There once was an incredibly lazy man. His wife’s mother got very sick, so she had to leave home for a week to go take care of her. “But who will prepare my food and take care of me?”, the man asked. “I will make you a giant pancake that you can wear as a blanket. That way, you can sit in your chair, with the pancake-blanket to keep you warm. When you get hungry, you can pull up the blanket and take a bite.” When the wife returned home after a week, the husband had starved to death. He had been too lazy to pull up the blanket.

This is an old Chinese story. My informant’s father is Chinese, and her mother is American. Whenever her dad, the primary cook in her parents’ relationship, goes away, he makes her mother a pancake “blanket” as well. It’s a symbol of love and affection from one to the other.