[r3dey3]

Americans often have set of measuring spoons (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=measuring+spoons) that have 1 Tablespoon, 1 Teaspoon, 1/2 teaspoon, 1/4 teaspoon (some have 1/8 teaspoon too). As you found, a Tablespoon is an "exact" measurement and most don't use their actual eating utensils for cooking - though I'm sure at one point they were used.

Often I've found with watching cooking shows (and some of my own experience) when hosts say something like "add a ___ of blah" and then proceed to just pour it out of the container without exact measurement the reason they are giving a measurement is to give a rough approximate of how much but the exact amount doesn't really matter, though it never hurts to go towards the smaller for things like seasoning.

In terms of baking recipes (bread, cakes, cookies, etc) the exact amount matters more (chemistry or live things) but you can still be off by a bit and things will still work.

[m463]

I juggle this kind of stuff in my head, teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, ounces, pints, quarts, gallons; 1/4 inch, 5/16 inch, 7/32nds, foot, yard, mile and...

I can see why some people like the metric system.

[Jugurtha]

One of the first things Thomas Keller says in his Masterclass course is to drop these, get a good quality measuring scale and use grams.

I suppose that as someone with two three-star restaurants, consistency matters.

[auxym]

Try mechanical/civil engineering in Canada.

Most projects are metric, or at least, I prefer working in metric when I can. However, things like raw materials (ie sheet steel and similar) are only sold in us customary units, or worse, gauge measurements. Cutting tools for machine tools (drills, mills, lathe inserts, etc) are also much more common in US units than metric

I'vr pretty memorized the millimeter equivalent of most fractional inches, up to sixteenths, by now. I've also worn the silkscreen off the 2, 5 and 4 buttons and finally broken the 5 switch on my previous calculator, bfrom the sheer number of multiplications and divisions by 25.4 I've done.

[bernulli]

Also, in terms of chemistry, measuring the volume of components (e.g. of powdery substances like flour) rather than their mass is really not a good way to determine the exact amount.

[brudgers]

Worth noting that the teaspoon to tablespoon ratio is 3:1. Measures that are evenly divided into three are common in the English system. So common that despite having eight ounces in a measuring cup, the one third cup is part of a standard set of measuring cups.

[throw_away]

Except in Australia, where the ratio is 4:1, but then they also have something called dessertspoons, so they often say that it's 2:1. Really, it's 20ml instead of 15ml.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablespoon#Traditional_definit...

[pjc50]

As a Brit, I found it useful to source a set of US measuring spoons in order to deal with US recipes without conversion.