audio

Courtesy of Jim's Restaurant, San Antonio, Texas

“Texas People Have Such a Love Affair”

Note: This interview with Virginia Jones from the Cactus Cafe in West Texas was done at the 13th Texas Folklife Festival in 1984.

The principal reason that I've got you here, Virginia, is because I want to know about chicken-fried steak. Are you coming from the Cactus Cafe?

Yes, ma'am.

And how did you happen to call it that? And how do you happen to be here?

The Cactus Cafe got its name from a singer who is from Colorado City, whose name is Jay Boy Adams. He recorded a song about a Cactus Cafe that actually existed at one time in Colorado City. The song was about this old cowboy that would go in and drink coffee early in the morning and tell cowboy stories. And so we took the name "The Cactus Cafe" and actually even brought the original sign up at one time. It is just an old tin sign. Actually, the Cactus Cafe—that's not an uncommon name for a restaurant in West Texas.

Cactus Cafe booth at the Texas Folklife Festival, 1984

Uh-huh. I'm sure it isn't. Tell me how—what's the singer's name?

Jay Boy Adams.

Is it B-0-Y?

Yes, it's like John Boy, after his father; this is Jay Boy, after his father. Texas people have such a love affair with chicken-fried steak. Everybody has favorite cafes and favorite recipes and whatnot.

Have you any idea where all this started? Where is chicken-fried steak coming from? And what, in your opinion, is the right way to make it?

Virginia and Monte Jones, owners of the Cactus Cafe in Colorado City, Texas

My husband thinks that possibly it came from the wiener schnitzel in Germany, because German people did come and settle in Southwest Texas. He thinks that probably—and further west, where beef is so popular—that they just kind of devised a recipe for themselves.
We make our chicken-fried steak pretty much the way I make it at home, and that is, we get regular round steak, and we have it only tenderized one time so that it will hold together. We cut it ourselves, cut the cutlets into steak fingers, put it in a mixture of flour, salt, pepper, and tenderizer. Then, in a mixture of eggs and milk, kind of let it drip out, and then back into another mixture of flour, salt, and pepper. And then we quick-freeze them to bring them to the Folklife Festival.

You make them into fingers. That's not normal in a café, is it? Or in a restaurant? Or in a home?

In West Texas, steak fingers are very popular. Except, usually, if you order them out, you will get what we call pre-fab meat that has the soybeans and is preformed. Ours is not. Ours is actually cut from the beef.

You said flour and salt and pepper. Is there any—there's no hot stuff—no chili—no picante?

No, nothing.

You fry it?

Yes.

Frying the steak fingers in the Cactus Cafe booth at the 1994 Texas Folklife Festival. Photograph by Donald R. Webb

What do you fry it in?

We fry them in just deep fryers. Yes, in deep fat. The way to fry chicken-fried steak is to fry it quickly, where it will get crusty on the outside and still remain tender on the inside as opposed to chicken that, you know, gets crusty on the outside, but you have to cook it a long time to get it done inside. You don't have to cook chicken-fried steak really all that long to get it done on the inside. Of course, you don't want it dried out. You want it to remain tender.


Well, now I—when you say tenderizer, is that that stuff like "Adolph's" or something like that?

Yes, ma'am. We did that because if you would have your own done in the grocery store, you might have it tenderized several times. You know, run through the tenderizer machine, but ours would fall apart as we have to handle it. So we just had it put through the tenderizer machine one time, just to get it kind of tenderized and break it up, and yet not have it where it was hard to hold together.

But you still, after that—run it through the machine once—you still use some of that tenderizer powder.

Yes, ma'am. Actually, this is the first year we've done that. We've done it several different ways, but this is basically the way we do it. We want our meat to be tender, but we want it to be real, too. And that's why we use the real cutlets.

You don't want it to be mushy either? Sometimes when you over-tenderize it, it is just like eating mush. I hate it that way. Well, now, Texans argue by the hour about the gravy.

