I wish I had the cite, but I remember reading that in WWII Britain lost 25% of its housing stock. This certainly explained to me how when watching TV shows of the post-WWII era so many adults were living with their parents, when everyone I knew in the US moved out and lived on their own.
Of course post 2008, now so many young adults live with their parents again so I guess in the US we’ve come full circle.
I suppose “tapping on the roof” is a reference to the hansom cab (File:HansomCab.jpg - Wikipedia), which has been obsolete for ages, but might well have given birth to a habit still in use. But the last time I took a British cab was 1972, so que sais-je?
I think it is a generational thing. I am 37 and I certainly rinse my damn plates if I am washing them by hand. My in-laws, in their 60s and 70s? No, they just put them on the draining board with bubbles on. When I am visiting, I always say “I’ll wash, you dry”…
It lets the driver know you have all your belongings/don’t have your coat caught in the door/whatever and he can drive off.
I don’t think I have ever seen anyone do this in real life, though; only in films.
My wife is desperate to have a washing-up machine. I resolutely refuse to have one, as the only place to put it is now occupied by my booze fridge.
Anyway I do all the washing-up. Doing it well is simply applied science, never mind it involving a slight physical effort, which is good therapy for the tired mind.
It’s worth remembering that, no matter how disgusting the washing-up water may look, if it’s hot enough and still got lots of froth it’ll still get things clean.
Remember the partition coefficient when rinsing-I think it’s changed its name recently.
Allow cups, glasses, and pans to dry at an angle-this prevents a meniscus forming, which then evaporates, possibly leaving a film of residual detergent-the taste of which may come through bland English food, but not continental, curries etc.
Anyway, I never cook Britfood- it reminds me too much of 1950’s Yorkshire and my mother’s gravy.
Throw away your tea-towel-done scientifically you’ll never need to dry your washing-up.
Not for your food, though. Say what you like about Southerners, but they can cook.
The vast majority of cheddar has no orange colouring in it. If the cheddar you experience is like that, no wonder you have no respect for it. It’s a great cheese if you get something that’s decent quality. I’ve even managed to convince several stubborn French people that cheddar is in fact considerably better than they thought. And if you can convince stubborn Frenchies that an English cheese they thought they hated is delicious, you can convince anyone it’s delicious.
By the way, I do rinse my dishes. It’s not actually the soap I object to as much as the dirty water. I know people who don’t, and I think it has just never occurred to them.
I wonder if that comes from WWII, when plumbing wasn’t in the best of shape.
Agreed. Disappointing, but not entirely surprising.
Let’s start with Stilton cheese - a protected origin foodstuff, licenced to be produced in only a handful of dairies in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire - more than 800,000 kilos exported per year.
Cool.
Wash the dishes, put them in the dish drainer, lift the dish drainer and put it back in the now empty sink and hit it with the sprayer. Rinses, and then drips into the sink. Wait until dry, stack back in the cupboard.
I loved living alone - I had just enough kitchen stuff to fill the small dishwasher that was part of myCook-n-clean, I took them out every morning, at the end of the evening I closed the dishwasher refilled with kitchen stuff and ran it, so everything would be fresh for the new day.
There are 2 appliances I wish would go back into production, the Amana Cook n clean center, and the Flair range. The cook n clean was absolutely fantastic for small kitchens, and the flair is fantastic for someone stuck in a wheelchair.
If we’re allowed to include Scotland (we are, for now at least, also Brits) then we could add whisky and salmon.
I’m a bit obsessive-compulsive about clean dishes. Dad never used his built-in dishwasher because he said it didn’t get the dishes clean enough. This probably stems from dishwashers in the '60s and '70s that didn’t do a spectacular job. (However, when I was a kid mom always used the dishwasher and the dishes seemed clean to me.) I wash my dishes in very hot water, and use my sense of touch in addition to my sight to make sure they’re ‘sterile’. This bothers the SO to no end. ‘Why did I even get the dishwasher out of storage if you’re not going to use it?’ she says. I do use it. But I wash the dishes first. (OK, I rinse them in hot water and apply the scrubber brush. No soap, though.)
My best fiend’s wife is from Peru. She was shocked when I was washing dishes in hot water. She said that in Peru, dishes are washed in cold water. Her English is not great, so I didn’t get into how hot water melts fats better than cold water. But doing dishes in cold water just seems weird to me. Apparently in Peru, they do rinse their dishes after washing them though.
Absolutely - and Gin for England, and sausages, and Arbroath Smokies and Cornish Pasties(the real ones) and steak and kidney pudding, and cream teas and Welsh lamb and Yorkshire puddings and… really, the number of incredible foods we’ve got here is nearly uncountable - ignorance can be the only excuse for thinking there aren’t any.
Anyone who comes from any place where ‘pudding’ means less than a hundred different things has nothing to say about British food.
WHAT? Like Mangetout said, this is utterly wrong. Britain’s most famous cheese is surely cheddar, and cheddar (that is, British cheddar, not the abomination sold under that name elsewhere) is not orange. The only orange cheese you commonly see in Britain is red Leicester.
Proper British cheddar is wonderful, sharp, savoury and crumbly almost to the point of being crystalline. And NEVER orange.
All excellent examples. ISTR a few years ago in one of those “What should I do in London?” threads by an American poster, some wag gave advice along the lines of “go to Paris and get some decent food.” And I though, yeah, OK, joke and all, but it’s really tired. If you can’t find good food in London you’re simply not looking for it.
(Oh, and I’ve always rinsed dishes. That’s how my parents taught me to do it when I was a kid.)
Yeah, I mean, you can get orange cheeses - Red Leicester, Double Gloucester and Shropshire Blue (and there are minority ‘red’ varieties of Cheshire and Cheddar) all contain annatto as a colouring, but so what? So does French Mimolette(which is awesome) - and as you say, none of these qualify as Britain’s most famous cheese.
Even if you essentially prefer American food, the best hamburger I ever had was at “The Great American Disaster” in South Kensington—long gone, alas.
Good G-d, yes!
Usher’s Green Stripe, made by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen.
