I’m a bit of a connoisseur of chicken fried steak (CFS) and strawberry shortcake. To look at me, you’d probably think I’m a connoisseur of lots of things, but that’s beside the point.
I am also a fan of the small-town cafe or diner. When I am traveling around, if the town’s main street has a restaurant, you can usually bet that’s where I’ll be eating. I was doing the diners, drive-ins, and dives tour long before Guy Fieri ever thought of it. And for the most part, small-town Oklahoma does an excellent job of slinging the hash.
The one thing the perplexes me, though, are the things diners and cafes take shortcuts on. One of my favorite places does an excellent homemade biscuit, then they cover it in gravy from a bagged mix. I mean, seriously folks, gravy is so dadgum simple to make, I cannot understand anyone choosing to slather a beautiful biscuit or crisp, golden chicken fried steak in some reconstituted wallpaper paste. On the other hand, the bagged mix gravy is a far cry better than the other extreme, and that’s so-called gravy that results from a cook who doesn’t properly cook the flour when making the roux for his gravy. You gotta really cook that flour in the fat (preferably bacon or sausage grease) until it smells nutty, goes runny, and begins to color (yes, even for white, cream gravy). If you’ve ever had that thin, sweet gravy, you have experienced gravy that is a result of an undercooked roux, and it’s a shame.
And speaking of chicken fried steak, it is another menu item that is sometimes relegated to the shortcut category. When eating at a small town cafe, I will usually ask my waitress (and let’s be honest, 99% of the time the server is female, either a high school girl or a middle-aged gal who’s been working there for decades, often still in the uniform dress) what’s good there. Most of the time that works like a charm. It’s a tad disappointing, though, when I ask what’s good, and they say, “Oh, the chicken fried steak!” and I order it, only to discover it is a pre-purchased, pre-fab CFS. One look is enough to tell you that this steak was not gently battered and fried in the kitchen. No, someone ambled to the freezer, knocked a frozen chunk of meat loose with an icepick, and tossed it in the deep fryer. I’m not blaming the waitress, though, as I would have probably made the same decision without her recommendation; I have a predisposition toward CFS anyway. I just can’t fathom what kind of home life she must have had to think that the beige disc of meat product on my plate (likely covered in bagged mix gravy) qualifies as “good.”
The types of good CFS are plenteous, and I like many of the varieties. Whether it’s the dredged and deep fried to a hot-as-fire, crisp specimen bigger than the plate like Shortcakes diner in Stillwater or lightly breaded and pan fried to a light, even somewhat soggy, finish like Thomas in Pryor and Dot’s here in Claremore, or somewhere in between like Clanton’s in Vinita, I love them all. Unless they didn’t actually make it back in the kitchen. Then my sensibilities are offended.
I still remember eating at Shortcakes in Stillwater during my college days. With limited seating, a 24/7 schedule, and a grill out in the open just across the counter, Shortcakes typifies what a diner really is. And I can still remember the care with which the short order cooks would grab that fresh piece of beef and massage the flour mixture into it before deep frying it to golden perfection. It made a real impact on my life.
And, while we’re talking about shortcake (the food not the diner), let’s be clear. Strawberry shortcake is not made with angel food cake. Angel food cake is good. And angel food cake with strawberries is excellent. But angel food cake with strawberries is not strawberry shortcake, mainly because angel food cake doesn’t absorb all the precious strawberry juice. My preference is strawberries over pie crust, though that’s not technically a shortcake either. My mother prefers her shortcake to consist of strawberries over a Twinkie, which still isn’t real shortcake, but it’s certainly an option, though not my preference. Genuine shortcake is strawberries and a slightly sweet biscuit (akin to a scone). And the strawberries need to be prepared and sugared much ahead of time to allow them time to macerate properly. I prefer more juice than berries, over the biscuit or pie crust, and maybe a touch of whipped cream. Heaven on earth, especially if the berries were lovingly cultivated in my father-in-law’s garden.
Overall, Oklahoma’s diners are doing a great job of keeping me fat and happy. If they’d just commit to real mashed potatoes, genuine gravy, homemade chicken fried steaks, and pie-crust shortcake, I’d be on cloud nine, and they’d really have an answer when the fat guy from Claremore walks in and ask, “What’s good here?”