Another dish-washing question

[vilakins]

I should have added this to the last post, sorry, but I thought of it a bit late.

This is for people from the UK. Why do you wash dishes in a plastic bowl in the sink rather than directly in the sink? Is it to save water, to keep the sink clean, to be able to toss debris over the side, to protect dishes from hard metal, or for some other reason?

Just so people know my dish-washing habits, I rinse dishes to get loose food off and put them in the dishwasher. I wash delicate glassware (only used for dinner parties or special occasions) in the sink with a microfibre cloth, and pots and pans with a brush which goes through the dishwasher when it needs it. I dry any hand-washed dishes with a tea towel, and no, I don't know why it's called that. "Dish towel", as cited by an American, makes more sense.

The only reason I'm asking about dish washing is because of seeing so many knitted dish cloths on a knitting site and community. It's not normally a subject that exerts any fascination. :-P

Comments

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

I'm baffled by this as well. But I've seen a few UK folks do it because they have only one sink on the counter and they use the bowl beside the sink to rinse the dishes clean after they've washed them in the sink. Which makes sense. When I was little, we had two sinks next to one another--one for washing and one for rinsing. I've only got the one now and don't use all that much water, so I do the washing and the rinsing at the same time.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've mainly seen them using the bowl in the sink.

We had two sinks too, and they were great. We only have one here, but new houses tend to have two, one with a waste disposal.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I don't have a dishwasher, and I use the "bowl in the sink" method. I've never thought about why, but it's what my parents always did and I just assumed that it was how things were done. It does save on the amount of hot water and washing-up liquid used compared to doing it in the sink, and it also doesn't take so long to get the water to a usable depth.

(But if I only have a few not very dirty items that won't require washing-up liquid to get clean, then I just rinse them under the hot tap and don't use a bowl.)

[the-summoning-d.livejournal.com]

You know, I've never actually thought about it. I know my mum does it because my dad has this habit of leaving partially-drunk cups of tea around, and the basin means she can just empty them over the side.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I wondered if that was one reason. That makes sense.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

I've replied in dreamwith. I think the habit really started back in 76 when we had a drought and various measures were suggested to "save" water. The point being that the bowl fitting in the sink uses less water. You can also use the dishwater to water the plants with rather than tap water.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

You can also save the water that you drain off when cooking pasta or vegetables and use *that* to water houseplants or windowboxes.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I don't think that it started then. I'm sure that's how my parents were doing it from back as far as I can remember, back in the 1950s.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it started in the war then?
They had a big move on about saving water then too.

[vocatus-fortis.livejournal.com]

Partly to be able to tip stuff over the side but mainly due to the fact that my dishwashing usually takes more than one bowlful - when the water needs changing, I can empty it out, rinse round the bowl and have another bowlful fairly quickly.
Using just the sink, I'd need to waste time and water getting rid of all the foam and bits before I can refill.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Good point! I suppose it comes down to what one's parents did. It seems peculiarly British.

[san-valentine.livejournal.com]

I've always used a bowl inside the sink - it's the way I was taught. As has been said, it uses less water. It's also useful if you have pans or mugs that have been filled with water and left to soak until washing up. You can just pour the dirty water into the sink itself, leaving the washing up water cleaner. Many houses in the UK only have one kitchen sink, so it can't be poured elsewhere.
You are also right in your comment about breakages. Glassware and china is less likely to be chipped on a plastic bowl than on an enamel or metal sink, which used to be more common.

In the UK, it's common to have fine, knitted or woven dishcloths, like these from Lakeland; http://www.lakeland.co.uk/F/keyword/dishcloths The Lancashire cloths are the most common type. Some poeple use them for washing dishes and they are also used as general kitchen cloths, for wiping up and cleaning.

Thhis is a guess, but it may be that tea towel is used to distinguish a towel which is used for drying teatime things, (and by extension, the things for other meals, but tea towel is alliterative), as opposed to a towel used for drying the person. Most people prefer to use differnt towels for the different purposes.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

So it seems all my imagined reasons are correct! I only have one sink here, but if I used a plastic bowl, I'd have to store the thing in a very small kitchen; besides I usually only have to hand-wash pots and I put the water directly in them.

Surely all your sinks are metal? I've never seen anything else.

