Here's a marvelously instructive tale about culinary practice, custom, superstition, religion and how knowledge passes from generation to generation.
We're in the 1940s.
My mother was sitting with her childhood friend, Estelle Fendrick, who was preparing a chicken soup. My mother (this is exactly how she told me the story) noticed that Estelle broke the long bones (the "drumstick") of the chicken before putting them into the cooking vessel. She asked Estelle, why she broke the bones. And Estelle replied, well, it's what my mother did. I don't know why but I'm going to see her next week and I'll ask her why she broke the bones. So the next week, Estelle asked her own mother why she broke the bones, and her mother answered in the same way as Estelle: I do it because my mother did it. But look, tomorrow I'm going to visit my mother in the Hebrew Home for the Aged in Riverdale and I'll ask her. So, and here my mother's narrative comes to its climax, Estelle's mother went to visit her own mother and asked her, why did you use to break the bones of the chicken before you put them into the cooking vessel, and Estelle's grandmother thought for a while and then said (and here you have to imagine a very strong old country accent), We had a very small pot.
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