this is the story - cut and pasted
There was a new bride, we'll call her Elma, who wanted to make a special dinner to celebrate her love for her husband. Elma found out that his favorite dinner was pot roast. So she set about making pot roast. She seasoned the meat and tucked garlic into it, carved the potatoes and carrots into the shape of flowers (she was REALLY in love); phoned her Mother-in-Law five times during the cooking to make sure she was doing everything exactly the way he liked it.
Well, Fred sat down to dinner and he was just amazed. The wine was crisp and dry, the carved vegetables tasted as good as they looked and the pot roast tasted even better than his own Mom made it. ("Don't tell her I said that.") Then he noticed something strange.
"Elma, honey, just one question. I noticed that when you made the pot roast, you cut a 2-inch chunk off one end and cooked that in a separate pot. Why'd you do that?"
"What do you mean? You're supposed to do that. That's why it's called pot roast. Because you cook part of it in a separate pot."
"I never heard of that before."
"Well, that's the way my Mother always made pot roast."
A month or so later, Elma and Fred were invited to Elma's mother's house for dinner. It was a big fuss. Myra, Elma's mother had called Elma & they'd gone into great detail about the fact that Fred's favorite food was pot roast, and it had to be seasoned just so and the vegetables cut into flower shapes. (Myra drew the line there -- she wasn't the one madly in love, after all). The dinner was a big success but as they were eating, Fred noticed the sliced-off piece of pot roast cooking in the separate pot again, and he couldn't contain himself. He had to ask why.
"What do you mean?" said Myra. "You're supposed to do that. That's why it's called pot roast. Because you cook part of it in a separate pot."
"I never heard of that from anybody else."
"I told you," said Elma.
"Well, that's the way my Mother always made pot roast," Myra said.
Fortunately, Myra's mother, Granny Claire, lived with Myra, and was dozing in her rocking chair. They shook her awake and asked.
"Grandma, Fred wants to know why when you cook pot roast, you're supposed to cut a 2-inch chunk off one end and cook that in a separate pot?"
"What are you talking about, child?"
"That's why it's called pot roast," said Myra. "Because you cook part of it in a separate pot. That's how you always made it."
"I never did that."
"Yes, you did!" said Myra.
"That's what Momma taught me," said Elma.
Granny Claire sat and thought for a moment. Then she laughed and said, "I know what you're talking about, Myra. When you were little, George left me and I had to raise you on my own. We didn't have a lot of money. We only had a few pots to cook in, and neither of them were big enough to fit a whole pot roast in, so I had to cut it in two parts and cook it seperately."
The story illustrates the importance of understanding the meanings behind what you're doing, rather than to do it by rote.
Now that Elma understands why the pot roast was prepared that way, she has choices.
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She can cease cutting the pot roast in two, because the practical reason behind it is gone.
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She can preserve cutting the pot roast in two as a family tradition in honor of Claire's strength in bringing the family through rough times (and with a little aside about how funny it was how they discovered the truth about the pot roast.)