---- Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM> wrote: 

>The best line I ever read about the dish was by Larry McMurtry in his "In A Narrow Grave" about a drive across the Lone Star State during which he needs to eat and opines that "...only a rank degenerate would drive all the way across Texas without stopping to eat a chicken fried steak."

McMurtry was right, as he has been about many other things Texan.  Except nowadays, even in Texas, only a degenerate would be satisfied with most of what is available, since it will be layered with egg and flour batter, and deep fat fried, rather than properly flour dredged and pan fried (the way Texans also traditionally fried their chicken).  A properly prepared chicken fried steak can be cut with a fork, though it was made from round, a tough cut.  The coating should not dominate the steak, but it does in almost all those offered now.  We have now two generations of Texans who think the mess that is sold now by the name is what a chicken fried steak is.  Poor them.

mcneely