British Couple Reacts to 5 Ways British and American Kitchens Are Very Different 

In the US, dishes are always rinsed. If you tell someone here that in UK a soapy dish is left on the rack so the soap can run off, you are likely to get some horrified looks (if not gasps). 🌺

We washed in one sink with hot water and dish soap, rinsed them with hot running water, then set them in the dish drainer.

Europeans really underestimate how many electric kettles we have in the US. Lol.

The reason that we Americans don’t use egg cups as often is because fried eggs with runny yolks are far more popular than soft boiled eggs. We still dip our toast in it but we don’t need a cup for that.

Also, with the washer/dryer - you can wash a second load while first is drying if not one machine

My parents had egg cups for soft boiled eggs when I was a kid (early 1960's), but I haven't even thought of one since then. There doesn't seem to be much demand for soft boiled eggs here. I have over easy fried eggs to dip my toast into. I literally have about 6 cups of tea A YEAR, but I drink coffee every day. Why would someone like me have a kitchen device like an electric kettle for such limited usage? Most Americans have coffee makers that pass water through a filter that contains ground coffee. Most of the people I know don't use "instant coffee" which is made with boiling water, but most people agree that instant coffee.... uh..... sucks.

I remember thinking as I was growing up that it was weird that we called boiled eggs hard-boiled, since I didn't know any other way of making them. Even as an adult the only time I've seen a soft-boiled egg was when I was making hard-boiled eggs and accidentally undercooked them.

Stove top kettle in our house! That whistle is great.

The problem I found when visiting in UK is that the washing/dryer was too small. I have a 6 ft 2 inch 200 pound husband. And I could only fit one pair of his jeans in at a time. Seperate washer and dryer let's u wash a load and dry a load at the same time. The single unit took forever before I could put another load,

Dipping toast in eggs is why I always order eggs over easy. I’ve definitely seen and heard of egg cups, but never used one. Looks fun!

After watching so many Brits be astonished at our lack of electric kettles, I finally got one. I love it. I no longer have a coffee-maker, but use a French press for coffee The kettle comes in handy more often than you'd think. 10/10 would recommend.

We use our dish washer about 50% of the time and the other half hand wash in our 2 sided sink. Yes we have a dish drying rack on the counter 100% of the time.

I have an electric kettle that's specifically for water for tea. From what I understand, though, it doesn't heat up water as quickly as the British kettles do. However, in some newer-built houses, there's a small side faucet at the sink that's just for instant boiling hot water - so there's no need for a kettle in those homes.

It's not that Egg Cups don't exist in America. It's that they're considered old fashioned. A normal store probably won't have them, but I'm sure a cooking specialty shop does. We do make eggs with runny yolks, they're just served differently.

My mother enjoyed eggs over easy served on hot buttered toast every morning for as long as I can remember.

I always dipped toast into the egg over easy. 😩 I didn't know it was a thing...I thought it was just me. 😂😂

My washer and dryer are in the kitchen. It is rare to see though. I fix appliances and most washers and dryers are in the basement, a bathroom, or a closet specially made for them around here

Not mentioned is using the microwave oven to heat up water or for a hot a hot drink (mine even has 2 beverage settings). 4min 25 seconds in the micro and have boiling hot water. I own a whistler kettle, haven't used it in years.

we have dishwashing soap for washing in the sink. dishwasher's have a compartment for the dishwashing pod. had egg cup as a kid but not now.

In the U.S. an oven is used for baking and roasting; so, you are placing something in it. The stove is used for pots, such as boiling potatoes. When the two are integrated the proper term is a range which sits on the kitchen floor. Many people have wall ovens. I think most Americans have ranges (all in one)... The term "tap" is mostly used by my family when one wants room temperature drinking water. We will ask if you want refrigerated or tap water... Washer machines in kitchens seems so out of place. I think about food smells getting into clothing. The machines look so small. I often wonder, how many times a week must one launder their clothes. And it seems like it would take so long because from wash to dry must take 3 hours.

