Around the winter holidays, I pull out recipes that I make only at this time of the year. Usually, unless I’m testing them for a publication, I give recipes a pass. But at this time of year, I want my gingerbread to taste like it did last year, the year before, and that first time I had it as a child.
As I read through those recipes, I come across measurements noted in metric, imperial, and standard (also known as U.S. customary) units.
It brings to mind when I was converting recipes for my two cookery books, Dingle Dinners and Burren Dinners. As both books were sold to an international audience, we had to make sure each recipe used all three methods of measurement.
It was a lot of work, but my history with translating the language of multiple sclerosis made it an important stipulation when I was negotiating with publishers.
As I saw it from the MS-to-cookery perspective, let me explain it from the other side of the lens.
The Terms We Use Affect the Outcome
If you were to come to my house and I cooked you a dish that you particularly liked and you asked me for the recipe, even if I didn’t use one, I would jot it down and email it within a few days. Just like if someone asked me about some aspect of my MS, I’d accommodate by answering the best I could.
But if I sent you that recipe using milliliters and grams and you were used to cups and ounces, you’d have to do a good bit of additional work to make the recipe.
For the person asking for and receiving the information, we often have to convert the message into their terms of understanding.
Even With the Best Intentions, Misunderstandings Occur
Even when we think we understand it, the recipe might not come out correctly. A specific instance of that comes to mind from my memoir, Chef Interrupted, in which I shared a good few recipes.
One particular recipe — Joan Foster’s Wheaten Bread — I transcribed from the cook’s own handwriting. When Joan listed 1 pint of buttermilk, that’s what I put in the manuscript. I didn’t realize that she was writing in imperial measures, in which a “pint” isn’t the 16 fluid ounces (fl oz) I and my U.S. readers would think of as a pint. A pint in imperial measures is nearly 20 fl oz.
You can imagine that there were many loaves of very dry bread coming out of ovens before we corrected it for the second edition.
It’s sort of like when I’ve been explaining multiple sclerosis to someone who is under the impression that I’m talking about muscular dystrophy. Different conversation altogether.
We All Translate When Speaking of Ourselves
Coming from a place that uses standard measurements, now living in a metric land, but just across the Irish Sea from the home of imperial measures, I’ve become quite accustomed to converting recipes for or from others.
Similarly, I think we’ve all likely learned to convert our experiences with MS for those from other disease (or wellness) communities to make ourselves understood.
We also learn to better understand what someone might be trying to say to us about their disease if we recognize that they are coming at us directly, without considering the conversions we’re trying to make in our heads.
It’s just another thing we learn to do when living life with multiple sclerosis.
Wishing you and your family the best of health.
Cheers,
Trevis