Cookbooks, then like now, often contained measurement equivalents – but the information in the old cookbooks sometimes leaves me scratching my head. What the heck is a gill?
Hundred-Year-Old Cooking Measurement Equivalents
Cookbooks, then like now, often contained measurement equivalents – but the information in the old cookbooks sometimes leaves me scratching my head. What the heck is a gill?
A Hundred Years Ago 
LOL Sheryl, A gill-1/4 cup or 4 ounces
Thanks for the info. It’s nice to hear that you enjoyed this post. 🙂
Hi Sheryl, yes it was fun!
I’ve never heard of gills, either — except on fish. And of course, what they thought of as a coffee cup was quite different from our large mugs. Even my automatic coffee maker marks makes that clear. If I fill it with water for 8 cups, I can fill four mugs.
Your comment reminds me of my disappointment when I bought my first automatic coffee maker years ago, and discovered it didn’t actually make 12 cups of coffee. I’d purchased it specifically to make coffee for a party–and one batch of coffee wasn’t nearly enough. 🙂
I think you just had to be a really good cook back in the day. I have some old family recipes that call for a pinch and simmer for awhile. I haven’t messed them up too much.
I agree – I tend to think that foods turn out best when cooking is treated more as an art than a science. 🙂
Yes, I had to learn from recipes first and then figured out to makes changes to my tastes.
Now then, I’m far more comfortable with these measurements than with American ‘cups’ and so on. I have weight, measuring jugs – the whole thing – that would enable me to use one of your hundred year old recipe books with confidence. Whereas ‘cups’……. Unless I really, really want to make the dish described… I’m afraid I simply put the recipe aside. I’m nothing if not prejudiced!
It’s interesting how we typically use volume (cups, etc.) to measure things in the U.S., whereas in other countries weight is generally used. The use of weight to measure ingredients is actually becoming more popular in the U.S. because it’s considered more accurate. Some recent cookbooks list both volumes and weights for recipes. My daughter has scales in her kitchen.
Thanks for this info. Measurements and weights can be quite confusing especially when trying to reduce or enlarge a recipe.
lol the gill thing is quite funny. I would have had to look that one up too.
It’s interesting how some measurement terms have largely become archaic over the past hundred years.
I think I will copy this guide for future reference…… on the other hand, maybe not. A gill?
It’s always good to have these conversions in case you ever get in a situation where you want to measure ingredients and only have a coffee cup or wine glass. 🙂 Somehow this list brings back memories of trying to cook when I first got married and didn’t yet own very many kitchen tools.
Very useful measurement chart. In the past and for the present.
It’s interesting how some things change (and others don’t) across the years.
four tablespoons equals a wine glass? I’m a lot more generous with my pours, I’m afraid!
Remember this was the era right before prohibition – they probably were very stingy with the wine. 🙂
I grew up on the metric system, so for me all these was even more confusing. Never heard of gill and hopefully will not need it… 🙂
Somehow I think that you’ll do just fine without ever using using a gill measure. 🙂
lol I agree! 🙂
Hi Sheryl!
Spring is PA is proving elusive!
A gill is a liquid measure. Some old milk bottles (mostly cream bottles) held gills. Wikipedia says it is a quarter of a pint. Janet
Hi Janet- Hopefully Spring will be here to stay very, very soon. Your comment brings back fond memories of the little glass milk bottles that the dairy in McEwensville used when I was a child (though I’m probably actually thinking of half pint bottles of milk rather than gill bottles). 🙂
I would have guessed fewer than 4 teaspoons to make a tablespoon.
I think that the key word is “liquid” in the statement “four teaspoonsful equals one tablespoonful, liquid.” Perhaps the assumptions was made that when measuring a liquid each teaspoon won’t be quite full, so instead of three teaspoons to a tablespoon, they made it four for good measure. 🙂
I was wondering the same thing as I read!