In my sister‘s old house, the laundry room was not attached to the kitchen but it led to the garage so you would walk through the den into the laundry room and then into the garage.

Americans do dip eggs, it's just usually an over easy egg or sunny side up egg , not a boiled one. Basically the same end result.

Laurence did a video on the reason why British houses have washing machines in the kitchen. He stated that most houses in the UK were built before world war two and it was easier to add washing machines to the kitchen because the plumbing was already there. On the other hand in America most houses were built after World War II and they were built With a separate laundry room or in some cases the washer dryer hook up is in the garage. In Laurence‘s house, the washer and dryer are in his basement. Where washer and dryers located in America depends on where you live and the age of your house. My grandparents washer and dryer was on their back porch. It was a big back porch and it was covered and enclosed but it was not part of the original house. My former boss had his laundry room on the second floor of his house. His logic was because that’s where their bedrooms were and they didn’t want to carry clothes up and down the stairs. The house I grew up in the washer and dryer were in the garage and we still had a clothesline in the backyard

I grew up with egg cups, but I think it was mainly an East Coast phenomenon due to its relationship with all things English. But I rarely hear of people using them today. But my mother taught us how to soft boil an egg and we frequently had them in egg cups-again, in the old days (50s-60s).

Im nearly 70 years old. I have not seen an egg cup for 60 years. They were comon 60 years ago but fell out of favor.

When I was young living a trailer the stacked washing dryer was im the bathroom. Now the house that grew up in had them in the kitchen, where, ironically, was a small bathroom that was taken out.

Electric water pots are becoming more common. Most dorms (military for me and college for niece and nephew) are way big eaters of cup o' noodles or ramen. Hot chocolate and herbal tea is very common too.

I'm American, my wife is English, so we have an electric kettle & egg cups. We also have a stovetop kettle that whistles, a Kureg single-cup coffee maker that uses those little plastic coffee pods, a stovetop coffee percolator with the little glass knob in the lid so you can see the coffee perking, and a cowboy-style percolator that can be either stovetop or campfire-ready. Our washer and dryer are both waist-high, located in a special closet in the bathroom. We also have a steel cable strung from near the back door of the house to one of our storage sheds that is used as both a clothesline and a place to hang a couple of birdfeeders. In the sinks & tub/shower combo we use Tap and Faucet interchangeably, but the ones outside the house are called Spigots. When I was growing up, a Great Aunt of mine had a huge cast-iron stove in her kitchen. It burned either coal or wood, or frequently both. She and my paternal Grandmother also had chamberpots instead of bathroom toilets, and bathed from a wash basin filled with hot water boiled on the stove. The area of East Tennessee where I grew up was full of Victorian/Edwardian-era customs, styles, and traditions. On the other hand, my father worked at Oak Ridge. My parents grew up during the Great Depression, so I learned a lot of things about having a family life under difficult conditions. Now, I have never used an egg cup, because the only ways I can stand eggs is either scrambled for breakfasts or hard-boiled & made into Deviled Eggs for family reunions or picnics or church socials. This is because as a child I once got ferociously ill from eating eggs sunny-side up. I love eggs scrambled or Deviled, however.

My family switched to an electric kettle years ago and we love it!

I usually just rinse off my dishes and put them in the dishwasher.

Egg and soldiers is the most British thing I've ever heard.

We bought a house that was remodeled by a couple from Europe and they put the washer and dryer in the kitchen. It is a bit odd in the US. Usually there is a laundry room or they're put in the garage or basement. Not a rule, but mostly so.

I've never heard of an egg cup (I only like mine scrambled anyway). We don't have a tea kettle because we rarely drink tea (except iced tea). If we do want hot tea, we use the keurig to heat the water (after removing the coffee pod) and then let the tea bag sit in the mug for a few minutes. I've never heard of a cooker (we have ovens and stoves) and, yes, we use soap when we hand wash the dishes. Then we rinse and dry them. But it's been a long time since we've done that because we use the dishwasher.

I'm American, my parent's washing machine was in the kitchen. Everyone always found it odd. Its not with the other appliances, it was at the end of the kitchen.

