Doing the Dirty...Dishes!

I think I’ve already adjusted to my life too much to remember what I found so strange about living in Holland in the very beginning. The other day, my girlfriend A. (a recently relocated American), asked me confidentially, “So, do you dry your dishes with soap too?” I had to laugh. This is one of the most bizarre things that seem so ordinary to me now.

First off, we don’t have a dishwasher. Gasp! Gape! Shudder! Although many people do own a dishwasher, it’s not that common. Out of all our friends here, I can think of two couples off the top of my head that do. Coincidentally, they also own their own homes. I think it’s not worth the hassle to have a dishwasher in Holland when you rent. There is actually a good reason. You know that saying, “everything but the kitchen sink”? The Dutch take that to a new level. When you move to a new apartment in Holland, you take everything with you…the stovetop, the refrigerator, the oven, the drapes, the carpet, the washer, the dryer, (we are lucky to have a dryer –several of my friends don’t). When P. first moved into our apartment, several years before me, there was a concrete floor, bare windows, a kitchen sink and that’s about it. This is hugely different in America. We rent with appliances already installed. It would have been extremely inconvenient to haul a dishwasher from Texas to California and back.

Back to the dishes…in the beginning, my sweet fiancée had the innocent notion that washing dishes together would be romantic. We’d be domestic in the kitchen, him washing, me drying, talking, laughing and flipping soapsuds at each other…that lasted maybe two weeks –although the soapsuds flipping still comes into effect pretty often. In reality, washing dishes is a really annoying, dreaded chore that neither one of us looks forward to. It goes so far as to affect what I cook each day. I often think, hmmm, what can I cook tonight that fits in one pan?

I do have one sentimental link to a memory of my mother doing dishes in the sink when I was a little girl. Luckily, by the time I was old enough to help, we had upgraded to a dishwasher. You never truly know what you’ll miss, until it’s not there.

Here, instead of filling up the sink with soapy water, most people have a plastic tub that fits perfectly in the one-sided sinks (they sell these here just for this purpose). They fill these with the soapy water. Now, I know I didn’t have tons of experience with washing dishes (sans dishwasher), but the first time P. handed me a soapy dish, I knew something was off.

“Aren’t you going to rinse it?”
“Why would I do that?”
“Ummm, to get the soap off.”
“The soap comes off when you dry it.”

D’oh. What was I thinking? That’s right ladies and gentlemen. We do not rinse our dishes here in Holland. My favorite reaction came from my mother, “What! That’s not hygienic.” Now, I know it’s weird, but considering soap and hygiene kind of go hand-in-hand to my mind, I think it’s pretty darn over-hygienic.

And, those Dutch people lucky enough to own a dishwasher don’t actually rinse their dishes before putting them in the dishwasher either. The following conversation took place while helping a girlfriend clean up after a party:

“What are you doing?”
“Rinsing the dishes.”
“Why? You don’t have to do that. Just put them in the dishwasher.”
“But there’s still food on it.”
“That’s why we have a dishwasher.”
“Oh.”

Now, maybe it’s just me. But my mother always taught me to rinse the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Maybe that’s double-duty. Or maybe we just have really weak dishwashers in America, I don’t know, but I’m starting to think the Dutch have something against rinsing.

Funny story: I’m visiting P.’s family for the first time –and, before I spoke Dutch. We’ve just had coffee and cake and his parents and grandmother start to wash dishes. I want to impress them and be seen as the sweet and helpful new girlfriend. I’ve now done dishes a couple times with P., so I know how it goes…I take a dishtowel and grab a soapy plate and start to dry it. His grandmother takes the plate back from me and shakes her finger, saying what I take to be, “No, no, no, you’re a guest here, you shouldn’t wash dishes.” To which I take the dish back and try to dry it again with a smile, showing that I just want to help. What she was actually saying is something like, “No, no, no, that dish isn’t clean. It’s only afgespoeld.” What P. failed to mention to me in advance, is that his family washes the dishes twice –first, my equivalent of ‘rinsing’ the food off and then the second time for actual washing. Only I didn’t get that, so his grandma and I had a tug-of-war over me trying to dry the ‘dirty’ plate. They still make fun of me to this day over that. :o)

Who knew washing dishes could stimulate so much fodder?