The Importance of Dishwashers

A judge lost his temper in Manhattan last month and fined seven downtown restaurant owners $775 because their glasses were dirty. During the month, 87 New York City restaurateurs got summonses for dirty dishes--the Health Department's last resort when all attempts to win proprietors and influence dishwashers failed.

Not Alcohol. Some of the most expensive restaurants had bacteria counts as high as 4,800 to a cup (test is made by swabbing out a utensil with wet sterile cotton and culturing the swab). The maximum the law allows is 100. One drug store had 86,000 bacteria to a cup--no surprise to customers who have watched lunch-counter dishwashing with horrified fascination. Some New York City beer glasses, which usually get a split-second rinse in lukewarm water, had a count of 55,000, but in a survey of an unnamed city last year the Public Health Service found an average of 7,000,000 bacteria per beer glass (the notion that alcohol makes a glass safe is a fallacy).

Hot Water. Because Surgeon General Thomas Parran believes that much of the 60% increase in dysentery can be blamed on food handlers (even typhoid can be caused by dirty dishes), and because the wartime shortage of help has increased the dirty-dish menace, the Public Health Service is advising U.S. cities to provide courses in dishwashing methods. Even with a good dishwashing machine, an "intelligent dishwasher" is needed: e.g., the water in the machine must not get too cold or the dishes will have a higher bacteria count than they had to begin with; if it gets too hot, it will provide food for the customer's commonest complaint, a fork with cooked egg on it.

Some rules for dishwashing:

P: After scraping, dishes should be pre-rinsed if possible.

P: In hand-washing, the detergent wash-water should be at 110DEG to 120DEG F.--as hot as the hand can stand. In a machine (water up to 140DEG F.), this process should take at least 40 seconds.

P: Rinsing should be in a chlorine solution, or in water at 170DEG F., for at least 15 seconds.

P: Hot dishes will drain dry by themselves. The only time wiping is permissible is when very hard water makes water spots. For this purpose, towels must be absolutely clean, or they will add to the bacteria on the dishes. Dishes should never be put away wet.

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