Texas Culture and Folklore

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: GUEST,Johnny Bravo
Date: 28 Apr 03 - 12:12 PM

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 04:38 PM

gQ -

The corn sheller you describe is fairly common in the antique shops around here. As you say, every farmer had one. They were essential for producing that treasure of the outhouse called the corncob.

They were used only on dried corn, mostly that intended for use as livestock feed, although some that you intended to grind for cornmeal might go through one. If the ears are allowed to dry on the stalk until the first hard freeze, they'll go through with relatively little cracking of the grain, although it's actually harder to "husk" dried corn than it is when the husks are fresh. For feed purposes, the sheller didn't actually break the corn up enough, so you'd still probably want to "crack" it for the livestock.

If you really wanted whole grains, as with popcorn, you'd hand-shell it by rubbing one ear against another - a process that's surprisingly quick once you get the knack.

For fresh corn for canning (actually little done in my area) there was a device consisting of a thin sheetmetal ring that you could supposedly slide down the ear and cut off the kernels. The problem is that you had to have one that matched the size of that year's cobs, and they worked so poorly that most people just used a knife - often after the corn was "blanched" by boiling briefly on the ear. These devices are usually labelled as "apple corers" in the antique shops because people don't know what they are - and that's their best guess. (I recently saw a new "apple corer" at one of the local discount stores that's a "dead ringer" for the antique corn earer, and my guess is that it wouldn't work much better on an apple than they did on corn.)

John

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 03:24 PM

Sayings from Joel Chandler Harris:

Better de gravy dan no grease 'tall.
Meat fried 'fo' day won't las' twel night.
Dem w'at eats kin say grace.

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 01:03 PM

We have several old implements found beneath the muck in old barns and in junk stores. One is a rotary corn sheller. Dry ears of corn are pushed in at one end, the handle is turned, and partly crushed corn kernals come out. You will never convince me that the line "Jimmy Crack Corn" couldn't have originated here, since every farm that raised corn had one of these. (Yes, it is possible that crack corn means telling jokes and gossiping. Where some of these people get the idea that it refers to corn likker is beyond me).

I take back the statement that beef of the type used for chicken-fried steak of the past is extinct. In Honolulu, after a search for old records, I stopped in a "steak house" and ordered one from the bottom of the menu (about $20). I couldn't cut it with a "steak knife." When I finally got a piece to my mouth and chewed, it just got tougher and seemed to increase in size! I gave up and went to a noodle shop. I know that critter didn't come from the Parker Ranch, I have eaten some of their beef and tain't bad. But somewhere in the mountains of Hawai'i, running with the wild pigs, is a horned animal that is suitable for chicken-fried steak.

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: Amos
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 10:56 AM

John:

You got the magic mojo. man.... thanks for a great writeup.

A

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 10:27 AM

gQ -

The larger tenderizer you appear to describe is what the fellow at the meat market might have used prior to the popularity of the rotary (electric) tenderizer. If that's what it is, you have a rather rare (interesting-rare, although not necessarily $$$$-rare) artifact, as these are not often seen in the "antique" shops.

Those of us who have survived long enough to outlast our teeth will attest to the non-extinction of tough beef, some of which can still benefit from more serious "maceration." If you're also "monetarily challenged" and buy only the cheapest cuts of beef, you'll get quite a lot of it, at least in my area. It doesn't matter what kind of cow it came from. It's mostly a matter of how old it was and how much exercise the critter had, with some variation with which end your particular piece came from.

You can buy "pre-prepped" chicken fried steak at your nearby Sam's or Costco, and this stuff is used by quite a few restaurants in my area. It's made from cuts that would be inedible without the substantial use of the electric tenderizer - the "modern" equivalent of vigorous and sustained hammering, pre-breaded, and often is just tossed in the deep-fryer for cooking. While I wouldn't recommend this stuff when you're out for enjoyment, or the method of cooking, it's ok for a quick "trad" lunch if you're fairly hungry.

I can attest to the survival of the folk-trad method in north Texas. Within the past month we were in the "Higgins Donut Shop" while "Gene" was preparing to serve the weekly chicken fried steak. A good crew could have framed a 3 BR house with about the same amount of hammering. Although we didn't "stay for dinner" I can also assure that a good set of teeth are required for this particular delicacy, as served there. The last time I ate his chicken fry, I resorted to my trusty pocket knife several times.

The Higgins Donut Shop (or Doughnut Shop on the other sign) may be about as close as one is likely to find to a remnant from the past couple of generations in "rural north Texas." The operator, Gene, got his "culinary education" as a "roundup cook." Were not too sure what his other prior occupations may have been. He "opens" - a very loose term there - at about 3:00 AM, and a few regulars may be there when he arrives, or come in shortly after. The early arrivals are mostly there for the coffee and conversation. We were there at 4:00 on the trip mentioned above.

