The Mystery of Measured or Just Mixed Up?

Dear Tamar:

As an Asian American, I grew up eating rice daily. But, after some cooking classes, I no longer have certainty on how to make it! Do I measure water from the measuring cup for liquids and the rice from the cup for the dry? My mom never did it this way—I thought ratio was most important when cooking rice. Now, I’m confused about if I’m getting that ratio if I’m not using the same cup for both ingredients. No rice instructions I've found specify if the "cup" should be different or the same. I don't use a rice cooker, as you can tell. Thanks for helping me with something I should have figured out by now!

-Measured or Just Mixed Up?

Dear Measured or Just Mixed Up,

I’ve worn my disdain for measuring tools for years—like a mink stole, and with just as much arrogance. Thermometers, measuring spoons, mile-markers, Use-by dates. I’ve been so consistent in disapproving them that, in introspective moments, I’ve wondered if I was afraid of something—a “lady doth protest too much” situation.

I took the opportunity of your question to put my objections to an internal test, see if I’ve changed my mind. I haven’t. And the fact that your rice cookery was jinxed by the predictable, misguided didacticism of a cooking class has my heels dug in extra-deep, my disdain sharpened to a razor. I am full of not just judgement, but righteous judgement, since now I’m defending you, a near-stranger.

Everything you thought was correct. Rice should be cooked by the ratio of rice to water. As (with some qualifications) should everything. Even in the most delicate combinations of yeast and water and flour, or whipped egg whites and yolk-béchamel base, what matters isn’t that the resulting loaf or soufflé contain (for example) a tablespoon of yeast, or four egg whites. What matters is that the quantity of yeast or egg whites be proportionally correct to the quantities of other ingredients. The only absolute variables are dull and practical: how many people you want to feed, the size of your loaf and soufflé pans, the size of your oven.

Rice has so few ingredients—rice, water, Optional: salt, butter or oil—that it makes the case clearly. Obviously, there’s nothing better about a pot of rice made with one cup of rice than a pot made with two. Unless there is magic in one’s measuring cups, there’s nothing better about a pot of rice made with a one measuring-cup of rice than one water-glass-full. As your mother correctly demonstrated, what matters, is using a consistent unit of measurement. Last night, I made Basmati rice, whose ratio is 1 cup rice to 1.75 cups water. I usually make Koshihikari rice, whose ratio is 1 cup rice to 1.1 cup water. I can measure the rice in a water glass, in a ladle, in a Tupperware, or in a bucket, as long as I use the same vessel to measure, by ratio, my water.

I’ve written about this before—for the New York Times Magazine. In that column, I quoted the sociologist, Bruce Cameron. “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” I still find the argument pithy: it’s the bone I pick with measuring tools. A measuring cup advertises in a notch on its side that it holds eight fluid ounces (in volume). The measurement being listed suggests that it’s relevant to your aim. But it isn’t. The vessel in which you measure rice could hold twelve volume ounces, or twenty. Use the same vessel for your water measurement and you’ll find success.

Your confusion over dry and liquid measuring tools is not something you “should have figured out.” It’s universal, and another example of Cameron’s axiom. Their very existence as “dry” and “wet” encourages incorrect conclusions. Dry measuring cups hold their listed volume if filled to their brim. Liquid measuring cups feature a line and the relevant volume measurement a half inch or so below theirs. The tools are made differently to accommodate the fact that dry ingredients stay put while liquids spill; dry ingredients can be heaped and leveled, while liquids form meniscuses. It isn’t volume—the quaint idea of measuring how much space a material occupies—that changes; it is matter, in different states.

A measuring tool I do use is a scale. I like many things about a scale. There is a universal unit—I like grams for their small size and precision. There’s less washing up because you drop ingredients straight into a bowl, which sits on the scale. I don’t know the weight of water to weight of rice for the kinds I make, but it makes sense to find out. If you use a scale, you can just pour rice into a bowl on it until the amount looks right, do a bit of math—good for your brain—and then add water.

Dear cook, although I’ve filled this reply with vitriol directed at the devils who created unnecessary measuring tools, I have to believe that whoever first standardized measuring cups by volume meant well. And that whoever realized that it was tricky to get the same volume of liquid into one without spilling also had only the best intentions. Metal measuring cups also last forever. Mine have been passed down for at least two generations, and are battered and wear a slightly romantic patina. I keep them, and even use them to measure rice, though not out of necessity, but sentimentality. I keep in mind another good measuring tool quote, by Werel Karl Heisenberg: “Every tool carries with it the spirit by which it has been created.”