The American measurement equivalent of 3см.л in Russian

Measurements

on a package of seasoning from Russia for Rice Pilaf, it suggests using 3см.л per 900 grams of rice. What would those measurements translate to in American measurements? I've seen translations for ct.L but not cm. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best Answer

I think this is a typo. The original is probably 3 ст. л, which means 3 tablespoons (an abbreviation for столовые ложки).

Note that, in Russian cursive handwriting, a т looks like a Latin small m, and can also, with the wrong amount of slant and writing speed, look like a Cyrillic small m. I don't know where cursive handwriting can have come into play in the design of a modern packaging, but it is one small pointer.

This interpretation also makes sense from a culinary point of view. I don't know the concentration of your seasoning, but 3 tablespoons sounds roughly feasible for 900 g of rice, which is quite a lot of rice, especially if measured dry. 3 cubic centimeters would not only be a weird unit to use in kitchen measurements (ml is the common one) but also it would only be a sufficient amount if you are using something like pure MSG crystals.

Russia does not use the Imperial system, so having a Russian recipe expressed in tablespoons is even less precise than an American recipe doing so. A Russian seeing this recipe would just use any real eating spoon in their cupboard to do the measuring. So, be prepared to treat this as a starting suggestion only, it might need some (or a lot of) tweaking to work well in your context.

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