The "coffee crowd" are mostly the walking elderly, and represent a cross section of the missing and maimed body parts and other impaired faculties that are associated with survivors of life in the ranching, oilfield, and railroad occupations of the area, with the cumulative effects of typical good-old-boy drinking in a few cases, and with the "depth of the local gene pool" - or lack thereof - evident in a couple. A fair number have old reminders of junk cars on long bad roads from an earlier time.

Some of these old folk may have some good stories about things long past, and may even remember stories their parents told them; but asking one to "tell me about the good old days" won't get very far. Once in a while, an old story (that everyone knows) will pop up, but mostly the talk is about current events – i.e. each other. Whoever leaves is good for at least 5 or 10 minuts conversation, and someone who doesn't come in regularly – but showed up last week – may get a daily comment for a week or two. Mostly, it's good natured, and there are no secrets. Everyone knows what "they all say" about them.

The "younger generation" shows up later – 6:00 to 8:00 am, usually to eat a bit before getting to work. They generally don't linger. These young cowboys are a little better educated, but they're pretty much doing the same stuff their folks did, only with better equipment. They may well look just like the current early crowd in 30 or 40 years, except that the vehicles are better, the roads are all at least paved, and the farm equipment doesn't tear you up as often, so they may have fewer scars. These may not be the good old days in Higgins Texas, but they're not much different.

The "ladies" and "families" may come in to eat lunch anytime from 9:00 to noon. Closed about noon or 1:00 – or whenever everyone leaves.

Not a very exciting place, but I always feel like "everythings the way it ought to be in Higgins" by the time I've spent an hour or two there.

As for the rest of the town, there's a modern convenience store/gas station where the owner has tried to bring fine cuisine to Higgins. You may still be able to get an Emu-burger or Buffalo Steak there, a couple of his recent attempts; but not many people spend a lot of time just hanging out. You go in for a loaf of bread and a lottery ticket, and maybe a bag of ice.

The town library has a fast internet connection, and some really good references, but probably half the "literature" is in books that still have Lin In Kansas' name on the current card from 40(?) years ago. The school is modern, but small. Two or three churches are the rest of the "culture" in Higgins.

John

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: Hrothgar
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 05:29 AM

The National Heart Foundation (or its US equivalent) will probably put a price on your heads!

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 02:52 PM

The cow that produced meat of the consistency you describe,John, is extinct. There are a couple of longhorn herds near here but the meat is pretty good.
We have a tenderizer of the type you describe, seldom if ever used, but one we keep hung up for show has a head like an ax, the square grid-like side opposed by a thick wedge, I suppose to pound muscle or really recalcitrant bits of flesh. It is mounted on a hardwood handle.
Probably not quite heavy enough to stun a pig before hanging it up to cut its throat, but pretty hefty.

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: Allan C.
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 08:02 AM

Kaleea, that "wallpaper paste" may have been a term of endearment. For instance, in my family (both parents were Texans) a thick gravy was always referred to as library paste.

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 01:19 AM

And powdered (or just well clabbered) milk whitewashed many a barn.

John

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: Kaleea
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 12:23 AM

JohninKansas--
   Funny you mention "wallpaper paste" as when the dearly departed "Col. Sanders" found out his nephew (who had taken over Kentucky Fried Chicken) had invented extra yucky tucky--OOPS!, I mean---Extra Crispy, the revered "Col." said of the batter which consisted of flour, a little cornstarch, and water, "Why, that's just wallpaper paste--like my mother used to make."

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Apr 03 - 12:13 AM

Q -

Sounds delicious, but since we're talking folk lore here, I'd suggest that the original real purpose of the chicken-fry thing wasn't, for us po' trash, to make it delicious, it was to take the fight out of it so you stood a fair chance of getting your teeth through it.

For veal or pork (tenderloin) you might be able to do a fair job with the edge of a plate or with the back of a heavy knife, but for the beef commonly used in home cooking for chicken fry you really should have a "tenderizer." The typical old style was a solid cast iron "hammer," about a half pound. (The one I inherited from granny is 7.7 ounces, smaller than some.) The main face, about an inch and a half square, will have about 25 litle pyramidal "points" so that when you hammer the flour into the meat you break up the muscle fiber as much as possible.

The reverse end, opposite the points would probably be a chisel like blade, about a half inch long, that you could use to sever little gristly bits, and the end of the handle would usually have about 3 little in-line chisel points for whatever needed a little extra "help." You can buy a "modern" version at WallyWorld or Target, but these are sort of "sissified" things usually with an aluminum head and a short wooden handle. You can "spank" your beef with one of them, but you can't really beat it up the way you need to for "old-style" chicken fried.