Leaving the soap suds on guarantees streaks. We handwash delicate items that the dishwasher would destroy. And so long as the soap is rinsed off there's never any streaks while properly placed 8n a drying rack

we have electric kettles in the US

I have egg cups in my home, I don't use them a lot, we cook the eggs sunny side up, poached or over easy. I even have the egg topper that cracks/makes a hole in a soft boiled egg shell so you can dip from your soft boiled eggs.

One of the other things about the UK plumbing difference is the cold water tank. That was the reason for hot and cold taps. The water tanks were phased out/phasing out due to it being a cause of disease. Rodents were known to die in them and the home owners wouldn't know until the bones plug up the pipes.

Kettle on the hob in winter helps keep moisture in the air. Laundry can be anywhere according to house size. In the kitchen, bathroom, its own room, hallway closet, or bedroom closet.

We have the side thing for boiling water automatically ready. But I can't get my head around not rinsing off dish soap. It "❤would leave water marks" ? What about dried soap? And then put food on top of that? No offense but soap film is yuck. You can't wash your hair with shampoo and not rinse it, or wash the car but not rinse off the bubbles (and nobody eats off those😂). I like dipping toast in egg yolk but fried egg sunny side up is the usual. Interesting comparison though.❤

I had the same egg cups with the chicken feet for my girls when they were little lol ❤

We don't have egg cups, but here's what IS common: Fried eggs with soft yolks and you dip your toast into the yolk. Or I'll usually just burst the yolk and put the whole egg on my toast and eat it like that. So, we know how good egg yolks on toast is, don't worry there. But soft boiled eggs aren't super common here. Fried, poached, or scrambled is way more likely. We hard boil eggs a lot, too, but usually for salads and stuff, not breakfast.

It depends how many dishes I'm washing, really. If its enough to fill a sink, I'll do a sink of hot water. If it's just a couple, Ill do it under running water. Also, when you do a sink of hot water, you can put the dishes and then go kick back and chill for like twenty minutes because they "need to soak awhile". 😊

The smaller the home, the more likely it is for the laundry to be in the kitchen or bathroom. I live in a small (by suburban US standards) and my laundry is in a closet at the end of my kitchen. Some condos in the same development have it in the bathroom but none have a distinct utility/laundry room

I have my grandmother’s egg cups. I remember using them as a kid. But the way we eat soft boiled eggs and toast is spooning out the egg on a complete slice of toast rather than dipping them with pieces of toast. Who needs a kettle when you have a microwave? I used to have one of the whistling kettles, but I got rid of it because the microwave is a lot faster for one cup! I use the term tea towel. I think it’s old-fashioned here. My grandparents used to say it more than my mother but I must have heard it somewhere because I use that term a lot now.

My mother never rinsed the soap off the dishes. It's very disconcerting to fill up a glass with water and find a soapy head on it.

Apartments in the U.S. usually have a small closet with a stacked washer and dryer (dryer on top of the washer).

Yes we use dish soap when hand washing. Mostly for one off items we need quicker the sending them through the dish washer cycle. Plus some items that cannot sit in water such as wooden or aluminum cooking utensils. Plus we use cast iron pans that require a different kind of cleaning.

A leading dishwashing liquid company recently said the correct way to wash dishes is in a sink of warm or hot water with the liquid added. Dishwashing liquid is basically a concentrate that has to soak in water to dilute it. They are currecntly working on a a spray bottle of dishwashing liquid that is already diluted so that it can be sprayed on an individual dish without filling the sink and then rinsed off and dried.

In the U.S. we have "egg-in-the-hole" where you cut a hole in the middle of one or two slices of toast, then you pour an egg into the hole of each slice while pan frying it. You cook it until the egg on the outside is well cooked, but the egg inside the hole is still a bit runny. It's delicious and sounds a lot like what you're talking about with dipping the toast in the egg cup.

When I was a kid we never had soft boiled eggs, but we did have "bullseyes." This was an egg fried into a piece of toast with the middle cut out, so the runny yolk was inside the toast. Then you dip other toast into the yolk.

