Context

This piece is not actually a recipe, but a humorous anecdote about a family recipe.

Main Piece

My mom would would tell about how her grandmother I believe it was had the recipe for a pot roast that got passed down and it was, you know, it was dictated by her and written down and continued for a couple generations which, uh, included, after the, the general preparation and seasoning, uh included the instructions “cut off the ends of the pot roast” and then put in the oven at whatever temperature it was supposed to be cooked at. They did it dutifully until somebody, someday asked, finally: “I don’t understand what this does to it — cutting the ends off. How does that help?” And she said “Oh you know, otherwise it doesn’t fit into the pot!”

Notes

This story gives insight into how family/folk recipes are developed, and how a seemingly random or arbitrary part of the preparation may originate out of necessity: obviously, not everyone’s pot would be too small to cook an entire pot roast, but the members of this family followed the recipe verbatim out of respect and trust for the grandmother, even though the cutting of the ends only applied for her personal cookware.