The chicken story for those who don't know...

A newly married couple had pan roast chicken for their first Sunday lunch together. The husband asked his wife 'why do you always cut the legs off the chicken before you roast it? It's not the way my mother did it.'

Wife replied - 'That's the way my mother did it, so that's how I learned to do it.'

She thought about this for a while and then went to see her mother.

'Mom, why did you teach me to always cut the legs off the chicken before I roast it?'

Mother replied - 'That's the way my mother did it, so that's how I learned to do it, and it's the way I taught you to do it.'

Wife thought on this a bit more. She went to visit her grandmother.

'Grandmother, Why did you teach mother to always cut the legs off the chicken before she roasted it? That's how she taught me to do it and I was wondering why it was? Does it help the chicken cook better? Does it make it more juicy or get better crackly skin?'

Grandmother looked at her and replied - 'That's the way my mother did it, so that's how I learned to do it'.

Wife thought long and hard. Finally she decided, there was nothing else to do but go and visit her great grandmother in the nursing home. Surely SHE, at 104years old would be able to tell her why her mother and grandmother cut the legs off the chicken before roasting it.

'Great-grandmother, why did you teach grandmother to always cut the legs off the chicken before she roasted it? That's how she taught mother and mother taught me to do it and I was wondering why it was? Does it help the chicken cook better? Does it make it more juicy or get better crackly skin?'

Great-grandmother picked up her teeth and put them in, she leaned closer to her great-granddaughter, hummed and ahhed for a minute, pulled her even closer and said,

'When I was a young wife, at the turn of the century, we were so poor, we could only afford a small pan to roast in. How else was I going to fit the chicken into the pan if I didn't cut its legs off?'

LTS