A woman is preparing Sunday dinner, as she has always done since she got married.

Every Sunday they have boiled chicken and her daughter, now a teenager, is entrusted to assist.

"Mum," her daughter asks, "why do you use two pots and put half a chicken in each one?"

"It’s how my mother always did it dear," says mother as she adds chopped celery to each pot.

"Yes, but why?" her daughter persists.

"As I say it’s just always been the way, and I have simply followed her example ever since I married your father twenty years ago. Tell you what, perhaps we’ll phone granny and ask her the reason."

So she goes to the phone and asks her mother if there was some ritual reason, or did it improve the cooking.

There is a pause and the old lady replies with a pained sigh and not a little mockery in her voice,

"I never had a pot big enough for a whole chicken!"