What do Americans call gas used for cooking?

@dancingtongue are you implying natural gas and propane are one in the same differentiated only by container/delivery?

@dancingtongue I think propane is not the same thing as natural gas. I think propane is a liquid at room temperature.

If I recall, natural gas is methane, which has one carbon atom. Propane, I think, has three carbon atoms.

I think it goes: methane, ethane, propane, butane, ? , hexane, ? , octane, ...

@SooperSarah I believe it has to go through a liquidizing or some other process to become bottled, but very similar if not the same.

@dancingtongue I looked things up on Wikipedia, and I was wrong. Propane is a gas at normal temperatures and pressures, but is compressed to a liquid in the containers you buy.

@JoyfulSilence his statement is absolutely incorrect. Propane is actually a component of natural gas. If you were to buy a gas appliance it comes set up for natural gas by default and needs a conversion kit to use propane. Propane is also twice as efficient.

@SooperSarah @JoyfulSilence I stand corrected, although natural gas rarely is pure methane and usually includes other hydrocarbons. Thanks for educating me

@dancingtongue kudos for looking into it (:

@SooperSarah I have an electric range and stove for cooking. But my heater, fireplace, and tankless hot water heater use natural gas.

@dancingtongue Yeah, the Wikipedia page said natural gad has a lot of things. It is all quite complicated.

I thing we all need some ethanol.

@JoyfulSilence I'm rural and on propane. It's my first experience with a gas cooktop. Two years in I can say I much prefer cooking over gas than electric. That of course is merely a personal preference.

@JoyfulSilence BTW, many California cities are in the process of banning natural gas hook-ups for new housing. Electricity (presumably from sustainable hydro/wind/solar sources) and even propane are considered to be much more enviornment-friendly.

@SooperSarah My mother always complained she could get used to neither gas nor electricity for cooking. She learned to cook on a wood burning stove.

@SooperSarah I grew up in a house with a natural gas stove. I prefer it, since the flame is instant, and full power. With electric you have to wait a bit for the coils to heat. And the latter never seems as hot. But both will boil water! Although sometimes I just use the microwave.

@dancingtongue that's too old school for me, although I do love cooking over a campfire and using hardwood in my grill. I find gas provides a more consistent easy to control temp than electricity

@dancingtongue I had to cook using my wood burning fireplace at my former apartment, after a tropical storm knocked out the power for three days. I had an electric stove. Fortunately, a tree fell down nearby and they sawed up the logs (it fell on a car). I grabbed the logs. I ate well since I had a lot of thawing meat!

@JoyfulSilence Definitely different. My wife preferred gas. When I bought our first house, I had to have natural gas brought into the kitchen so she could have a gas stove. When we retired and moved to our second house, which we totally renovated, she picked out an electric range. She had developed depth perception problems with her vision and wanted the flat cooking surface. Sometimes we have to adapt.

@dancingtongue I've lived in apartments my whole adult life, so take what I get.

I wish I had a yard with an outdoor grill, though.

@JoyfulSilence You and Leroy Jethro Gibbs, eh? ☺️

@dancingtongue I had to look him up. I never knew that actor's name, LOL!

But I do not know what you are referring to by using his name.

@JoyfulSilence Gibbs has been the main character in the long-running TV series NCIS. He is a former Marine and now lead criminal investigator; rough-edged man's man widower who lives alone and the only cooking he does is grilling steaks in the fireplace.