Yes. (laughter)

The gravy that goes on chicken-fried steak, now, how do you make that?

People are fascinated by this. Apparently, not a lot of people make their own gravy. And even less numbers must make the cream gravy —it is what we make—the milk gravy—as opposed to brown roast gravy.

All right. You make—you put in some grease—and if you're doing your chicken-fried steak—you just take some of the grease you fried your meat in. . .

Oh.

So it has the flavor. You put some grease in your skillet, then some flour and salt and pepper and make a roux. Then you gradually add your cold milk, stirring all the time, and just stir it over the medium-hot heat until it gets thick. And it's not real difficult to make, but you will find that if you've made it four or five times, it will never be the same consistency. Sometimes you'll come out with it a little thicker and sometimes a little thinner. But this is the way to make the cream gravy we have.

Well, that's interesting. You use the same fat that you did the frying in?
Yes.

You get some of the meat flavor that way.

Well, yes. That's the way we do it at home now. You can use just shortening, and we have done that some here to have, you know, the real clean shortening. I don't mean clean as opposed to dirty, but I mean as opposed to not cooked a lot . . .

Used. Uh-huh. What kind of fat do you use for the deep-fat frying?

Lard. Shortening.

You do Crisco or one that's white?

Well, we buy commercial shortening.

But you don't use lard?

You could. I don't think it would make a whole lot of difference. But we actually use shortening.

It's supposed to be less troublesome and lower cholesterol or something like that. What is the reaction to people coming in? Do you sell a lot? Is it a popular thing? In the Folklife?

The Cactus Cafe booth continued to be a success at the Texas Folklife Festival.  Photograph by Donald R. Webb

Yes, it is a popular thing. The first year that we came, we had people come up and ask us if we were selling fried cactus. Then they'd find out that we were from West Texas, and they'd ask us if it was rattlesnake meat. We had some people ask us if it was chicken.
But as we have been here over the years, this is our fifth year to come, most people seem to know now what we have. And we don't have to explain it. (laughter)

I have noticed—I read all the every weekend criticisms or critiques of different restaurants around. And time and time again, chicken-fried steak comes up. "They make the best chicken-fried steak in San Antonio." "Their chicken-fried steak is tough." or "Their gravy isn't any good." Time and time again. So I think the public is being educated, but it seems to me that chicken-fried steak is very basic to the Texans.

It is in West Texas.

It is in West Texas. Are you from West Texas?

Yes, ma'am. It’s home.

Is it?

Oh, yes. In fact, I am a lover of chicken-fried steak, and I rarely order it out, because I know the way I like it, and I am oftentimes disappointed. And I think a lot of times the meat, maybe, isn't as good as it should be. Or, they will use—they have packaged gravy mix—and a lot of restaurants use that. We don't think that's as good as making it from scratch.

No, I don't either. I think that's awful. Did you say—are you from Colorado City?

Not originally, but I have lived there for five years. And I am a West Texas girl.

Are you? So you know what's what about West Texas, don't you?

Well, I've eaten chicken-fried steak all my life. Although I didn't grow up havin' it in my home, so much, but I had a friend. I think it's interesting to note that probably a lot of poor people used to eat chicken-fried steak, because a friend grew up in a home where her father had been killed when she was very young. And they didn't have very much money, but they had chicken-fried steak all the time. Whereas my family, we weren't rich, but we were more middle class, we had roast and steak and things. Of course, I had a rancher for a granddaddy, so we had our own beef.

Yeah. You had meat.

But I think chicken-fried steak has been popular for a long time.

Well, I can remember when I was young, the round steak was a cheap buy. And when you talk about your friend who didn't have much money, I can remember my mother tenderizing it, pounding flour into it, with the edge of a saucer.

Yes, or I've even done this myself—used a glass—and pounded it on the cabinet. (pounding table) (laughter) Well, she always—I can still see her doing that thing.

Is there a special menu that goes with chicken-fried steak? What kind of potatoes? What kind of vegetables?

