Weighing food

My favorite kitchen tool is my digital scale.

It is essential for recipes in my English cookbooks which measure ingredients by weight. Weighing flour for baking is more accurate than scooping it into a cup.

I use it for beans and vegetables, although weight is less important there. (It also comes in handy for weighing packages for mailing.)

I remember my mother using her yellow kitchen scale to weight fruit for the Christmas cake and figgy pudding. She still has the scale, although now she's seen mine I think she's planning to modernize to digital.

My scale is made by Salter. I bought it years ago at the Sur la Table near my office. (It's handy / dangerous to have a cooking store within walking distance.) I've replaced the battery once, but have had no problems with it.

If you're in the market for a scale, consider the following:

Make sure it has a zero-out button. This means you can put a container on it, press the button, and it starts at zero. Then you can pour in your beans or flour and get the weight of the food, not the container. A simple, useful trick.

Both metric and standard options will be useful. Mine goes to 1/8th oz or 1 g. I've never needed to weigh anything lighter than that.

Also, consider storage. The advantage to a flat one like mine is things can be stacked below or on top of it. It sometimes even gets left on its side with no problem. You can get scales with attached baskets, but they will take up more room.

Finally, I made sure mine was easy to clean. Now I can't imagine cooking without it.