We use woven cloths too, though I prefer microfibre, and there are also very thin, flexible sponges which are basically cloths; these are used a lot but I never liked them as they don't seem as hygienic. Cloths dry out better.

I can't imagine using towels for more than one purpose! We don't share bath towels either, though I had one English friend who said her family just used any dry towel to hand.

[san-valentine.livejournal.com]

Older sinks were glazed earthenware or enamelled metal. The old sink in this flat when I first moved here was a 40'sish enamelled. A lot now are moulded plastic. That and stainless steel are the most common.

Many people leave the bowl in the sink full time, moving it only when cleaning or when they need the full size of the sink. Mine tucks into a corner between units, on the floor.

People in the UK use a variety of cloths, sponges and brushes for washing up. Just look at the washing up section on Lakeland's website. I use their Washup Whizz - it's a yellow, plastic net/mesh. It scrubs decently without scratching and is quickly rinsed and left to air.

The woven cloth is less commonly used for actual washing of dishes these days; it's more often used for wiping surfaces. Sponges, brushes and microfibre-type clothes are much more likely to be used for the dishes nowadays.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've never heard of enamel or plastic sinks! It's all stainless steel here. New houses have twin sinks, one with waste disposal, and a lot have stainless steel bench tops, fridges, and ovens. I don't like it for those things myself; it's very hard to keep looking nice; one touch and it needs a wipe.

I've come across plastic bathroom sinks though.

I use plastic mesh too as it doesn't scratch.

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

There are enamel sinks in the US, but I haven't seen plastic.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Wow. I only really see enamel in retro-look mixing bowls and saucepans.

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

These were really retro sinks. I think they were common 30s-70s.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

I used to have a stone sink in my first flat. That's the only time I've not had a plastic bowl. All the same reasons as everyone else - saves water, tip liquid down the side, rinse off under the tap etc. The bowl lives in the sink all the time

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've seen stone sinks in old "wash houses" which were the outside laundries used here in the days of boiling washing in coppers.

OK, if I did much dish washing by hand I might consider the plastic bowl, but it's usually pots and I just put water in the pot rather than fill a whole sink.

[ultrapsychobrat.livejournal.com]

My mom only had one sink, so she always used a dishpan (a metal basin only used for dishes). I have two sinks, and just wash things off and put them in the dishwasher. You know, my mom always said tea towel. I think it was because she was from the South. Here, in Southern California, the stores always advertise them as dish towels, so I think on what part of the US you are in.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I mainly use the dishwasher too.

We inherited "tea towel" from Britain. "Dish towel" makes more sense. :-)

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

We're illogical. :) We use a dishcloth to remove the gunk from the crockery and cutlery but a tea towel to dry them, which doesn't make much sense.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

I know about that plastic bowl in a sink, I have lived with many families as a tourist, and they used it everywhere. I also know that water is excessively expensive in Britain, especially in the last years. I myself began using the bowl too, of course in anyone else washes up, they don´t.
I discovered the above mentioned advantages myself. Otherwise no one does it here in CR, as far as I know.
I also was taught "tea towel". We call it "utěrka" and it is mostly made of cotton or a mixture of flax and cotton:-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

You mean linen. :-) Linen dries better than cotton, I find, and microfibre is even better.

Perhaps it's the expense of water. We pay for it here too, but I'm not sure how it compares.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

*Nods* Aha, linen, thanks, I thought that this word is used only for bedding:-)
Water in the UK must be horribly expensive, according what I heard, and O was always asked there to be economical with it . We are lucky in our village becuse we have our own communal well, we pay a very reasonable sum. Water is generally more expensive in other places, especially in towns.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Linen is used for bedclothes (which are rarely made of it) and for the material itself, I have linen tea towels, shirts, and trousers. :-)

We don't pay that much for water as we have so much of it. Rain, rain, rain in winter.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

In some areas households now have a water meter and pay for their water according to the amount used, but I think that in most regions there is still a fixed charge regardless of usage. However the areas with metering are increasing over the years.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

We've had water metering for a long time.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Oh come on, you have a fixed charge? That I really didn´t know!
We have water meters in every house, water is under a big company and without a water meter they will not let you take it.But the charge for 1 cubic metre is different in various places. There is a person in our village who has a list of houses and he reads the figures from a water meter dial, and puts them down. You pay according how much water you take. There is quite a similar situation in paying for communal central heating.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I bet it's learned behaviour handed down from when houses didn't have convenient plumbing. Those bowls would have been enamelled before they were plastic.

