Source of Traditional Recipe: Small Pan
There is an anecdote that one of my old professors used to describe this phenomenon. A man is watching his wife prepare a roast for dinner and has always been curious about this one particular step, when she reaches the step he asks, ” Why do you cut off the ends if the roast like that?”
She says “That is the way my mother always taught me to do it so it just how I do it.”
It piques both there curiosity however so the next time they see her mother they bring it up. She replies ” that is how I have always done it, my mother taught me to make my roasts this way.” So even more curious they go to the wife grandmother and ask why she prepares the roast in such a way, to which she replies “Oh, back in 1950, when I first was married the only pan we had was always to small for the roasts so I had to trim the edges to get them to fit into the pan.” Just because something has always been done doesn’t make it the only way, and sometimes simple steps are completely unnecessary.