If you try asking your parents or relatives, "Why do we serve cranberry sauce and sweet potato casserole with the meal (while they are more like dessert), while we must wait until after the meal to eat our pie?" you may be met with blank stares. At this point, someone will object to the assessment that cranberry sauce is a dessert because they like to put it on their turkey. That violates rule #1 in my culinary cultural background: sugar and meat do not mix. But surely you may think it is strange that we serve sweet potato casserole as if it were not a dessert. It's as if it makes us feel less guilty because we aren't eating as much "dessert".
At least a person curious enough to consult google will likely find an answer to most questions (although its veracity may be dubious). There are often answers to these questions in our culture somewhere, even if the general populace is unaware. But try putting yourself in my wife and my shoes. We will be trying to understand the culture of a people who are steeped in traditions. Many of the traditions may have even had their stories and reasons passed down for generations orally. However, sometimes the question we all want to ask is not the most productive. We observe a behavior that seems unusual and we have a burning desire to ask, "Why did you do that?" But often the person doesn't even know exactly why. They just grew up doing that, because that's just what you're supposed to do.
Here are some "why" questions for the American culture. Why does Thanksgiving and football have to be so closely linked? Why do we eat certain things at certain times of the year? (i.e. potato salad makes its debut in the summer; sweet potato dishes and turkey around Thanksgiving, even though they are available year round) Why do people feel compelled to change their decorations and clothing colors based upon the season? Why are red and green Christmas colors? Why must there be an Easter bunny and colored eggs on Easter? Bunnies don't even lay eggs. Why does the entire country feel compelled to buy each other gifts on birthdays and Christmas, even though most of the people don't really need those things and will probably end up storing them in an overflowing garage?
So we all have our cultural questions. It is actually quite entertaining to delve into the reasons behind the things we do and to realize they are simply a product of our culture. Pray for us as we one day try to understand a culture much different from our own.