I use the dishwasher.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

People would have used enamel bowls here before proper plumbing, but it was never carried on. I've seen old houses open to the public with bowls like that, in the bedrooms too, in which people washed with warm water brought in to them.

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

And I would have thought it would be related to saving water during the war (the time when married couples were encouraged to bathe together in a quarter of an inch of tepid fluid that you have ideally saved from something else).

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have thought England was ever short of water, except for that big drought in the 70s. We were exhorted not to shower every second or third day, not to water the garden or wash the car, and to wash veges in a bowl during our last draught, but most people reverted to their old habits when the rain came back. It was a lovely winter. This one is the usual sodden type.

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

Honest, it really was. It was an energy saving measure. Plus, huge amounts of water were consumed by war production.

http://www.itnsource.com/shotlist/BHC_RTV/1942/11/19/BGU408280039/?s=*

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful, especially the cat! I hadn't thought of the power to heat it (duh), and didn't realise how much was used in war production.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Back when I was a child this house only had cold water on demand, any hot water had to be boiled on the stove or in the very early days of this house on the fire hobs. This was a very common thing up to the 40s and early 50s. The sink was what we now call a butler's sink(http://www.notempire.com/images/uploads/Picture_6-57.jpg)
which took more water to fill than our manual washing machine so a bowl, enamel way back then later plastic, was placed in the sink to save having to boil the very large kettle more than once. It was a habit that my mother kept to the end of her life and which I had until about 5 years ago when asked myself why I was doing it found no good reason and stopped doing it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

That looks like the sort of sink we had in old laundries! I still have a fairly large steel one there.

So you just use the sink for dishes now?

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Yes and I only wash up once a day too unless I have a guest or guests as I only use as much in a day as a couple would at one meal and it's a waste of water and washing up liquid to fill the sink for one cereal bowl and a coffee cup at breakfast and one plate the bread knife and the butter knife at lunch.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

We only run the dishwasher once a day too, unless I've used a lot of dishes and pots cooking.

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

I sometimes leave things to soak, so it's useful to be able to tip the water over the side of the bowl.

The washing-up bowl also comes in handy for other things, such as carrying drip-dry washing out to the line without leaving a trail of water the length of the kitchen. :-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I often soak things too, but just with water on the crockery, and cutlery in a glass or cup. But if I didn't have a dishwasher, I think I'd be converted!

[quarryquest.livejournal.com]

My parents have two sizes of washing up bowls used for different sizes of washing up. Then there is when they are peeling vegetables - that gets done in the smaller bowl rather than fill the sink with the peelings.
In my flat here in London I have both a sink and a second smaller thing with a plug hole next to it (not sure the name) which I use when I am rinsing plates etc. My parents (and garienos) don't have this facility so a smaller bowl in a larger sink allows for rinsing over the edge. If the water gets mucky you can change it too, but as many people have said in comments here I am sure the British thing is about saving water!

I was taught to wash up by my grandfather and he, and my father, both did that because the women of the house had done the cooking. I usually wash up too when I am here ast only spacefall and my father are allowed as the layout is rather odd and the sink is directly next to a wall. People (and we will include Jurgen in this!) have broken plates, and even my best glass measuring jug, by bashing things against that because they aren't used to one being there. I just stand a little further off and centre myself over the rinsing thing next to the sink!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, my mother used to peel into a bowl. I've lost that habit due to having a waster disposal and no compost heap like she had.

Lucky you to have two sinks! My mother did but that was unusual back then. New houses now have two sinks, but both are a lot smaller than the old type.

What good menfolk in your family! My father never helped, but my lovely grandfather who lived with us did.

[pet-lunatic.livejournal.com]

As above, but wanted to add that I must be weird in that I*don't* use a bowl, just the sink itself. My in-laws don't use a bowl either - they have a sort of removable inlay in the sink.

We don't have a dishwasher. I've never used one in my life! I use a wash-up for washing most stuff, a scourer for the pans, and a tea towel to dry stuff :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

The inlay is something I haven't heard of before. Is it steel?

I washed that way too till I bought a very small Bosch dish washer when I had an ill flatmate who easily caught bugs and wanted to make sure things were well washed. I couldn't go back after that.