Usually, they serve French fries.

Oh, do they?

Or baked potatoes in West Texas. Now we are serving something that not exactly—goes with chicken-fried steak but is a good addition to it—and we call—they're hot puffs. And what they are is canned biscuits. And you can buy the cheapest canned biscuits available. You deep-fry them like you would a doughnut. They puff up, and they are good with the cream gravy, and we also serve them with honey. And you can poke holes in it like you do in a sopapilla and pour the honey in. And that's what we serve at our booth [at Folklife], the chicken-fried steak, the hot puffs, and the cream gravy and honey.

That's interesting. I was going to say you've got to have something to put that cream gravy on. French-fried potatoes wouldn't do.

No. Well, yes. Oh, yes. We eat the cream gravy with. . .

On French-fried potatoes?

Oh, that's one of my husband's favorite meals. In fact, sometimes if I'm not going to prepare supper or something, he will go in and cook French fries and make a bunch of cream gravy. He loves that.

He doesn't mind it getting—getting the gravy on the . . . ?

No. In fact we have a restaurant in Colorado City, and it does have very good chicken-fried steak. We always order extra cream gravy to go with our French fries.

Oh, really? I've learned something I didn't know—that you deep-fat fried that. You can see I'm not a native Texan—I thought it was a piece of meat that was sautéed in fat in the skillet.

Well, of course you can fix round steak that way, but I don't think it's as good. Now at home, you don't have to deep-fry. In other words, when I say that, when we deep-fry it, we completely submerge it here in the grease because we have the cookers. At home I don't do that because I just don't want to use that much grease and be bothered with it. I just use an iron skillet and fry it on one side and then turn it and fry it on the other.

Uh-huh. But you do the fingers always.

No. Not always. Not always, no. The reason we're doing the fingers here is because people are eating with their hands.

It's easier to serve.

And it's easier to serve. You will find it in fast foods, like Dairy Queen sells chicken-fried steak fingers.

Your husband thinks that it comes from wiener schnitzel? That's awfully interesting, you know. I never gave it a thought because wiener schnitzel always has a fried egg on top.

Uh-huh.

And it is battered, though, isn't it?

Well, it's similar. You can see possibly how that could be the origin, even though we've made a . . . And it's always veal in Europe, but in Texas veal is not very popular. Well, it used to be. I've been married about 22 years, and when I first got married, I bought veal cutlets for chicken-fried steak.

Did you?

Uh-huh. But now you can hardly ever find veal to buy. And if you do, it's so expensive. It is so costly. We couldn't buy it out in West Texas—in small West Texas towns. We can now get it. Kroger’s is selling it now. It’s white veal like I grew up with, and it's pretty good, but it's not quite right yet. It doesn't quite suit me. You all might be interested to know how we did come out here.

Oh, I think that would be interesting. Yes, of course.

My husband and I—we came to the Folklife Festival as a family on a vacation six years ago—and we were fascinated by it like most people—and he went back and said "You know, they've got everything there but chicken-fried steak. And since that's the national food of West Texas, I'm going to write them." He wrote them a letter, and in the letter he said, you know, that they didn't have this and he thought that they should. And he said, since I cooked the best chicken-fried steak in Texas, I think you ought to invite me and my organization to come out. (laughter) So that is how we got to come to the Folklife Festival.

Oh, I think that's wonderful. That's wonderful. Your organization —what did he mean when
he said "his organization"?

All Saints Episcopal Church in Colorado City, Texas

All right. My husband is a minister, and he has two small churches, one in Colorado City and one in Snyder. When we came out the first year from both churches, the women of both churches came out. Of course, the men help us, too. Now it's just the women of Colorado City—they're a little larger church, and so they are coming now with, as I say, the men come and help us. But it's our organization that sponsors it. It is the Women of All Saints Episcopal Church, Colorado City.

And Snyder. Where do you live?

