- tom jupille
- Site Admin
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- Posts: 4978
- Joined: Wed Aug 11, 2004 4:55 pm
- Location: Alamo, CA / USA
I have a friend whose wife had a family recipe for Christmas ham which involved cutting the ham in half lengthwise (parallel to the bone) and then putting the two halves in a shallow roasting pan. One Christmas eve a few years ago, he was in the kitchen watching his wife cut the ham.
"Honey, I've been meaning to ask: why do you go to the trouble of cutting the ham lengthwise that way?"
Her reply was interesting:
"I don't know. I got the recipe from my mother, and we've always done it that way. She's coming for dinner tomorrow, so if you really want to know, why don't you just ask her?"
Now, my friend is a stubborn type, so the next day, as the family was sitting down to Christmas dinner, he asked his mother-in-law:
"By the way, you know the recipe for Christmas ham? Why do you go to the trouble of cutting it lengthwise that way?"
To which his mother-in-law replied:
"You know, I'm not really sure. I got the recipe from my mother, and we've always done it that way. If you're interested, we're going to the nursing home to visit her later today; why don't you just ask her then?"
Later that day, they did go to the nursing home to visit his wife's grandmother, who was in her late eighties and recuperating from a broken hip (suffered while skiing!). When the familiy gossip slowed down, my friend asked his inevitable question:
"Grandma, you know the recipe for Christmas ham? Why do you go to the trouble of cutting it lengthwise that way?"
His wife's grandmother (who apparently didn't have a very high opinion of my friend's intelligence), fixed him with a withering gaze and said:
"Well, back in the 'thirties, when I first came up with that recipe, we were too poor to afford a big roasting pan, and we had to cut the ham in half in order to make it fit into the pan we did have."
Sixty years later, her grand-daughter was still going the trouble of cutting the ham in half lengthwise ". . . because we've always done it that way!"
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