In the classic method, you flop a pound or two of thin cut round on a heavy cutting board, grab a cup of so of flour and your tenderizer, and take it out to the old stump where the elm tree fell over a couple of decades ago. Outdoors is best, because by the time you got done properly "tenderizing," just about everything within a three or four foot radius is going to be pretty well spackled with bloody flour. (In a more innocent time, you could send one of the kids out to "beat the meat" and nobody made dirty cracks about it.)

Most pork, veal, or grain fed yearling beef can be cooked to come out fairly tender, but if the only meat you've got is the cow that got too old for milking, there is so much colagen in the muscle meat that you can stew it 'till if falls apart and the "sinew" is still like chewing on fishline. The maceration to break the fibers is the only way to make it edible. Pounding the flour in while you're breaking it up helps to keep the fibers separated, and keeps them from "growing back together" in the skillet.

Of course the original purpose is pretty much obsolete, since the only beef you're likely to find will be the fat young grain-fed stuff in the supermarket. And you can get "tenderized" round steak that's been run between a couple of wire brushes to perforate it and break up the tendon fibers, so all you really need to do is spank a little flour in it and throw it in the skillet. With the time you save, you can fancy up the recipes and make it downright delightful dining – as in the recipes above.

As a footnote – it works for jackrabbit and goat too.

John

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 07:53 PM

As I suspected, in the Mexican dish (biftec milanesa) the meat is breaded with egg and approaches the Italian (they eat more veal, so veal milanese) which in turn is close to Wiener Schnitzel of Austria, etc. Mexico, in the cities, used to have more continental European cookery than did the States.
I think that the thick flour gravies developed to add substance to the meals of the poor- much like the anadama or pan bread and molasses of some other poor rural areas.
Upper class southern cookery may have been the origin, however, the chicken-fried steak developing from the once popular Swiss Cream Steak. The following is an old American recipe, from the American Heritage Cookbook.

2 pounds round steak
salt, pepper, 1/2 teaspoon marjoram
Flour
butter
2 sliced medium onions
1/2 cup beef broth
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese

Sprinkle steak both sides with salt, pepper, marjoram and flour. Pound in, using the rim of a heavy plate. Heat butter in a large skillet (with tight-fitting lid), toss in onion slices and cook to straw color. Lift out onions and set aside. Add steak to hot fat and fry on both sides, over a brisk heat, until well-browned. Add beef broth mixed with the sour cream, grated cheese and cooked onions. Cover tightly and cook over a very low heat for about one and one-half hours or until meat is tender when tested with a fork. Serves 6 (or 2 hungry) people.

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 05:56 PM

I should have noted that the Mexican version doesn't have gravy on it. It is a sort of batter, it's fried like fried chicken that has more than just flour, there is probably an egg in that operation somewhere.

Texas has some interesting zones where cultures overlap. This may well be one of the eddies in the culinary zone. The gravy came from folks in the Southeast U.S. who use it for numerous applications (biscuits and gravy is another combination that never graces the plate of this Northwesterner). Perhaps it met the Mexican dish and they merged?

SRS

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 25 Apr 03 - 05:45 PM

I love chicken-fried steak. As soon as I order it I can feel my arteries collapsing in joyous anticipation!

My favourite place is the Hill Country Baker (somewhere between Austin and Luckenbach), whose sigb proudly announces, "World's Best Chicken-fried Steak - Over Three Dozen Sold!"

If you're traveling in the States, the Cracker Barrel makes 'em pretty fair.

BTW, Lin in Kansas, you didn't happen to post your address anywhere, did you?   :-)

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 24 Apr 03 - 01:55 PM

Getting back closer to the subject of this thread, it is entertaining and educational to go through the WPA and other interviews at American Memory. Enter Search, and write in "Texas interviews." Lots of them come up, some very interesting. Search

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 08:44 PM

John may have the "recipe" for white gravy down pat, but I still make better chicken-fried steak!

Lin

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 08:37 PM

Folk around here split about even on whether it's a brown gravy or a white gravy, and if you watch how much you brown the flour you can make it either way - or at least "off-white." The key is that if you don't get all the flour "wetted" in the grease, you can end up with an "uncooked flour" taste that's disagreeable to those accustomed to the regular thing.

There are a few low-grade hash joints around here that use the pre-mix, that you stir into water (not milk) before you heat it, but most of those mixes use a toasted flour in the mix.

