Now that the sting has worn off a bit, we can divulge the full story of how we bought the wrong amount of strawberries for our review of the Gluten-Free Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble.
It was all because--on the spot, in the store, without Google Calculator to save us--we couldn't remember how many cups were in a quart!
Telling this story to a friend later, she laughed and said, "Don't you know about the gallon-eating-the-quarts trick?"
At our blank look, she grabbed a pen and drew a diagram like the one above...
So there's:
2 Cups in a Pint
2 Pints in a Quart
4 Quarts in a Gallon
And so two "C's" fit inside a "P," two "P's" fit inside a "Q," and four "Q's" fit inside a big, enormous "G."
It's like "the woman who swallowed a fly" for cups and quarts!
It still takes a few minutes of mental visualization, but with this diagram in mind, you can easily figure out that there are four cups in a quart, 16 cups in a gallon, and so on.
Fingers crossed--with luck we'll never find ourselves in this particular grocery store conundrum again!
Any other good memory tricks you use when cooking?
Related: Measuring: Dip and Sweep
(Image by Emma Christensen for the Kitchn)
This is great - a print-out is going on my fridge.
view amt230's profile
And a pint is pound world renown!
so, 16 oz. or one pint = 1 lb.
and a half pint or 8 oz. = 1/2 lb.
view art's profile
Oh that is awesome...and a font-lover's dream!
view Michelle of Montreal's profile
wait, that's kinda brilliant! turn that badboy into a graphic for dishtowels and ovenmitts and you'll be a gazillionaire. :)
view kdkaboom's profile
How about putting that graphic onto reusable shopping bags? Then it would be with us when we need it :)
view 22209's profile
Art -- that's really only for water. You could get yourself in trouble if you use that mnemonic (I always heard Alton Brown saying, "A pint's a pound the world around") for corn syrup, for example.
view ArlingtonEric's profile
When making rice
Water's twice
(Makes thrice)
view Married ...with Dinner's profile
i learned that diagram in elementary school and have never forgotten it! hooray for childhood cooking memories (or at least memory aids)!
view katiebug's profile
A quart means a quarter of a gallon. Or was that so obvious that it's not worth pointing out? Also, 4 cups in a quart, easy to remember since quart means four. (On a smaller scale, same theme, four ounces in a quarter cup.)
I use the pint/pound thing often. Most (wet) food is mostly water or oil anyway so it's close enough for me.
view erica's profile
Erica-
All my years in school and it never occurred to me that a quart referred to quarter of a gallon....duh
view zero's profile
Erica-
Wouldn't it be four ounces in a half cup?
view zhasmene's profile
It's more simple to remember numbers than this kind of phrases. Why do you think it's so hard to remember a number ?
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view EddieSmith's profile