[Paddlewise] Customs and local experience...

> Maybe.  In some cases, the reasons for doing things are lost.  In
> others they are clear.  We don't always know why something is done;
> sometimes it makes sense, other times not.

 A prime example...

in my college days I was at a female friend's apartment being cooked a nice
meal, which was to include a roast to be cooked in a roasting pan.  Just
prior to putting the roast into the pan the lady timmed 1/4 inch or so from
each end, and threw the pieces into the waste tray.  Since I was on a very
tight budget i could not ignore this, and asked as to why she did that.  I
was told she always did that in cooking roasts, because she had seen her
mother do that in the home where she grew up...and her mother was a great
cook, so that must be the right way to prepare a roast.

Since i could not understand why this was done, we decided to call her
mother to ask about how this practice makes a better roast...and the answer
was that she used to do this only sometimes...when the roast was a bit too
large for her small roasting pot.  Her mom almost died laughing...

There is a great possibility that my college friend would have propogated
that practice for years...perhaps she would have passed the practice on to
her own children.   This is a college friend who graduated second in her
large college class only because she got a B in self defense, is actually a
very bright person, with three college degrees in the sciences.

We all have something(s) we do in our lives that we accept as good practice,
but have no idea why...or if there is actually any validity to the practice.

Examples are plentiful if we look hard enough and are willing to admit it.

Mike Orchard

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