If you mix your flour and milk thin enough so that you can simmer it for a while before it clabbers up, you can get rid of the nastiness; but that's way more work than it's worth if you know how to do the quick and easy.

The hardest part of the recipe is that tradition demands that you stir it with a wooden-handled four tine "granny fork" flexible enough to scrape the "bits" off the bottom of the skillet - and it's been twenty years, at least, since the last new one was sold in the U.S.

John

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 07:33 PM

John, that approaches the "brown gravy" that my wife remembers from Georgia. Actually the recipe variant I gave came from the east Texas area. I appropriated measurements from "White Trash Cooking." I doubt that anyone in the area in which I ate it (once) ever measured anything.

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 05:10 PM

Q -

Ya musta got that recipe from some southeastern white trash. It may happen, when nobody's lookin', but nobody I know around here - or south to the Mex border mixes the flour and milk before it goes in the skillet. If'n ya do it that way, it'll mostly taste like wallpaper paste.

You need to get most all the water boiled out of the grease, else it might make a few lumps. You leave the grease on the fire until it "sings." It'll change pitch when it's ready.

You dump the flour in the grease to sop it up, and make sure that all the flour gets wetted up good and starts to brown. Then you dump the milk in and stir till it comes back to a simmer. Makes a southern (or southwestern) gravy that sticks to your ribs instead of to your teeth.

If you ain't got a cow piece for renderin', half a stick (1/8 lb) of oleo is about enough grease. Throw one boullion cube in the grease for flavor if you like (any more is too salty), while your gettin' the water out of the grease. About a half cup of flour, stirred in and lightly browned, and then fill your 10 inch cast iron skillet about a half or 3/4 inch deep with milk. All the ingredients are plus or minus 50 percent.

John

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 03:32 PM

Always thought meat cooked milanesa in Mexico was breaded.
Wouldn't dare submit this to the recipe hunters here!

Chicken-Fried Steak

Round steak or other cheap cut.
Flour
Salt, pepper
Vegetable oil or the used grease from the can at the back of the stove.

Beat the meat with the edge of a saucer (blue plate restaurant grade) or the back of a heavy knife. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover it completely with flour (can't use too much). Fry on both sides to well-done in about 1/2 inch of hot grease.
Make the white gravy.
Look at the drippings-grease in the pan, and decide how much flour and milk is needed to thicken it. Mix flour and milk until no lumps remain. Add to pan. If gravy too thin, add more flour; if too thick add water. Stir and cook over low heat until thick and bubbling.

Serve with fries or mashed potato, cole slaw, lettuce and tomato or whatever is available. In East Texas, often served with a scoop of cooked white beans, and Wonderbread or equivalent to sop up the white gravy.

Modified with help from "White Trash Cooking," by E. M. Mickler.

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 12:10 PM

If you go to Mexico to eat, as I used to when I lived at the border in Lukeville, Arizona (I worked at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument--right next to the Mexican town of Sonoyta, Sonora), you ate "Milanesa." A friend of mine who spent a lot of time in Eurpoe pointed out that this was what they called the dish when she ate it in Italy, meaning it was beef cooked "Milan Style." So the Mexican menus still credit it to its origins, but here it's just named by how it's cooked.

SRS

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 11:56 AM

Older Texans will remember the taste of southern grass-fed beef with the yellow fat and strong odor while cooking. Never bothered me, but my wife (prefers ham and chicken) insists the chicken-fry recipe was invented to help cover the taste and odor.

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: MMario
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 11:08 AM

Have you seen what some restaurants are charging these days for chicken-fried steak? *grin*

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: Fortunato
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 11:05 AM

Possumology is to culture as chicken fried steak is to cuisine. Thanks for the link, I think.

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 02:21 AM

Hey, thanks, everyone! Has anybody PM'd Spaw to check out Professors Potter and Baird and their possum lore?

An article on my hometown, Lipscomb, found at this site, was written by my little brother's class and mentions my granddad's hotel, moved from the ghost town of Old Dominion in 1897. The hotel is still there, minus its top floor and half its length, and was our family home for many years.

Good sites!

Lin (now in Kansas, but still a Texas at heart) :>)

Subject: RE: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 11:44 PM

Interesting first-hand interviews.

More stuff here in the Handbook of Texas. Posted before, but the two items go together. Handbook of Texas

Subject: Folklore: Texas Culture and Folklore
From: Allan C.
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 10:09 PM

I have stumbled upon a website that contains transcripts of interviews of Texans who recall the way things were many years ago. Information includes glimpses of daily life including issues of food storage, folk medicine, humor, racial prejudice, history and countless other glimpses. There are even brief soundbites of the voices of the interviewees.

Texas Memories