Our washer and dryer were in the basement til we put laundry room in the garage. My parents' washer/dryer are in their bathroom. We have a Cuisinart single serve coffee maker (the kind that uses the pods), I use it for coffee, my husband uses it for his iced tea. He puts a tea bag in one of the holders for the ground coffee and adds ice when it is done.

Usually ice in hand washing a dish or something I'll just dry it and put it ash but for most things we have a dishwasher.

Electric kettles definitely exist in the US. You could probably find one down at the local Walmart or Target if you went looking. But they're hardly ubiquitous, as coffee drinkers way outnumber tea drinkers in the States. A stovetop kettle for the occasional cup of "I'm sick, I need something hot" tea is all most Americans need. And on the subject of egg cups, I'm familiar with them from having lived in England as a kid, but I don't think I've seen a single one actually in use in the US for like 30 years. I know of a couple local restaurants that won't even serve eggs with runny yolks, calling it a "health issue"

When I was a little girl, the first house my family lived in had the washing machine in the kitchen. We hung the clothes on the line to dry outside. When we moved, when I was 10, the new house had a utility room with washer and dryer, but my mom still liked hanging the clothes on the line.

Egg cups exist in America it's just that most average people don't bother to buy them because they seem kind of pointless. If you're going to have a hard boiled, or even soft boiled, egg a regular bowl or plate works perfectly fine to have your breakfast off.

You gotta remember you have a kettle on the stove, though. I once got distracted until I hear "POP!" and a bright flash and an ominous buzzing hum because all the water had boiled out, the kettle got red hot, and blew out and fused itself to the burner. Whoopsidoodles. 😳

I have a very small house but I still have a separate area for my washer and dryer. We do not have a dishwasher except for my 2 hands.

I've had an electric kettle in my home for almost 30 years. I will never be without one. It is one of the most versatile appliances you can have. Not only for tea but many other things.

I love dipping my toast into egg yolk for breakfast. I call it a "dunky egg". We fry the eggs in the pan and either have it "sunny side up" or flip it over and seal the top which is called "over easy". Then put it on a plate to eat and dunk.

When I was growing up we had an entire bedroom-sized room for laundry in my later teens my mom split the 3 story house into 2 apartments and the laundry room became a kitchen. Laundry went down to the basement where it's also done in my current house.

Sometimes we do basted eggs. It like a fried egg without the fat. I like mine over easy. With a soft yolk. I am hoping you get to see a Lowe’s Home Depot or a housing development when you visit this year.

I live in Texas and have an electric kettle. I love it! Now my mom and family members bought one too. I use it for tea, making broths, my kids use it for ramen.

Many apartments have the washer and dryer in the kitchen, but they’re in a special closet just for them.

An oven can be by itself or part of a range. A range has the hob on top and the oven underneath. Ranges can be just the hob and oven but some will have a hob, a grill plate, an oven, and a broiler.

While electric kettles are available, maybe even common, I’ve never had one. Stove top kettle works fine and feels right. When doing dishes by hand I usually put the hot soapy water in the largest used vessel that’s not going in the dishwasher. Wash, rinse under running water, drain. Sometimes I towel dry them. Faucets with built in sprayers are great. No egg cups though my granddad had one. He was born in the British West Indies in the 1870’s! Eggs over easy for me. My boiled eggs are always hard boiled for salad and such.

We put our fried eggs with yolk on toast and eat it. Cut into the yolk and eat on toast no egg shells.

Most houses prior to the 1970’s had the Washing Machine in the kitchen. The house I grew up in had one next to the fridge. Then a window to the back yard (garden) with a clothes line out back. The design harkened back to when women were predominantly housewives who spent a good bit of their day in the kitchen and needed to keep an eye on the drying laundry and the kids playing in the yard. We had a clothes dryer in our garage just off the kitchen dining area. Now, there’s usually no clotheslines, and a washer/dryer in a laundry room.

