In Rick Stein’s latest cookbook, Simple Suppers, he recounts a scene from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels in which the two warring nations, the Lilliputians and the Blefuscudians, have a terrible argument about whether a boiled egg should be accessed from the thick end or the thin end.

Fair enough. Back in 1726, if you wanted a set-to argument, the boiled egg was as good a topic as any. Not so today. Should you wish to have a blazing row, there are so many topics from which to choose.

Cuts both ways: Do you stack your cutlery in the dishwasher pointy end up or down?Credit: iStock

I had a doozy only the other day. I was stacking the dishwasher in front of my friend Matt. Placing the cutlery into the little basket, I was adopting my usual practice of placing the sharp end of the knives downwards, together with the pointy end of the forks.

“What are you doing?” said Matt. “The pointy end goes upwards. No way should the business end be sloshing around in the turbid gloom down below. Place them blade-up and tine-up, so they can get a proper clean.”

Oh, God. Where to start?

He clearly doesn’t know how a dishwasher works, but then again, I’m not sure I do either. I decide to rest my argument on the grounds of occupational health and safety.

“If the handles are upright,” I said, “you can just grab them when unpacking the machine, with no danger of cutting your hand.”

He thought about this, but only for a second. “Well,” he said, “I’ve done it for years, and not once have I cut my hand.”

I wasn’t going to take this lying down. “Also”, I added, “it means that during unpacking, you touch the handles and not the working part of the implement. Think of all the germs.”

QOSHE - The everyday debates guaranteed to start an argument - Richard Glover
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The everyday debates guaranteed to start an argument

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19.04.2024

In Rick Stein’s latest cookbook, Simple Suppers, he recounts a scene from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels in which the two warring nations, the Lilliputians and the Blefuscudians, have a terrible argument about whether a boiled egg should be accessed from the thick end or the thin end.

Fair enough. Back in 1726, if you wanted a set-to argument, the boiled egg was as good a topic as any. Not so today. Should you wish........

© The Sydney Morning Herald


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