Temperatures in written recipes?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

mumu

Senior Cook
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Messages
347
when rec. are written like medium - high are they suggesting use medium high or the range between medium and high?
 
On your burner knob, medium-high (medium high) is half way between Medium and High. I don't think the hyphen makes a difference.
 
On your burner knob, medium-high (medium high) is half way between Medium and High. I don't think the hyphen makes a difference.

Would it make a difference if you went from Medium to Medium-High, or should you turn the knob from High back to Med-High? There might be some play in the knob.
:)
 
Every stove is different. I'm sure my commercial Wolf stove medium high would be a raging fire on my mother-in-law Kenmore four burner. If the directions in any recipe are too confusing it might be best to put that recipe aside for awhile until you know what your stove is doing during different recipes.
 
As an editor, I would interpret the hyphen to mean medium-high. If it is an en dash, I would interpret it to be a range from medium to high (so it would include any and all settings in between). En dashes are slightly longer than hyphens. Whether an en dash of hyphen, there should not be any spaces, but oftentimes you will see en dashes when representing ranges written with a space after the first word/number and after the en dash.
 
As an editor, I would interpret the hyphen to mean medium-high. If it is an en dash, I would interpret it to be a range from medium to high (so it would include any and all settings in between). En dashes are slightly longer than hyphens. Whether an en dash of hyphen, there should not be any spaces, but oftentimes you will see en dashes when representing ranges written with a space after the first word/number and after the en dash.

While I'm not questioning your statements above, I doubt the majority of recipe writers are aware of this. I see recipes written often in a haphazard way with no consistency. Horizontal line segments aren't always the best way to convey specific information as their meaning can be ambiguous.
 
While I'm not questioning your statements above, I doubt the majority of recipe writers are aware of this. I see recipes written often in a haphazard way with no consistency. Horizontal line segments aren't always the best way to convey specific information as their meaning can be ambiguous.
If it is in a printed book, the editor would be aware of this. If handwritten, anything goes. In-house style guides often have the editor removing the "to" and using the en dash in its place to represent range.
 
so what is it a range or medium high?

Since your question refers to something taken out of context and none of us can see the recipe, it's hard to tell. All we can do is sit here and guess.

When you have questions about specific recipes, it would be extremely helpful to include a link (assuming it's on the internet).
 
Back
Top Bottom