stop using; I want to concentrate on them. I encourage people to switch-over to pure efficient metric, without the tonne, micron, angstrom, or other “exceptions.” If you want to know about archaic or obsolete units that no one has ever heard of, consult John Quincy Adams. Relating numbers in the most meaningful manner possible begins with good streamlined metric usage.


If you liked this essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page and contribute. Also purchase his books about the metric system:

The first book is titled: Our Crumbling Invisible Infrastructure. It is a succinct set of essays  that explain why the absence of the metric system in the US is detrimental to our personal heath and our economy. These essays are separately available for free on my website,  but the book has them all in one place in print. The book may be purchased from Amazon here.


The second book is titled The Dimensions of the Cosmos. It takes the metric prefixes from yotta to Yocto and uses each metric prefix to describe a metric world. The book has a considerable number of color images to compliment the prose. It has been receiving good reviews. I think would be a great reference for US science teachers. It has a considerable number of scientific factoids and anecdotes that I believe would be of considerable educational use. It is available from Amazon here.


The third book is called Death By A Thousand Cuts, A Secret History of the Metric System in The United States. This monograph explains how we have been unable to legally deal with weights and measures in the United States from George Washington, to our current day. This book is also available on Amazon here.

is essay and wish to support the work of The Metric Maven, please visit his Patreon Page.