For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for December 22, 2022

I only measure if i am baking, which is practically never. I adhere to the Jean Pierre style of cookery ‘measure carefully, friends’ as he randomly hurls his ingredients in.

I’m corpsing too, Elly.

I’ll never taste bread as good as my Grandma’s. She tossed things into a big stainless bowl by hand. She made huge batches, which were out of this world hot and the best snacks ever cold.

That’s how I cook. Never follow recipes or measure.

While I sometimes measure when cooking, in college as a physics major I took a qualitative chemistry lab class with the chem majors. Qualitative chemistry is the science of identifying an unknown substance by adding reactants according to a very strict procedure based on step wise results. For example, test the pH. If the sample is acidic do one thing, if alkaline do another. Add a reactant. Does the sample turn red or blue? Does something precipitate out? Some of these test chains involve dozens of steps each one requiring precise measurements. However, precise measurements are time consuming so I just eyeballed them. Instead of counting drops I would add a squirt, etc.

What pi$$ed the chem majors off is that I – the lone physics major – would always successfully identify the unknown while they – following the rules to the letter – would frequently fail.

Grandma is the best character…

“Butter the size of an egg,” —from my grandma’s cooking measurements.

Oh if only my Grandfather had written down the measurements for Lithuanian Kieibasi for 250 people!

As a cook, recipes are guide-lines for cooking. The difference between one pinch and another will make every project unique, and thus not repetitive.

I have always liked the maxim “Baking is science, cooking is art”.

Who knew Grandma was so punny….

“A smidgen is just a teeny little bit…three smidgens make one pinch…four pinches equals one little bit…four little bits equals one middlin’ amount…three middlin’ amounts makes one right smart, and it takes five right smarts to make a whole heap.” -“Mountain Measurements,” from “The Beverly Hillbillies.”

Any cooks can answer. I wonder what the difference is between gollups of syrup and dollops of oil is?

That was my grandma. My cousin and I were talking about her strudel. Nobody has the recipe cause it was all in her head. ’You do this. Then you do that." was the closest we ever came to a recipe.

Grams? I don’t speak Canadian.

There’s a store in the Amish area where I live that sells measuring spoons with labels on them for a dash, a smidgen, etc.

Lynn, this is Perfect!

Ynn, this is Perfect!

Excellent! Those measurements are flexible, depending on the size of the hands

Justin Wilson was a TV cooking show host and he would show how to measure using your hand. He said it worked “I GUARANTEE!”

I’ve got my own grandma to thank for helping me reach this level of cooking mastery. Baking, however…it’s definitely in progress!

I follow and measure for a recipe the first time I make it.

After that it’s ok to vary things a bit.

I have a few recipes now that no longer resemble the originals and I’ve had to write my versions down as our son wants to make them how I make them.

Grandma’s metric!

I always follow the recipe to a tee the first time I make it. From there the recipe is only a suggestion and is altered according to taste.

My wife finds it a bit infuriating to bake from my recipes. My cooking recipes are in typical American measurements, where as, all of my baking recipes are metric. Metric is much more precise for measuring out ingredients, especially the essentials like flour, sugar, butter etc.

While she finds it a bit more difficult to bake from my recipes she has discovered that if she follows them the end result is the same every single time.

Cook to appearance, smell and taste…. the best way to ‘measure’…“just a little more Sage” as grandma inspects the look and taste in the panel.

I do this for almost everything. Baking must be exact.

“And on that subject, we need to make a point about the weights and measures used in the cookery recipes. We have, reluctantly, translated them into metric terms, because Nanny Ogg used throughout the very specialized unit of measure known as the ‘some’ (as in ‘Take some flour and some sugar’).This required some, hah, experiment, because the ‘some’ is a unit of some, you see, complexity. Some flour is almost certainly more than some salt, but there appears to be no such thing as a half of some, although there was the occasional mention of a ‘bit’ as in ‘a bit of pepper’.Instinctively, one feels that a bit of flour is more than some pepper, but probably less than a bit of butter, and have that a wodge of bread is probably about a handful, but we have found no reliable way of measuring a gnat’s.” — Nanny Ogg’s Cookbook, by Terry Pratchett

That is just so clever. Thank you!

People in my Diabetic group love when I post recipes…dollups of this, dollups of that!

My Mother’s “Green” Soup, (as we called it) amazing for winter.

Ingredients:

2 larger onions, 3-4 potatoes medium, ¼ to 1/3 of an average stalk or 1 package of frozen spinach, 1-2 leeks or leek soup, Salt, pepper, nutmeg, garlic, thyme, Butter or margarine

To prepare:

Cut the onions into cubes, glaze the onions in butter, add the spinach, celery, fresh leeks, potatoes, thyme, salt, pepper, garlic, & nutmeg in water. Bring to a low boil for at least 30 minutes or until everything is tender. If you are using packaged leek soup, cook it separately, and puree it, meanwhile the rest can be boiling.

In a larger pot, place the pureed soup mixture and set it on low. Puree the other vegetables and add them to the soup mix. If you are using fresh leeks, just puree all the vegetables. Either way, check your seasoning to taste, add more water if needed. The soup should be thick but not too creamy. As long as the water does not separate from the floating vegetable, the puree is the correct consistency. Bring to a final boil, adding a little more butter if desired.

It will keep in a closed jar for a week refrigerated. Freezes indefinitely and reheats the same as when cooked.

That’s how my grandmother cooked…

Nice. Mema has skills.

My grandmother on my father’s side had her own system of measurements. Even when she wrote down a recipe, it would say “Not too much” of one thing, and “Just the right amount” of another.

That’s how the greatest generation cooked – and it was SO GOOD.

Can someone explain what a “Gollups of Syrup” is? Google search insists I mean “Gallup” (as in the pollsters) but nothing when I force “Gollups”? And the “Dollups of Oil” throws me since Dollup is usually for solid substances, not liquids like oil (or is this a Canadian thing since I believe Lynn Johnston is from Canada and I have seen other FBoFW strips with Canadian references). I have some Jewish in my background so I understand things like schmear and smidges….. I would have said a “Drizzle of oil”

My grandma and my mom cooked like that. She left me her recipes to me. Some are dashes, and sprinkle others are actual recipes.

That’s how we learned how to make g-gma’s Swedish rye bread.

The scariest thing is that tiny baby arm growing out of grandma’s back to cover Elly’s mouth in the last panel!

I love cooking from historical sources and they very rarely offer exact measurements. Food always comes out nice, though.

like watching the french chef cook

Made me SMILE. Nice one today.

Mom joke!!!

Uh oh, Marian is in the kitchen. Better keep track of the pot holders and have the fire department on standby!

Sounds about right.

To Gram’s list, add glugs of wine, dribbles 0f vanilla, dusting of cinnamon.

My Jewish grandmother made the best blintzes and gefilte fish ever, using her own unique methods and measurements. I remember one of my aunts spending time with her as she cooked, trying to write down Bubbe’s “recipes” in modern terms, so she could create these culinary delights in her own kitchen. She tried very hard (and was an excellent cook), but without Bubbe’s special touches, they never came out quite right.

Point: Grammy.

Can anyone here please explain what a knob of butter measurement is?

My wife saw this measurement months ago while looking thru old recipes and she can’t find an explanation of what a “knob of butter” measurement is anywhere!

Thank You…

Adding ingredients this way makes it more like a theater play. No performance is ever the same!

Touche, Grandma!

My dad never measured anything! There were occasional failures but everything else was to die for!

Grandmother’s measuring units are way accurate than grams, when it comes to cooking.