Rupert Hawksley has narrated this article for you to listen to.
Right, who’s doing the washing up? It’s 6 p.m. on Christmas Day and the table, which was meticulously set for 12, is now a mess of paper hats, gravy spills and glasses – so, so many glasses. Just don’t go into the kitchen, where you’ll find, in no order at all: six saucepans (unsoaked), 12 plates, one grater, 12 bowls, three baking trays, two sieves, four ceramic dishes, one warm turkey carcass and at least 17 bone-handled knives which absolutely cannot go in the dishwasher. There are vague murmurings that someone should probably do something about it.
I hate to say it, but if you haven’t done any of the basting or the chopping or the stirring, that person is you. But this is not a skivvy’s job. Pay no attention to George Orwell’s derogatory description of ‘greasy dishwashers’ doing ‘a thoroughly odious job’ in Down and Out in Paris and London. Done properly, washing up is an artform.
There are rules. Like the best chefs, a skilled sinkman can’t operate without their mise en place. That means a washing-up bowl of scalding hot water (a plugged sink is inferior and collects grime). But no Marigolds, please: you’ll lose feel and break glasses.
Any old washing-up liquid will do. Just count yourself lucky not to be living in Tudor England where people used sand or mare’s tail to scrub the dishes. More popular was wood ash, which contains potassium hydroxide, an alkali that cuts through grime when mixed with water. Then it was soap and elbow grease for the Victorians. It wasn’t until the 1940s that the surfactant washing-up liquid we use today was created. I like something cheap and brightly coloured which smells of Cherry Drops or Chewits.
Next you’ll need one brush (saucepans), two sponges (one for glasses, one for plates) and a scourer (baking trays). These are your chef’s knives. In Stella Gibbons’s Cold Comfort Farm, Flora Poste is alarmed to discover that Adam Starkadder has been washing up with a ‘clettering stick’, a twig he uses to scrape away the dirt. A ‘liddle mop wi’ a handle’ changes his life.
Finally, an old newspaper. Leave the glasses to drain on this, rather than a tea towel, and you’ll find there is less condensation and no smearing. Everything else can drain on a rack; drying by hand is fussy and you never quite know where the cloth has been.
As with all crafts, washing up is as much about the process as the result. There is a rhythm to the job that can leave you in a pleasant trance. Scrub, rinse, on the rack. Scrub, rinse, on the rack. Put the radio on and it almost feels like a privilege. This is the opposite of a Sisyphean task, for when you reach the top of the hill, the rock stays there, gleaming.
Then there is that magical time after a party when you can gossip from the sink about departed guests while your partner puts the leftovers in the fridge. I call it the bitching hour. The spell breaks when you take your hot, raw hands from the sink. If you are alone you can shut your mind down for a precious moment before going to bed, knowing a pleasing scene awaits you in the morning.
A final warning: washing up is not for altruists. Praise is part of the deal. So on Christmas Day, remember that everyone is delighted it’s you and not them at the sink. Take that praise, hold on to it, use it for leverage later if you must. But never reveal the dirty secret: there is joy here among the suds.
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