San Remo Pasta Measurer | Hacker News Reader

San Remo Pasta Measurer

toxel.com

56 pointssurprisetalk45 comments

That website has some other more out-there stuff on it. (I love the tone because it’s impossible to tell how tongue-in-cheek it is)

Coffee and wine glass https://www.toxel.com/tech/2019/10/10/coffee-and-wine-glass/

Sofa made of pillows https://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2024/11/12/sofa-made-of-pi...

Limited use because it only works on straight pasta. The majority of pasta is not straight (penne, rigatoni, fusilli, macaroni, etc..) and thus you still need to measure it properly in some way.

I weigh any shape of pasta in a similar way, just without the box. (I.e., fistfuls)

it is integrated in the box of the straight pasta... how is it "limited use" other than being part of the box that goes in the trash when the straight pasta is gone?

It’s limited to the boxes that have it…

The best way to measure pasta like this is to throw it from the packet into a bowl and you can get a good estimate of how much you need.

That's cool, I'm having trouble thinking of a similar design for something like fusilli or penne though.

I just put my strainer on a scale and pour dry pasta into that to measure.

Or just take a deep dish and fill it with dry pasta. At some point you get a feeling for it.

It's actually more ingenious for spaghetti, because for fusilli/etc, you can just put scales on the packaging.

Say that you divide 500 grams in 6 servings (84ish grams each), you only need to print 4 lines on the package. You can do it either externally if the packaging is transparent, or you can even do it internally if it's not (like a carton Barilla box).

All you need to do is to empty it till when vertical it reaches levels at around the next line.

Clever !

I was thinking of something like a sugar dispenseur (turn the container to fill a volume, and this volume becomes you serving), but your solution is way more economical and space efficient.

Can't say it's mine, I've seen it on a rice package!

I myself thought of a solution similar to yours, or even more complex solutions like revolving doors or having an internal chamber the size of a serving with two lids that can't be both open at the same time..

But to be honest, I don't think any of this is really useful beyond a restaurant where sizes are fixed (and indeed use pasta-specific ladles to have standard portions). Depending on the day of the week or how many and who's at home I'm still better doing the math with a scale than predefined servings.

> Can't say it's mine, I've seen it on a rice package!

Similar thing on UK butter - on a 250g block, there's 50g markings[0] on the wrapper to make simple(ish) weights easy.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/11ogzqj/... (only decent photo I could find on the webs and we don't currently have any butter in the fridge)

Why not just label each tablespoon and then just remember a tablespoon is 14g and do quick division.

US butter is similar, each stick is marked with tablespoons, cups, and fractional pounds.

That wouldn't work because pasta settles, so a given weight doesn't correspond directly to a given volume.

I don’t think you are looking for the level of precision where that would matter.

You could have a lid that folds back from the top of the box to form a cup that the box could pour into.

A good rule of thumb I've found is that a typical portion is about 4oz of dry pasta per person. Cooking for two people you can easily eyeball what half a box of straight pasta is, for 3 or 4 people just cook the whole box.

For other pasta types, you can measure a single or double serving by pouring into a bowl as if it's cereal.

Yep, a pound of pasta is about 4 good servings for an adult so use that to factor how much or little you want. I'll typically make one pound of pasta for my wife and I for dinner and lunch the next day. Although depending on the sauce or any added meat, it could easily be 5 or more servings. Growing up, my mom would use one 1lb box of pasta, one 24oz jar of sauce, one onion, and 1lb of ground beef to make enough food for a family of two adults and three kids.

well, here in Italy, the individual "portion" varies widely. Usually from 80g to 200g.

200g, wow. Someone is very hungry.

used to be 90g when we had 3 courses per meal (primo, secondo, formaggio/frutta)

150g nowadays if y only have one course and are hungry

200g is indeed a lot

200g is indeed a lot, but some in some occasions go for it. I probably should have wrote that the minimum is 60g for some people. They're extremes, the more "usual" usual portion is probably in the range 80-150. This makes it hard to make a consistent measurement device.

I’m find nutritional guidelines for pasta too sad to live by. It’s just not enough to satisfy me and overall detracts from my enjoyment of the meal.

Does anyone else just work backwards from the nutritional information? The pasta that I get has the calories per 100g of dry pasta. So I just weigh out the amount of pasta that yields a reasonable amount of calories for a meal (taking into account an estimate of the calories contributed by the components of the sauce I’m making).

This is such an HN comment and I love it. Get a cheap kitchen scale (with 0.1g accuracy) and weigh everything when you want a snack or an individual meal.

For family meals or when you want leftovers convert your common recipes to being weight based. On some common seasonings (Costco sized) I write the conversion for that seasoning for 1 tablespoon in grams. So much easier to combine dry ingredients without needing a litany of measuring utensils.

It's impossible to make this work for everyone. According to certain serving scales I'm 2 to 3 people.

Clever, but useless. After you've cooked pasta once, who would ever use this?

I weigh pasta on the scales pretty much every time I cook it. That way you know pretty accurately how many calories you're consuming. I don't think I'd use this because it looks less accurate.

same - also there isn't much incentive for a manufacturer to produce a "normal" single serving (about 60-70g). By my judgement that single serving looks at least 100g

No way! just go with 120gr of whatever pasta you have (must be: spaghetti, linguine, paccheri, mezze maniche or rigatoni).

Then watch as marketing gets them to increase the serving size bit by bit over a few years.

Right up there with “shampoo, rinse, repeat.”

Now make a device that reliably and consistently breaks the strand in half to fit in the pot, without sending pasta shrapnel into orbit.

Just break it towards the pot, over the pot... Done.

Just don't break it and let it fall in the water naturally when the bottom softens up. It doesn't take long enough for there to be any issues like noodles cooked well on one side and not the other.

That method only works with large pots. Small pots will not allow the full 25 cm strand to fall into the pot until most of the other side is beyond that 'doesn't matter' length of time.

There are many forms of pasta that don’t have this problem.

Americans would never understand how to use this and would be annoyed by the complexity. I know I'd just be ripping the cardboard off the top in frustration myself. Who can understand complex geometry when you're already a quarter wine bottle into friday night pasta night.

> reduces food waste and ensures consistency in portion control.

and that's strike two because I'm pretty sure large food producers don't want to discourage people using up the product more quickly.

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