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from the would-you-like-fries-with-that? dept.
the Good Housekeeping Institute's recent publication of a dishwashing guide for all those young people (2 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds in the UK) who have never learned the ancient art of washing up. In a nutshell, use hot water and rubber gloves, pre-scrape and soak dirty pans, change your water halfway through, and wash in the following order: glasses, mugs, cups, saucers, side plates, dinner plates, cutlery, serving dishes, pans, roasting tins.
While not knowing how to wash dishes is kind of a big deal, it's the whole idea of not being to handle oneself as a versatile, independent adult that is most concerning. Young people lack a wide range of practical skills these days, as revealed in a recent study by YouGov. More than half of young people (18-24) do not know how to set up utility bills upon moving to a new place; 54 percent cannot replace a fuse in a plug; 34 percent can't reset the fuse box after a switch has tripped; 37 percent do not know how to defrost a freezer; and 11 percent is clueless when it comes to changing lightbulbs. (You can see the entire sad list here.)
So what? There's an app for that.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Freeman on Friday October 06 2017, @05:53PM (22 children)
Teaching to the test, doesn't teach problem solving. You're pretty bad off, if you have no idea how to wash the dishes.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 06 2017, @05:56PM (13 children)
Considering that is a skill most people learn from their parents. I would say the parents are failing there....
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday October 06 2017, @06:52PM (1 child)
Usually you learned by standing with mom after dinner by the sink drying the dishes with a towel. Once old enough to reach the sink, it's your turn to do the dishes with occasional help from mom or even dad. Then dishwashers came along...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @01:03AM
... then Trump built his wall and scared all the dishwashers away!!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 06 2017, @11:25PM (10 children)
Parents bought the dishwashing machine, why would the kids ever need to learn how to do it in the sink?
We've degenerated into using the pre-packetized soaps in the dish and clothes washers, so our kids are perfectly capable of putting in the right amount of soap, too.
I suppose next we're going to be upset that kids can't repair their own automobiles, build their own houses, grow their own food, make their own clothing, etc.?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 07 2017, @12:08AM (9 children)
Very true. However, there is nothing stopping the parents from saying 'was the dishes by hand'. When they bitch about it (and they will) 'you may not always have a machine learn to do it well'. They do break every now and then. Having suffered from 2-3 floods caused by broken ones over the years... After 2-3 times you would have it down. Then it is 'load it and unload it'...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 07 2017, @12:33AM (8 children)
One thing I used to hear from my parents a lot when I asked why we didn't have a dishwasher was, "We already have two, why do we need another one?"
Though I was taught to hand-wash dishes like a man, without rubber gloves. Who the fuck wears rubber gloves in the household besides old-maids?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday October 07 2017, @01:38AM
A lady i work with is obsessive compulsive: she washes her own dishes so that she knows they are clean, but she uses water that is so hot her hands are a mess, especially in winter time, even though she also lotions (which she hates). Her water is pretty scalding from the looks of it: her hands are always red and cracked like crazy. I can see using gloves for water THAT hot, but she also will not wear rubber gloves.
Weird.
Yeah: my parents said the same thing. Same with a snow blower/remover: they had two already, why get another (nice, though, for my sister: she never had to shovel the shit 'cause "she's a girl").
Glad my driveway is shorter now: also kind of glad for global warming. Winter is getting tolerable up here in Canada half the time now, though we gotta watch out for another ice storm shutting down our power for a few days... don't have a fireplace anymore, sadly, like we did last time.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 07 2017, @07:11AM (1 child)
Actually this is the first time I've ever heard of the idea of using rubber gloves for washing dishes.
