Tradition

A friend sent this story to me today: A lady was fixing a ham and she cut the ends off of it before she placed it in the pan. Her husband asked her why she cut the ends off of it. She said “Because my mother always cut the ends off” She got to thinking about this and then went to her mother and asked “Mom, why did you always cut the ends of the ham off when you fixed it?” Her mother replied, “Because my mother always cut the ends off” The lady then went to her grandmother and asked the same question. The answer was, again, the same. “That’s the way my mother used to do it.” Finally, the young lady went to her great-grandmother to try to get to the bottom of this. “Great-Grandma, did you always cut the ends of the ham off before you fixed it?” And she said “Well, yes I did” She asked “Why did you do that?” And her great grandmother said, in a very matter-of-fact manner “Well, I had to in order to get it to fit in my pan” This got me to thinking about the things we do because of tradition. Why do we do them? Do we even know? Does it make sense? For years I made gravy the way my mom did just because. She would add water to the meat drippings and heat it and then put flour into the pot and stir with a wooden spoon. Then she would pour it through a strainer to get the lumps out. It was a messy job. Then when I was living on my own, I discovered a much better way to make gravy. I took a container and put in some cold water and some flour, placed a lid on it and shook it up good. Then while stirring with a whisk I added this mixture to my hot meat drippings. And presto, gravy with no lumps!! I think I will ponder this further to see what other things I do out of tradition and not because of reason.

— Kareen
Sun, Nov 7^th, 2004 · 6:15am ↑

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