We put our eggs on our toast directly. Probably taste the same but less washing up to do. We use the term tea towel sometimes but mostly dish towel is said in our house here is Pennsylvania. I do have an electric kettle but rarely use it. If I have tea I heat the water on using a kettle on the stove. Enjoy your show and take care..

My parents had electric kettles they made coffee back in the 70s and 80s Great video is always hope all 3 of you are doing good May god bless you and have a great day ❤

An advantage to the stovetop kettle is that is always on the stove partly filled. After cooking something you put the kettle on the still hot burner (hob). That way you can't accidentally burn your hand (and you get a bit of extra humidity in the air.

One of the reasons for tea kettles was it sat on the hearth or wood stove and added moisture back into the room. American's brought over kettles from Europe and the electric one just never really caught on as most people moved to coffee and coffee pots. It is only more recently that a counter machine can handle both.

I'm in California and i have an electric kettle and egg cups. When i was in college and i lived in an apartment i had a coffee maker on the counter and a kettle on the stove but now that i have a bigger kitchen i have both a coffee maker and an electric kettle on the counter.

My Grandma had an all-in-one washer/dryer in the bathroom. She HATED it! She said one wash & dry cycle took way too long. An aunt on the other side of the family had a small utility room in the kitchen for doing the laundry. (She was disabled, & going up & down the stairs was exceedingly difficult for her )

We prewash. If you don’t have a garbage disposal you scrape most stuff from plate into the trash can. Then use the sprayer to wash off things like gravy, butter, jelly. Then you put into soapy sink. Or if you have dishwasher then scrape,rinse, washer.

I remember back in the 1980s and 90s having a Dish Daisy and me and my brothers had to use it to hand wash dishes. 😂😂😂

I bought a kettle like 2 years ago. NEVER USED IT. I even have tea :(

Dish basins are common in America too. I'm 58 and have always had dish basins. A squirt of soap, hot water in tge basin, put your dishes in.

I wouldn't mind having an electric kettle, but I am straight up OUT of kitchen space. I got my blender, stand mixer, food processor, toaster. I just don't have the counter space for another small appliance.

I've actually seen videos of people accidentally putting a electric kettle on the stove and not realizing it till it starts smelling and is melted lol

I'm American and I've always washed dishes in the sink filled with water and soap

Most houses in the US (particularly the western half) were either built after washers and dryers were invented and come with a laundry room (usually located between the kitchen and garage) or if the house is older, these appliances are normally in the garage. Nearly every 20th century house in the US has a garage and very few houses predate the 20th century. In apartment buildings (flats), there is usually a communal laundry room with multiple washers and dryers for tenants to use. These are normally coin-operated and cost 1 to 2 dollars to use.

Wow, I have a dedicated laundry room. Never would have thought to place in the kitchen

Never seen an egg cup here in the US but I've seen them in movies. Since coffee is king, like Lawrence said, maybe our equivalent to the electric kettle is the coffee maker, which pretty much every American home has

Yup, many have electric kettles here. And I have egg cups, difficult to get the eggs cooked correctly, though 😏😉

I use an electric kettle. I don't drink coffee but I drink 3 to 5 cups of tea every day. My husband drinks french pressed coffee so I need the heated water for that as well.

North Carolinian here, my family has *always* had tea instead of coffee around the house so, I grew up with a tea kettle constantly on the stovetop. Eventually we got an electric kettle for the convenience. Now that I’m off on my own I have an electric kettle and a stovetop kettle in my home. My sister has an electric kettle in her home. And my parents have an electric kettle and stovetop kettle. Egg cups though, we’ve never needed because no one in our family eats soft boiled eggs (outside of a ramen bowl.) Our washing machine is in our kitchen. Edit: my mom *does* have egg cups. We just never used them.

🌸 I've seen egg cups, but never used one. But, I've been "sopping" my over medium egg yolks with my toast all my life. Or a pancake works too. 😋

I know several Americans who have kettles sitting on their stove. No electric ones because they don’t actually use it. It’s just cute sitting on your stove.

