I had a hand in creating one of Texas’ most enduring pieces of “fakelore”—the totally fabricated story chronicling the invention of the chicken-fried steak.
The phony folk tale traces to a friendly running argument with my friend Larry BeSaw regarding the relative merits of the dish.
Larry grew up in Cooke County, where his parents operated a classic mom and pop café. Eschewing the food service industry, Larry pursued a career in journalism. In the 70s both of us were Austin American-Statesman reporters.
My running buddy’s childhood exposure to classic Texas food gave him a lifetime appreciation of good vittles, particularly chicken-fried steaks. And that’s where Larry and I did not see ribeye to ribeye.
I was raised with an appreciation of a well-seasoned but medium-rare grilled steak.
Why eat a lesser cut of meat dolled up with flour and cooked in grease when you could enjoy a juicy piece of red meat warmed just enough to keep it from mooing?
Our diverse culinary opinions led to a newspaper article that literally made history. Phony history, that is.
During the holidays, excepting the occasional calamity, the flow of news slows considerably. In early January 1976, hoping to fill some suddenly open space, American-Statesman lifestyle editor Jane Ulrich asked Larry if he would write her a story on chicken-fried steak.
Back then, CBS’ Sixty Minutes had a weekly feature called “Point-Counter Point” in which two people with strong but opposing views not-so-politely argued over their positions. When I heard Larry would be writing that story, I proposed doing a “Counter Point” anti-chicken-fried steak piece.
Happy to fill even more space, Jane readily agreed. Next colleague Arnold Garcia offered to set forth his argument that menudo trumped either of our meat preferences. Realizing she had now managed to fill the entire front page of her section, Jane said that’d be fine.
Among other things, in my essay I asserted that the lookout on the RMS Titanic had just eaten a chicken-fried steak before going on duty that fateful night when what would become the world’s largest metaphor went down. But Larry produced a timeless classic, creating from whole cloth a 100 percent bogus history of the chicken fried steak.
Larry wrote that the dish’s Einstein was Jimmy Don Perkins, an unemployed draw bridge oiler working as a short-order cook in the South Plains town of Lamesa.
Chicken-fried steak’s Big Bang occurred in 1911 at Ethel’s Home Cooking, a local café. The eatery got its name because whenever a customer asked about Ethel, the proprietor answered, “She’s home cooking.”
Not that Jimmy Don was all that smart. He merely proved yet again the importance of the lowly comma by misinterpreting the waitress’s hastily scribbled order for “chicken, fried steak” and chicken-fried a steak.
Our tongue-in-cheek essays appeared on Sunday, Jan. 11, 1976.
At the time, the American-Statesman and many other Texas newspapers carried “Talk of Texas,” a syndicated weekly Texas history column by the late Jack Maguire. Imagine our surprise when Maguire soon told his readers the story behind the chicken-fried steak. Not only did he forget to say where he stole it from, he apparently didn’t get that it was just a joke.
After that, the fake genesis story spread faster than spilled cream gravy. Then American-Statesman humor columnist Mike Kelley was first to point out that Larry’s story was complete fiction, but that didn’t stop the falling dominos of literary larceny.
The phony story has been told by the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the august Washington Post, the stately Smithsonian Magazine and in numerous additional publications and websites.
Lamesa’s Dawson County Museum has a framed copy of our chicken-fried steak story on display. And Lamesa throws an annual chicken-fried steak festival celebrating its status as the birthplace of the most Texan of dishes.
“Of all the stories I’ve written over the years,” Larry says, “I hate to think the one piece of writing I’ll be remembered for is a lie. I just wish I got royalties, or even credit, every time some other writer steals that story.”
Wimberley resident Mike Cox is an elected member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the award-winning author of more than 40 books.
