Recipe for Cake

"John, do you remember that cake you gave me the recipe for?" It had truly been delicious, say what you want about humans but they do know their cooking. His friend had been oh so helpful and provided the recipe for it, unfortunately it also doubled as a coded message.

 

"How did it go?"

"Go? Wasn't it a joke? Look here: 3 cups of flour, a pinch of salt, tablespoon of baking powder and half pint of beer, among other things!"

"Yes, so?"

"What does any of that even mean!"

"Precisely what is written, how can this be confusing?"

"Alright then, how large is a cup?"

"Well it's one hundredth cubic foot." His intense stare did not detect any hints of a smile, he dared a quick peek at the humans feet.

 

"Riiight." Whatever he could test that out for himself, a rough guess would probably take him close enough. "So, a pinch of salt. What's a pinch?"

"You know, take your two fingers together and there you have a pinch."

"John, dear friend. I don't have thumbs!"

"Just take a bit of salt then, its not that big of a deal" Right, a bit of course. Clearly a tad would be to much. "Fine, then about those teaspoons?"

"Yes?"

"Your species have a truly fascinating collection of teaspons. Of all designs, shapes and sizes!"

 

"Oh but that's easy, just take a normal one."

"...what precisely does that mean?"

"Look, they are clearly defined. The translator should have some idea about that."

"Its broken, keep saying you have two different standardized sizes for teaspoons."

"We do, but they are close enough. Doesn't really matter."

"...why?"

"You know, history" He shrugged his shoulders as if standards just happened to pile up over time.

 

"Fine. So the last one then, pint?"

"Come on, that one can't be hard. Its just a pint!"

"Yes yes of course. Just an easy standardized pint, and the main reason I thought my translator was broken."

"What about it?"

"There are four different ones."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Apparently your different countries have had quite a bit of fun in your history. You have English pint, Schweiz pint and worst of all American pint."

"Hey, why is that one the worst one?"

"CAUSE THERE ARE TWO OF THAT ONE, WET AND DRY. WHAT DOES DRY BEER EVEN MEAN?" His breathing had increased to an alarmingly fast level. Deep breath, calm down. The human didn't know what he was doing.

 

"Oh sorry didn't know that. Then, ehm, just pick one."

"Just pick one? One is 20% larger than the other!"

"Don't worry about that."

"Your saying it doesn't really matter for the recipe?" Perhaps that was the humans secret, robust recipes that could survive all this standard nonsense.

"No I meant I don't really follow the recipe anyway. Could be almost two pints for all I know."

He knew the human meant well, therefore he should not strangle him. Deep breaths!

 


 

I like to bake, never follow an old (or American) recipe. Old ones love to use a tad, a dash and a smidgen of pretty much everything (and Americans are just crazy).

As for pints, there are more than just four. My favorit is the Canadian pint (page 37) that is both 1/8 of a gallon and 1/4 of a gallon, depending on if you order it in english or french... The world is a far stranger place than fiction.

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