San Remo Pasta Measurer
35 points
5 days ago
| 10 comments
| toxel.com
| HN
imajoredinecon
14 minutes ago
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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...

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iron_albatross
11 minutes ago
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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).
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jihadjihad
17 minutes ago
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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.

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bhouston
2 hours ago
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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.
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stronglikedan
29 minutes ago
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I weigh any shape of pasta in a similar way, just without the box. (I.e., fistfuls)
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mhb
2 hours ago
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Clever, but useless. After you've cooked pasta once, who would ever use this?
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n4r9
1 hour ago
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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.
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rusty__
25 minutes ago
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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
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bschwindHN
3 hours ago
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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.

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epolanski
3 hours ago
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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.

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madcaptenor
53 minutes ago
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That wouldn't work because pasta settles, so a given weight doesn't correspond directly to a given volume.
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PetitPrince
2 hours ago
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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.

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epolanski
2 hours ago
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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.

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zimpenfish
1 hour ago
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> 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)

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spockz
3 hours ago
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Or just take a deep dish and fill it with dry pasta. At some point you get a feeling for it.
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fedeb95
1 hour ago
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well, here in Italy, the individual "portion" varies widely. Usually from 80g to 200g.
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fph
2 hours ago
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It's impossible to make this work for everyone. According to certain serving scales I'm 2 to 3 people.
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maremmano
1 hour ago
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No way! just go with 120gr of whatever pasta you have (must be: spaghetti, linguine, paccheri, mezze maniche or rigatoni).
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zzzeek
2 hours ago
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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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ecb_penguin
56 minutes ago
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> Americans would never understand how to use this

This is a student project on Behance for an Australian company. But go on about things American's don't understand.

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zzzeek
14 minutes ago
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hey that's why this thing on our screen we're reading is called....."comments"

you know. people see a thing, then they have...."comments". about the thing.

but thanks for keeping hacker news safe from illegal comments!

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