On primitive kitchen tools
A few months ago I transitioned from using disposable sponges & liquid detergent to bar soap and a dish brush– trying to limit how much trash I produce etc etc– but now I'm wondering if this is actually disgusting and unsanitary. The fibers on the brush are natural, and the brush sits on top of the soap when I'm not using it. I.... don't wash the brush. Is this nasty??
What a fun endeavor. Not nasty! But maybe I’m not the best judge of this as I am midway through a multi-year process of converting my dinnerware to primitive eating tools. My goal is to serve soup in abalone shells and drink wine from literal gourds. Why am I doing this? Because Island of the Blue Dolphins had a big impact on me and also because the sight of a dishwasher full of shells makes me giggle. Is it safe? Of course it’s fucking safe.
My butter dish
Currently, my eating surfaces have Benjamin-Buttoned from ordinary CB2 ceramic plates to vaguely plate-shaped slabs of wood. There’s a little nuance when it comes to cleaning wooden dishes and It also applies to your medieval scrubbing tools.
The key is making sure that your brush dries completely between uses. Stacking it on top of the bar soap actually seems like a good way to make this happen. Just avoid letting it sit at the bottom of your sink in a puddle of dirty dishwasher, which is a fast track to a nasty brush.
If you notice that your well-maintained brush has become a little grimy, you can employ ones of my favorite sanitizing techniques:
Dump boiling water on your dish brush.
Soak it in a diluted bleach solution (1 tbsp bleach per gallon of water) for a few hours. This is the best thing to do if you start to notice black moldy splotches on the brush.
Run it in the dishwasher, if you have one.
One note. All of these techniques will de-nasty your brush, but they’ll also remove the natural oils from the wood, and those oils help prevent your brush from getting nasty in the first place. So if your wood brush starts getting dry and porous-looking, consider rubbing some oil into it (olive, coconut or any natural oil will work). This will prevent it from warping and cracking while also keeping the bad stuff out.
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