The Cultural Divide on Washing Dishes: Brits vs. Americans | Mind The Gap | BBC America

I have never seen an American wash up because everyone we know has a dishwasher

We have a dishwasher for the first time (as it came with the house).

I don't honestly see the point of it. It's SO slow compared with just doing them by hand.

Wow. Something on BBCA that's accurate. My missus went mad the first time she saw me do the dishes. Now I'm not allowed to do them. RESULT!!!!

You can't hand wash a lot of dishes at one time unless you have a dish rack or a team of people drying the dishes and I haven't seen a dish rack in an American home in at least 20 years.

lolwut?

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss...ra%2Caps%2C230

Plenty in this area....

Taa daaaaaaaaa........

That's the problem with America, it's all those foreigners that just won't adapt.

Judging by the number of options for racks in the stores, at least somebody must be buying them! Maybe Michael doesn't see his servants much?

We mostly just hand wash saucepans, frying pans, woks, wine glasses, etc. Everything else goes in the dishwasher which typically gets turned on every other day (2 adults + 2 kids).

That's just a recipe for a big soggy mess because Americans sinks don't have draining boards. We have such a contraption from when our dishwasher stopped working.

I gained brownie points for buying (on my own initiative, without Mrs P present) and installing a rather nice Bosch dishwasher just before Christmas a few years ago.

Except that while our dishwasher is doing its thing I can be doing something else, usually sleeping.
Mexicans probably. A Mexican family I know use their dishwasher to store pots and pans!

That's adapting.

Ha ha. There are many things I requested, no, demanded when I moved over. A big TV and cable being 2 of them. I don't recall insisting on a drying rack for the dishes though .

Same with us when we bought our house. It gets used maybe once a year (mostly Thanksgiving) but given it takes over 90 minutes to run and I can wash even a weekend's worth of pots, pans, plates and cutlery in about 20 minutes, even that's pushing it.

I do it the same way my American wife does - fill up a sink with hot soapy water, soak for 15 minutes or so, then wash, rinsing when I'm done (**** that leaving the soap on bollocks, that's as bad as putting the milk in first). We have a double sink unit, one of which is used to wash in and the other has a dish rack in it for after I'm done rinsing. I use a regularly changed out towel for any overspill, which is usually cups and a saucepan. Pretty simple, really. I could have the whole lot done in the time it takes to load the bloody dishwasher.

Exactly this.

Great minds, etc.