When I was a child most people in the US had some kind of kettle for boiling water. We had the whistling kettle but mostly used a larger kettle. My father was a great tea drinker. I've been told the with US electric current being 110 volts, electric kettles take too long to boil.

When I was growing up in the 1950s & '60s, my mother rarely made soft-boiled eggs, and we had no egg cups. We did have poached eggs, though. We had a special pan that had an insert with four holes in it. Into each hole a small cup would fit - each one just big enough to fit a dab of butter and one egg (egg was cracked an out of the shell, of course!) When the water in the bottom of the pan boiled, it gently cooked the eggs to a "white is cooked through but yolk is still runny" consistency. Then, when your poached egg was on your plate, you tore a piece of toast into small pieces and mixed it all up with your egg - which you had already smashed up with a fork. This combo of poached egg and torn-up toast, plus a little salt and pepper, was delicious! I haven't had a poached egg in decades. Every now and then I hard boil one.

When I was young our house had the washer and dryer in the garage . Every other house I've lived in had a small , separate room for them . In the US you don't need a large home to have a laundry room

i have an electric kettle for primary use - tea and oatmeal, etc, but i have a regular one as well for the gas stove. i wash dishes by rinsing with the hose / soap in full sink of water, then dry on rack in the second sink. i only wash under the tap for single cups/dishes. i put my "sunny side" eggs on a plate like a civilized human where i can eat the whites first and then puncture the top of the yolk and then mop it up with the toast or english muffin - or just put it on top of the toast/muffin to begin with and spread the yolk around... as for words, i've always heard the stove being the stove-top, cook-top, or range (terms for just the burners without the oven) combined with the oven, or double oven (not sure if brits have double or 1.5 ovens or not)

American here, we have a small house, without a laundry room. Our washer/dryer is in one of our bathrooms. They sit in where the linen closet would have been. Washing dishes, we fill the sink with hot soapy water, and then we rinse the dishes and place in the drying rack. We do not want soapy dishes. My house now has a dishwasher, but I grew up in a home without.

As a kid our “egg cups” were ceramic 8 oz “dessert” bowls because that is what our father would serve a portion of scrambled eggs with sausage or bacon and shredded cheddar in … when i first saw an actual egg cup i thought they were candle sticks for short but fat votive candles

I have a kettle, but haven’t used it for a long time. I have egg cups but haven’t really used those either. I have a sink with a dish rack but usually use the dishwasher. I don’t have a garbage disposal and a lot of people don’t.

I don't even have a kettle electric or otherwise, I just heat my water in a pot on the stove. No egg cups, we just do overeasy and dip on the plate. A cooker here is often a roaster or an insta pot, perhaps a crock pot. If I were to tell my husband I had chicken in the cooker the oven is the last place he would look for it. Great reaction, blessings to all 3 of you.

To me - the washer right in the kitchen is the strangest of all UK differences . . . I cook with a lot of garlic and seasonings... I really don't want my clean clothes to smell of garlic...and where do you fold the clothes? Of everything I've seen...this one to me would kind of drive me a bit nuts . . . I'm sure if it was something I grew up with...probably would give a second thought . . but gosh .. ya, just couldn't handle that ... I will load my sink with dish soap and water and do dishes vs running the dishwasher if I don't have that many dishes! lol We have two sink sides - one to wash which is on the side of the garbage disposal - so don't have to worry about a bit of food - and then rinse and put into the dish rack...dry and put away! LOL Ya, we fry our eggs "sunny side up or over easy" so they have the runny yoke and dip our toast - or we poach them and again, runny yoke! We have egg cups - I have a couple - but having to make soft boiled eggs in double the time to fry or poach - those usually win out! LOL

Some of the older houses have a closet built for the washer and dryer. Not all of them houses in the south have garages

We had a stove top kettles that whistled but now use a glass microwave wave kettle for tea or hot coco or hot chocolate. Now I have Jet Boil stoves and cups for camping that boil water for drinks or rehydration cooking or just cooking. Plus coffee makers and now Keurig coffee machines.