Scrolling through culinary magazines and studying various recipes, one can quite often come across the term “handful”. Old, “grandmother's” recipes are full of such recommendations, because in their days there were no comparatively convenient measures, no kitchen scales, or precise marks on measuring cups. So they measured everything with handfuls and pinches, bringing the dishes to the ideal purely in taste.
But what is a handful? And is it possible to use this term these days?
What is a handful
The term is derived from the word “handful” and means folded together palms in the shape of a boat. Fingers should be tightly closed enough so that what is typed in the hands does not spill out through the gaps.
A handful is the space that forms when hands are folded.
Also, a handful is often called a space formed by one palm, also folded "boat". Although, to be honest, this is only half of a complete handful.
A handful can be called not folded palms, but what fits in this space.
A handful is inaccurate
The term “handful” will probably soon retire, because it is as inaccurate as a “pinch” of something. For one pinch, you can take both one gram of substance, and five. Is the difference small? And if you salt something?
A handful is a very inaccurate term, because you can type full palms of berries, or you can only slightly cover the skin. Both will be considered a handful, but the weight of the berries in these two cases will be very different.
There is still confusion with a complete handful (when two palms are folded) and a half, which is also popularly called simply “a handful” (when one palm is folded into a “boat”).
Three Cakes Test
Imagine that three people cook the same recipe in order to make the same cake. According to the invented recipe, we need:
- 2 handfuls of flour;
- 2 eggs;
- 1 glass of water;
- a pinch of salt.
The cake is prepared by an adult man and woman and a little girl. What will come of them?
The proportions as they are cooked, of course, will be observed, but the cakes for all will be different sizes, since everything depends on the size of the palms.
So, the girl will make the smallest cake, because she has the smallest palm. This means that her handful will also be the smallest.
And she’s still lucky if her cake comes out at all, because only flour was measured in handfuls, and the rest of the ingredients are unchanged.
In a woman, the cake will come out in the usual size.
In a man, it will be the largest and most likely the driest due to the large amount of flour.
So the conclusion is clear: a handful is very inconvenient!