Originally Posted by Editha (Post 9589584)

I agree with you. I use the Celsius setting because more of my cookbooks use C than F, but I have quite a few old British cookbooks that use F, and a few American cookbooks that use F too. It's not a difficult conversion, but I have a table pinned up on the refrigerator, so that I don't have to do it in my head each time.

Steve P's offer of a conversion of Gas Therms to Fahrenheit was just a bit bizarre, and a giveaway, since if he cooked he'd know that even old cookbooks always give the temperature setting as well as the gas therm.

I'm happy to play along and pretend we're having a serious conversation here. There's nothing on TV.

There are three differences between a European oven and a N.American one.
The most important is the direction of the heat. In a European cooker the heat is from the side. In a N.Am cooker it is from the bottom. This means that the floor of the oven is the coolest part of a European oven, but the hottest part of an American oven

This has two consequences. Firstly if you are roasting meat and fat spits and falls to the bottom of the oven, in a European oven it will just lie there, but in an American oven it will be burn and the oven will smoke.

The second consequence is that instructions in a British cookbook for which
shelf of the oven to use may not be correct for an American oven and vice versa.

There are ways to avoid a smoking oven. Canadians often roast meat at lower temperatures than in Europe -- but there are health risks. They also use deeper roasting pans. It is also necessary to keep the oven spotlessly clean. However, I've asked around, and find that most Canadians seem to use their ovens less than in the UK, use their barbie's more, and simply accept that their oven smokes occasionally.

The second difference is in cleaning method. Most American ovens are cleaned by a high temperature cleaning cycle. This was briefly fashionable in the UK in the nineteen-seventies but never caught on. It takes hours, uses huge amounts of gas or electricity and gives off noxious fumes. It's also a very
unpleasant thing to have to do mid-summer when the house is already hot.

European ovens generally have catalytic, non-stick, liners. Fat bounces off the liners and collects on the floor of the oven, where it can be cleaned up with a cloth, or the aid of oven cleaner if necessary.

Thirdly, standard American ovens are huge, which is probably great if you have ten children to feed, but ridiculous given the small size of the modern family. We replaced ours with a double oven, each of which is smaller than standard.

Originally Posted by Almost Canadian (Post 9587079)

I'd love to know what it is about North American ovens that one can not solve after 5 years.:confused:

Originally Posted by Editha (Post 9589584)

I agree with you. I use the Celsius setting because more of my cookbooks use C than F, but I have quite a few old British cookbooks that use F, and a few American cookbooks that use F too. It's not a difficult conversion, but I have a table pinned up on the refrigerator, so that I don't have to do it in my head each time.

Steve P's offer of a conversion of Gas Therms to Fahrenheit was just a bit bizarre, and a giveaway, since if he cooked he'd know that even old cookbooks always give the temperature setting as well as the gas therm.

I'm happy to play along and pretend we're having a serious conversation here. There's nothing on TV.

There are three differences between a European oven and a N.American one.

The most important is the direction of the heat. In a European cooker the heat is from the side. In a N.Am cooker it is from the bottom. This means that the floor of the oven is the coolest part of a European oven, but the hottest part of an American oven

This has two consequences. Firstly if you are roasting meat and fat spits and falls to the bottom of the oven, in a European oven it will just lie there, but in an American oven it will be burn and the oven will smoke.

The second consequence is that instructions in a British cookbook for which shelf of the oven to use may not be correct for an American oven and vice versa.

There are ways to avoid a smoking oven. Canadians often roast meat at lower temperatures than in Europe -- but there are health risks. They also use deeper roasting pans. It is also necessary to keep the oven spotlessly clean. However, I've asked around, and find that most Canadians seem to use their ovens less than in the UK, use their barbie's more, and simply accept that their oven smokes occasionally.

The second difference is in cleaning method. Most American ovens are cleaned by a high temperature cleaning cycle. This was briefly fashionable in the UK in the nineteen-seventies but never caught on. It takes hours, uses huge amounts of gas or electricity and gives off noxious fumes. It's also a very unpleasant thing to have to do mid-summer when the house is already hot.

European ovens generally have catalytic, non-stick, liners. Fat bounces off the liners and collects on the floor of the oven, where it can be cleaned up with a cloth, or the aid of oven cleaner if necessary.

Thirdly, standard American ovens are huge, which is probably great if you have ten children to feed, but ridiculous given the small size of the modern family. We replaced ours with a double oven, each of which is smaller than standard.

Originally Posted by Editha (Post 9589455)

Thank-you, but I can actually do that calculation in my head. Clearly you are not a cook, or you'd know the difference between a European cooker and a N.Am one (the former being about 30 years in advance of the latter). Go back to your barbie Steve.

Originally Posted by gryphea (Post 9590261)

I've been here nearly 4 and I can wholly sympathise with this. Sure we've been in rentals and have proabably had worse than average, but our current is ceramic hob / convection and its still pants.

I had a double britannia range in UK; gas top, 6 rings and two ovens. Fabulous. I miss it and went back to our house this summer and virtually hugged it.

Originally Posted by Almost Canadian (Post 9590460)

Look at what Jamie Oliver is able to do with a couple of barrels of charcoal and a rusty old drum. I don't recall hearing him say that the reason his cooking in rural Europe is pants is because he doesn't have access to the fabulous equipment he has at 15:p

Originally Posted by Piff Poff (Post 9590272)

I don't love that some of my English recipes just don't work, but that is more to do with the altitude and not the oven.:confused:

Originally Posted by iaink (Post 9590595)

Could well be the difference in flour gluten levels and fat content of milk/ cream ingredients too, its usually the sum of lots of small things.

Originally Posted by Editha (Post 9589511)

Oh and I should have added that since both Canada and the UK converted to Celsius a long time ago, a gas therm to Fahrenheit conversion isn't terribly useful.

Originally Posted by iaink (Post 9590595)

But on reflection maybe this thread should just be allowed to die if people cant take the gist of Sues message.