Hard Labour at the Sink

By PETERS, Carol

You could think up all sorts of excuses to get out of “doing the dishes” but they never worked, unless you genuinely had to study for an exam or you had the “flu”.

That was before the days of dishwashers and in the time of things like enamel sinks with big brass taps and a large brass plug.

These large enamel sinks were set into wooden benches that had to be scrubbed clean every day.

No cooking pot would ever be placed on the wood. They would be placed instead on metal or wooden protector plates or mats.

Which reminds me – who remembers asbestos mats under saucepans to prevent burning?

Later things became very modern with terrazzo and stainless steel benchtops, which were easier to keep clean, but many kitchens remained with the wooden bench and maybe some still survive, worn with scrubbing.

If a pot became burned, it was left to soak with water in it and a handful of baking soda to lift the burned crust.

Mentioning this to someone, she looked at me in puzzlement and said “What’s baking soda?”. You could almost hear generations of cooks turning in their graves.

That really started me on a trip down memory lane about all those things that had to be washed in the big enamel sink – those metal implements our grandmothers found essential in the kitchen.

The metal biscuit cutters that came in a nest of three sizes – some with crinkled edges and others with just a sharp ring of metal.

Big, heavy, “screw on the table” metal mincers that chomped up meat or vegetables, and the bean slicers, so essential when slicing enough beans to salt down in a china crock.

Triangular metal graters, guaranteed to take the skin off knuckles if not used with caution, and those flour sieves that had the rotating arm to push the flour through the gauze so as to get lump-free flour.

Remember those natty aluminium pudding bowls with a clip-on lid to make the steamed pudding watertight as it sat in a pot of boiling water. And call it a griddle or a girdle, no kitchen was complete without one to enable the cook to make scones or pikelets.

These rounds of cast-iron could be placed on an open fire, wood stove, coal range, gas burner or electric stove and came in different sizes, ideal for quick cooking.

Washing all these implements was not done with a squirt of some dishwashing liquid, but with homemade soap or shavings from soap, or a piece of soap put into a metal container and held under the hot tap until there was enough foam in the water.

Sand soap was for scouring the pots, inside and out. The dishes were placed to drain on a wooden plate rack, and then dried with a clean tea towel or left to drain dry, depending on the housewife’s method.

When everything was washed – the cutlery having been standing in a jar of hot water until last – then the wooden bench would be scrubbed, the sink cleaned, tea towels put out to dry, dishcloth scalded with hot water or put out to be boiled before being used again.

And that’s the short version! Did anyone give a medal to the person who invented the dishwasher?

(c) 2007 Nelson Mail, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.