Read a study that said most home cooks think a pinch is a quarter teaspoon

I saw it in a food science journal my friend left at my place. They asked over 500 people to measure a pinch of salt, and the average was 0.25 grams, which is basically a quarter teaspoon. In a pro kitchen, we know it's what you can hold between your thumb and finger, which is way less. It made me think about how recipes for the public get written. Has anyone else had to adjust measurements when scaling a dish from a home cook's recipe?

3 comments

3 Comments

blair63022d ago

You're right about the pinch thing, but a quarter teaspoon is way more than 0.25 grams of salt. A quarter teaspoon of table salt is actually about 1.5 grams. The study's average of 0.25 grams is closer to what a real pinch between your fingers is. That's a huge difference when you're seasoning. @marywells has the right idea rewriting those terms, because using a full quarter teaspoon where a pinch is called for would make a dish way too salty.

mary30926d ago

Totally believe that... home cooks just grab whatever feels right. I always have to cut way back on salt when I use online recipes. Makes you wonder how many dishes get messed up over a simple word like "pinch". They should just put the actual measurement.

marywells26d ago

That study makes so much sense, and it's exactly what @mary309 is talking about. You see "pinch" in a blog recipe and someone is dumping in a quarter teaspoon, which can totally ruin a dressing or a final seasoning. It's why I end up rewriting recipes from books for my own use, just swapping out those vague terms for real grams or milliliters. The whole thing creates this weird gap between how food is made at home and how it's tested in a professional setting.