It doesn’t seem quite right. 🙂
I came across the term “gill” (4 fluid ounces) when making one of Madame De Ryther’s recipes last fall. You never hear the word said today with regards to measurements anyway.
Interesting that Madame DeRyther used gills in her recipes – though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised since she wrote at about this time period. Those old newspaper articles that you posted by early food writer Madame DeRyther were such a wonderful find. I’m including the link your first post about her in case others would like to read it:
https://chipsofftheoldblock.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/madame-jule-de-ryther-early-20th-century-food-writer/
Thanks, Sheryl. I think it was her croquettes recipe that used the word “gill” but that 11/2/15 post would lead folks to the other Madame De Ryther posts if they are interested. Have a great day!
If there’s another link that would be better, I’d be happy to include it.
Thanks so much, but I think the link you have is fine. Have a nice weekend.
I’m glad my cookbooks don’t go overboard with odd measurements. I’ve decided to confront “gill” with my plan — use as much or as little as I please.
Works for me – when uncertain, use whatever amount seems “right.” 🙂
These are fun. I’ve always thought 3 tsps. = 1 tbsp.
So have I. 🙂
Three teaspoons to a tablespoon in my kitchen and by the markings on my measuring spoons. I had to get them out to check. And today’s serving of wine is 5 fluid ounces. Interesting!
Three teaspoons to a tablespoon in my kitchen, too. 🙂 I hadn’t realized that there was an official serving size for wine – though I guess if I’d thought about it, that I probably should have realized that there was.
This is a fun posting and I’m afraid if I served a half gill of wine to each person at dinner,
my family would think I’d taken history way too seriously.
Think how far a bottle of wine would go if each serving was only a half gill. 🙂
Haha you’re so right. Gills for everyone!
This is so funny
I thought it was a fun list, too. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Loved this.
It’s nice to hear that you liked this post.
So interesting! All I could think was how variable in size wine glasses and coffee cups can be, and what that would mean for the recipe. I have recipes from my grandmother that say things like “a piece of butter the size of a walnut”–it made sense to her!
I’ve also seen recipes that say butter the size of a walnut. I guess that people must have spent a lot more time cracking walnuts back then than they typically do now, it they could picture how large a walnut was. 🙂
Sheryl, I’m more tuned into this than litres and mls etc! What does that say, I wonder!
One thing that this post has made me very clearly aware of is that my non-U.S. readers probably find the measurements in all of my recipes confusing since much of the world uses litres, mls, etc. 🙂
I think that younger people from places in Ireland have made the transition reasonably well but ‘oldies’ like me have missed the boat on it and still think in pounds and ounces and the like.
Interesting. . . I hadn’t realized that Ireland had made this change relatively recently.
It’s a while back but most over 40s would be old school!
This is very helpful. Thanks! 🙂
It’s nice to hear that you liked this post.
How interesting! This has measurements I’ve never even thought of, but could come in handy. Thanks!
I’m glad you liked this post.
They still use the term or measurement gill in mixing drinks. I knew what a gill was from my bartending days. If you are at a bar and you see the bartender us a little silver cup that has two cups together. Small cup on the bottom and a larger cup on the top that he turns over to use. The larger one is a gill and the smaller one is a shot.
Interesting. . . I learned something new. I knew what a shot was, but didn’t realize that gills were also used when making drinks.
ha ha ha Gills…. interesting!
This was fun to read. I have a very old recipe for shortcake, and the directions say bake in a moderate oven. I take that to mean 350, but I have noticed differences between my last oven and my current one, at the same temperature, by several minutes for, the finished item. It is definite guesswork. I’d never heard of a gill. Interesting regarding the serving size of a glass of wine. 🙂
I also take moderate oven to mean 350 degrees. In the old days people knew that temperatures weren’t precise in their wood and coal burning stoves. Today, we have ovens with temperature gauges that give us a false sense of preciseness when really (as you found out) temperatures vary from one oven to the next.