Friday, June 08, 2007

Chicken Fried Chicken

Last night Mike had to work late so Brody and I went into town to eat dinner at Paddy's with him. Paddy's is run by a young couple from our church and they make some good home cookin'! Our friend, Jed, was cooking last night when we went in. In between orders he'd come out and visit with us. Mike ordered the chicken fried steak and I ordered the chicken fried chicken sandwich. Jed came out just as we were digging in and asked me what I found to be a very strange question. Here's how the conversation went:

(Jed) "Have you ever had that before?"
(Me) "You mean here? At your restaurant?"
"No, anywhere?"
"A chicken sandwich?"
"Have you ever had chicken fried chicken before?"
"Are you serious?!?"
"Yes! I have a lot of people come in here and ask me what it is!"
"Are you serious?!?!??!?"
"Yes! I guess most people around here have chicken fried steak...not chicken."
"Well...I'm from Texas. We had fried chicken almost on a weekly basis!"

Jed and Mike both grew up in KS and agreed that they never had chicken fried chicken growing up. Jed said he tried it for the first time when he was in college. Does this seem strange to anyone but me? It just seems funny that you'd know what something called CHICKEN FRIED steak is but not know what chicken fried CHICKEN is! Why do we call it "chicken fried..." anyways? Why isn't it just "fried steak" or "fried chicken"?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have always thought chicken fried chicken was such a funny thing-it's redundant. But, if you just say fried chicken, I think of a fried leg or a thigh, but chicken fried chicken means no bone and covered in gravy. That's what I think anyway! That is really funny that they had never heard of chicken fried chicken!

Anonymous said...

It seems very strange to me that anyone would not know what chicken fried chicken is. We have always just called it "fried chicken." I was rasied on it. In regard to your question, could it be that back in the "olden, olden days" pioneers ususally had 1 cow for milk and raised lots of chickens. I remember my mother going out in the back yard and catching a chicken and holding it by its head to wring its neck. When the head came off, the body would "flop" around for a while. She would then dip it in hot water and then pluck all the feathers, cut it up and fry it. I remember also they would have "hog killing" - family and neighbors would come and help. They would tie the hog from a tree and butcher it. Maybe when people were able to have more than 1 cow and started raising cattle and butchering them, maybe they decided to try frying some of the meat like they did the chicken, so they called it "chicken fried steak". Just a thought!!! Everybody knows how much we love chicken and Chick-Fil-A.

Steve and Joan said...

I love it when Grandmommy or Joan make fried chicken. MMMMMMMM!

Anonymous said...

I think Megan is right. When they started frying boneless chicken is when they started calling it chicken fried chicken. I think I first had it at Black Eyed Pea.

Amy said...

I am hungry now.
Oh good, it's lunchtime!

Anonymous said...

I agree with Megan and Joan. It has to be flat and have the same type of batter as chicken fried steak to be called chicken fried chicken. Black-eyed Pea was also my first exposure. Personally, I'll take a good pork tenderloin sandwich anyday but have never found one of those in Texas.