We live in Colorado City. Snyder is 25 miles away, and my husband goes over there twice a week and visits people and does things in his office, and then on Sunday he has a church service in Colorado City and a church service in Snyder.

And this is a sort of a church group.

All Saints Episcopal Church members after a day of cooking at the Cactus Cafe booth at the 1994 Texas Folklife Festival.  Photograph by Donald R. Webb

It's the women of the church, yes, ma'am.

How do they work this thing when you sell for how many coupons? How much does your thing . . . sell for?

We sell what we call a steak-finger basket for ten coupons. And that has two steak fingers. Sometimes we give more if the steak fingers are small, because, cutting it from the cutlet, we don't always have the same size steak fingers. And then we serve that with a puff and gravy. Then you get one finger, you know, a sample of the food.

Oh, do they?

And we can give one finger for five coupons and then we give puffs— probably the best buy at the Folklife Festival is our puffs. You get two puffs with honey for two coupons. We have kept it that way. I think we were inspired several years ago by this little boy who looked to be poor—came up to our booth, and he was so thrilled that he could get something for such a small number of coupons—and I bet he came back four or five times. And I tell my husband we should always have something that's really cheap for people who come and don't have very much money.

That's a great idea. And of course we should say on the tape that a coupon is worth 20 cents, and that means that you're selling that whole thing for $2.00, isn't it? That's fair enough for these days. What I mean is, now, do you get—does your church get anything from this? Do you make—do you get a profit?

All Saints Episcopal Church members sponsor the booth at TFF.

Well, the women of the church—we do make money from this. Some years it's been better than others, because we do have our expenses. And we come from a great distance. We don't provide expenses for the people, such as food allowance or travel allowance. We do pay for their motel bills. And the people that work in our booths can eat or drink anything in the booth without being charged.

So, how do you split it—any profit is yours?

No, the Folklife—the Institute of Texan Cultures takes part of the profit, and then we get the rest. And then we take our expenses from that and hope we have something left over (laughter).

Oh, I see. Thanks ever so much. I'm so glad you could do this.

Well, thank you. I've enjoyed it!

Trying to find good chicken-fried steak recipes is no easy task. Do you look in the index for chicken, beef, poultry, steaks, main dishes, or entrees? The answer is all of the above! Jamison, Cheryl Alters, and Bill Jamison. Texas Home Cook. Boston: Harvard Common Press, 1993, @ $18.95. This gem of a cookbook with 400 Texas recipes has a complete chapter devoted to chicken-fried steak with five recipes (Braggin'-Rights Chicken-Fried Steak, Gary Cartwright's Chicken-Fried Steak, W. Park Kerr's Chicken-Fried Steak, Daddy-O's Hot-Times Chicken-Fried Steak, and Nuevo Laredo Chicken-Fried Steak) plus a recipe for classic cream gravy. I also learned that the Texas Restaurant Association reported that 90% of the 4,000 members serve chicken-fried steak and that an official has calculated that Texans order 800,000 steaks a day, not counting what is consumed at home. That's a lot of beef! Stuart, Caroline. The Food of Texas: Authentic Recipes from the Lone Star State, Boston: Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., 2000, @ $18.95. If you like your cookbooks to have beautiful photographs, then this is the cookbook for you. The photographs by Will van Overbeek of Austin and Jacob Termansen make all the foods look delicious, including Grady Spears’s recipe for Chicken-fried VENISON steak, thick milk gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans. With an introduction on the culture, history, and lore that define Texan cuisine, this is a fun book to add to your cookbook collection, with 70 recipes and 90 photographs.    The Melting Pot: Ethnic Cuisine in Texas . 3rd ed., San Antonio: Institute of Texan Cultures, 1997, @ $21.95. While this book does not include a recipe for chicken-fried steak, the cookbook is a favorite of many as it brings together recipes from 27 cultural groups in Texas.  The recipes are used by people today and include such common dishes and festival foods as Wendish sauerbraten, homemade noodles, pickled beets, Norwegian goulash, plum pudding, potato cake, and other favorites.