When I am with a group of people today, I hear about people who only cook with vegetable oil, or canola old, or olive oil, or they spray their pans with Pam. Some people cook in the oven, some in the microwave. Some order pizza to be delivered everyday or the might bring home McDonald's. Some people wash their delicates on the "gentle" cycle but some would never dream of doing anything except have their delicates professionally dry cleaned. I remember when my grandmother was alive, her friends talked about the early days when they cooked only with lard in a wood cookstove and meat was preserved with salt. Clothes were washed on a scrub board, not gentle cycles. My contemporaries wouldn't cook with lard because they have to watch their cholesterol intake because of by-pass surgery and the salt would raise their blood pressure. The point is that we are so diversified today, but back then everybody did everything the same way. So when we hear these old stories, we know our ancestors did everything the same way everybody else did. The stories that we hear of the good old days from somebody else is also going to relate to our own family stories. No diversity back then.