The Unusual Appliance The Brits Keep In Their Kitchens

If you peruse the average American kitchen, you are bound to find an impressive assortment of appliances. And if you are a fan of gadgets, you likely jump on every new culinary toy that comes out. Between trusty standbys like toasters and kettles, and newfangled items like Instant Pots and air fryers, you are more likely to exhaust yourself of space before you run out of new gadgets to buy. 

But what appliances are considered must-haves, the requisite items that chefs simply cannot live without? Chef and associate professor at the Culinary Institute of America Culinary Arts, Lance Nitahara, tells Mental Floss that every kitchen should have a pressure cooker as it can be a hurried chef's trustiest pal, enabling him to make "wild rice in 20 minutes." Executive Creative Chef Marco Arreguin tells Insider that his go-to appliance is a KitchenAid stand mixer with its many attachments, as it is his favorite and most-used. When it comes to large appliances, chef and restaurateur Ethan Stowell tells HGTV that a "six-burner gas range is a necessity." And as CNBC reveals, Guy Fieri's home kitchen renovation included a sink that is operated with a foot pedal as the chef contends, "Nothing's worse than touching a faucet with some nasty raw chicken on your hands." In many British kitchens, however, you may find a very unexpected appliance.

While North Americans typically keep their washing machines in a designated laundry room, this is not the case in most United Kingdom homes. In Britain, most washers reside in the kitchen. When you're accustomed to having a separate room devoted to the washing of garments, it may seem strange to wash your knickers in the same room where you whip up spaghetti and meatballs, but there is a very good reason for this placement. According to Help With The Washing, British homes are much smaller than their U.S. counterparts, with the average square footage of an English home being 818, while the American one comes in at an average of 2,164. Diary of Spaces adds that many homes in the U.K. were built before modern appliances were even devised. Plus, the kitchen enables Brits to use existing plumbing to operate their washers. Why don't they put the appliances in the bathroom? It would appear that their loos are too small.

An American BuzzFeed reporter who lives in the United Kingdom does point out that having one's washer in the kitchen is far better than having to lug your dirty laundry to a laundromat. Many apartment dwellers across America have absolutely no laundry facilities in their homes, so a washing machine in the kitchen sounds like a good option. Plus, when you drop a sauce-covered meatball on your lap, the washer is just a few steps away.