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Weird 'Household Tip' About Milk Bottle Tops And Forks

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RedQueenWildBoy

Junior Acolyte
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You know those tiny insignificant mysteries that stick in your head and annoy you for years? I'm hoping someone can help me resolve a very minor one!

When I was about 9 in 1998, I was a member of my local Brownie pack and loved collecting Brownie-related things (I was a wholesome kid, I even made Patrol Leader eventually). I especially liked finding old Brownie annuals in second hand shops, the older the better. I loved annuals from the 70s and 80s, and enjoyed looking at the slightly dated details from the time. One of the regular features in these books were pages of household tips, such as how to recycle kitchen roll tubes into pen holders or make a draught excluder out of old pillowcases, that kind of thing.

While reading an older annual, one "handy tip" stood out to me as bewildering - I even remember reading it through and looking at the accompanying illustration again and again trying to figure out what I was missing. The tip (as I remember it) was to collect used foil tops from glass milk bottles, put them in some water (maybe with other additives?), and stand some knives and forks in said water. There may have been another step to this process. The desired outcome of this endeavour was not described.

This is either a completely false memory, a partial false memory from 9-year-old me misunderstanding something unfamiliar to a small millennial, or an actual thing that some people did with their cutlery in the early '80s. Can anyone help me figure out which?
 
RedQueenWildBoy said:
You know those tiny insignificant mysteries that stick in your head and annoy you for years? I'm hoping someone can help me resolve a very minor one!

When I was about 9 in 1998, I was a member of my local Brownie pack and loved collecting Brownie-related things (I was a wholesome kid, I even made Patrol Leader eventually). I especially liked finding old Brownie annuals in second hand shops, the older the better. I loved annuals from the 70s and 80s, and enjoyed looking at the slightly dated details from the time. One of the regular features in these books were pages of household tips, such as how to recycle kitchen roll tubes into pen holders or make a draught excluder out of old pillowcases, that kind of thing.

While reading an older annual, one "handy tip" stood out to me as bewildering - I even remember reading it through and looking at the accompanying illustration again and again trying to figure out what I was missing. The tip (as I remember it) was to collect used foil tops from glass milk bottles, put them in some water (maybe with other additives?), and stand some knives and forks in said water. There may have been another step to this process. The desired outcome of this endeavour was not described.

This is either a completely false memory, a partial false memory from 9-year-old me misunderstanding something unfamiliar to a small millennial, or an actual thing that some people did with their cutlery in the early '80s. Can anyone help me figure out which?
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This sounds like a way of bringing back a shine to steel cutlery by plating with a thin film of aluminium - i.e., a quick fix.
I guess you'd add something else to the water... baking soda.

Or does it simply remove the tarnish without plating? I don't know enough about it. It'd have to be silver-plated steel cutlery, though.
 
RedQueenWildBoy said:
You know those tiny insignificant mysteries that stick in your head and annoy you for years? I'm hoping someone can help me resolve a very minor one!

When I was about 9 in 1998, I was a member of my local Brownie pack and loved collecting Brownie-related things (I was a wholesome kid, I even made Patrol Leader eventually). I especially liked finding old Brownie annuals in second hand shops, the older the better. I loved annuals from the 70s and 80s, and enjoyed looking at the slightly dated details from the time. One of the regular features in these books were pages of household tips, such as how to recycle kitchen roll tubes into pen holders or make a draught excluder out of old pillowcases, that kind of thing.

While reading an older annual, one "handy tip" stood out to me as bewildering - I even remember reading it through and looking at the accompanying illustration again and again trying to figure out what I was missing. The tip (as I remember it) was to collect used foil tops from glass milk bottles, put them in some water (maybe with other additives?), and stand some knives and forks in said water. There may have been another step to this process. The desired outcome of this endeavour was not described.

This is either a completely false memory, a partial false memory from 9-year-old me misunderstanding something unfamiliar to a small millennial, or an actual thing that some people did with their cutlery in the early '80s. Can anyone help me figure out which?
Click to expand...

That's a weird one.
All I can think of is that, tin-foil in a dishwasher has been mooted as a way to preserve the shine on your cutlery, so perhaps it was something akin to that?

https://www.homesandgardens.com/kitchens/using-aluminum-foil-in-the-dishwasher
 
Back in the day, when I was working at a restaurant, they did something similar with their silver cutlery. Aluminium foil, in hot water, with salt and then soak the cutlery in it. It gets rid of tarnishes and brings back the original shine. Maybe it was baking soda but I think it was just salt.
 
How it works (or so this says)

https://www.thespruce.com/diy-silver-cleaner-1388736

When tarnished silver, salt, baking soda, aluminum foil, and water are combined, a chemical reaction occurs known as ion exchange.1 During this process, the tarnish on the silver (silver sulfide) is released and becomes aluminum sulfide on the foil. If the silver is tarnished enough, you may see brown or yellowish tarnish flakes on the aluminum foil. The process can be used on sterling silver or silver-plated items.
Click to expand...
 
The tarnish removal trick sounds plausible! I think I was thrown by the fact that the method called for milk bottle tops in particular and not just any leftover household foil.

Strange that my book never stated the point of this task, as I don't see how removing tarnish from knives and forks would have been an obvious concern for an under-10!
 
RedQueenWildBoy said:
The tarnish removal trick sounds plausible! I think I was thrown by the fact that the method called for milk bottle tops in particular and not just any leftover household foil.

Strange that my book never stated the point of this task, as I don't see how removing tarnish from knives and forks would have been an obvious concern for an under-10!
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As a child, I was often given the job of polishing up the family silverware and copper items. I guess it gave me something to do.
 
ramonmercado said:
I now picture you enduring a Dickensian childhood!
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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.
 
Mythopoeika said:
This sounds like a way of bringing back a shine to steel cutlery by plating with a thin film of aluminium - i.e., a quick fix.
I guess you'd add something else to the water... baking soda.

Or does it simply remove the tarnish without plating? I don't know enough about it. It'd have to be silver-plated steel cutlery, though.
Click to expand...

This. I know you can remove tarnish from silver by putting it in a dish of warm water, some baking soda and some aluminum foil. Works quite well actually!
 
Aydee_Aitchdee said:
This. I know you can remove tarnish from silver by putting it in a dish of warm water, some baking soda and some aluminum foil. Works quite well actually!
Click to expand...
I did this myself recently and it works, so the tip probably was for cleaning silverware. I liked those old Brownie albums too, I was in the Brownies for a couple of years and it was great.
 
Fanari_Lloyd said:
I liked those old Brownie albums too
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They were a great read. :)
Had some as a child and learned a lot from them, as bookish children do.

One of the stories was about a country girl who was sent to collect some eggs but accidentally dropped and broke them all.
She then needs to replace them so she tours the farm with her basket robbing the nests of fire range/semi-feral hens until she has the necessary dozen.

I loved that story, read it over and over.
What did I learn?
- There's a solution to one's problems.
- THINK your way out of trouble!
- Ingenuity goes a long way.
- Go with what you know; use your head.
- If you do well enough you won't get caught.
- Don't over-compensate. Our girl eventually found far more than 12 eggs but including the excess would have raised questions.
etc
 
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