Well, I guess if you are a professional dishwasher who washes dishes eight hours a day, it's a good idea.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 07 2017, @09:53PM
That's not nearly as bad as working in a clean-room 8 hours a day -- especially if you're handling tools that rub your pruney skin right off as if your hands were stewed whole tomatoes.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 07 2017, @02:33PM
One thing I've heard about ex-pats living in the developing world: "a good servant or two is worth a house full of modern appliances." And in the developing world, a good servant or two is a whole lot cheaper than a washing machine.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday October 07 2017, @05:45PM (1 child)
I wear rubber gloves when doing the dishes - the choices was gloves or less aggressive detergent. And who the fuck uses a less aggressive detergent other than wimpy city-slickers? ;)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 08 2017, @01:13AM
The cracked skin lets you know it's working.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday October 09 2017, @01:59AM (1 child)
Dishwashers are useless, though. If you have everything to the point where all the stuck-on food is rinsed off (which dishwashers generally don't get off), then you may as well finish with some soap and water.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday October 09 2017, @02:04AM
Well, not all dishwashers are like that, but many are. Then there's all the time spent loading up the dishwasher and taking them all out, so it doesn't seem very valuable to me, especially if you just wash dishes as you dirty them.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Friday October 06 2017, @06:03PM (1 child)
I realized I failed as a parent when my son came home from his first quarter of Culinary school and told us about the first class he had was how to wash dishes and cooking utensils. Its a fact that a chef has a responsibility to teach and supervise proper dish washing technique to hired staff because kids these days never learned to washed dishes by hand any more.
Even new modern restaurant kitchens do not do everything with commercial dish washing machines.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 06 2017, @11:29PM
Hospitality school in the Caribbean teaches basics like washing the cooking pans between different meal preparations to avoid transfer of allergens (especially shellfish) to non-allergenic dishes - the "about our restaurants" channel on cable TV even had the new chefs on camera telling about these new-learned skills.
Same thing goes down in all kinds of University majors: assurance of a set of core competencies, whether that's math, written communication, or the basics of your chosen field.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by tekk on Friday October 06 2017, @06:34PM (4 children)
It also has a weird definition of "knowing". The headline implies that they have no clue how to do the basic scrubbing and stuff, but it seems like they included the order there, which I've never heard of.
It's also worth pointing out that these "young people", myself included, have pretty much always had dishwashers. What you hand wash is just what's left over that you didn't do. Sans dishwasher I would just wash as I go.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 07 2017, @12:36AM (3 children)
We didn't have our own dishwashers but occasionally we visited relatives who did. Everybody knows you must first hand-wash dishes anyway before you throw them in the dishwasher. Oh, and you don't put silver in the dishwasher, but who the fuck eats with silver anymore? Hell, seems all of humanity has devolved back into hands and the packaged spork.
(Score: 2) by ledow on Saturday October 07 2017, @02:17PM (1 child)
I have never pre-washed a dish before putting it in the dishwasher.
Scrape food off it, stick it in.
If only sticks if you leave it around forever before you put the wash on.
Frying pans, roasting tins etc.? You should be filling with water the second you finish with them, literally pull cooked food out of them, pour off oil, run them under tap, squirt washing liquid into them. THEN you put them in the dishwasher when the plates come out.
And, like non-colour-safe fabrics in a washing machine, like hell am I pissing about with cutlery that can't go through a wash. I wouldn't even buy it, let alone faff about using it. Again, I have literally NEVER separate coloured / whites when washing clothes. Put them in the machine. Done. Also, when was the last time you hand-washed clothes? I never have, I don't think.
The washing up procedure listed in the top of this summary is a joke too. Two washes, no, you soak the heavy stuff entirely separately and then the oil and heavy carbon doesn't go down the plug until it's been thoroughly attached to some water. At best, when hand-washing, you soak heavies, wash everything else, then light-wash the heavies to get rid of anything left by then. And there's no "order" - glasses fine to shine, possibly. Everything else is just china and steel and can be washed however. Also, never used gloves in my life.
Rather than stick by antiquated stuff that's not relevant with modern appliances you can pick up for a pittance if they go wrong, before you've even run out of plates/clothes, let's try using some of these modern inventions such that they do what they're supposed to - save time, effort and money.
I'd rather have two dishwashers than be stuck pissing about at a sink.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 07 2017, @09:55PM
Silver is a traditional thing, usually acquired by the family before dishwashers were a thing and passed down the generations.
I wouldn't deliberately buy it nowadays, either. Not that I can afford it anyway.
(Score: 2) by tekk on Saturday October 07 2017, @03:02PM
My dishwasher is from the late 70's or 80's and I don't even have to prewash unless it's something *really* stubborn.
(Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Saturday October 07 2017, @07:16AM
Of course they don't want you to be able to wash dishes. Remember, the American dream was to go from dishwasher to millionaire. Thus the best way to prevent future millionaires therefore is if people do not learn to wash dishes. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.