Speaker 1: My name is Eva Longoria and I am Myra and
Speaker 1: welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our
Speaker 1: past and present through food. On every episode, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
Speaker 1: and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2: So make yourself at home. Echel. People are kind of
Speaker 2: think all we want to do is talk about meat.
Speaker 3: I know, but this time we're talking about the breaded
Speaker 3: and fried kind of meat.
Speaker 4: I mean, who did like breaded and fried meat? Today's
Speaker 4: episode is all about Mila Nacy and the.
Speaker 2: Chicken fried and steak.
Speaker 4: I have the best memories eating chicken fried steak. It
Speaker 4: was a big deal in our house because there was
Speaker 4: a place down the street like steakhouse. It was what
Speaker 4: was it so lloin Stockade and you know, graduate or baptism.
Speaker 4: We would get to go out to eat at this
Speaker 4: thik dancy place and I would always order.
Speaker 2: The chicken bride steak.
Speaker 3: So did you eat more chicken fried steak than Milanisa
Speaker 3: at home?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: Growing I've never had Milanisa. I never had milanesa growing up,
Speaker 4: you had Milanisa.
Speaker 2: I never.
Speaker 3: I didn't have chicken fried steak until I moved to college.
Speaker 3: We had melanessa, but not like the chicken milanaise, which
Speaker 3: is what I make now all the time. It was
Speaker 3: beef like thin beef, tenderized beef, breaded and.
Speaker 2: Like Italian like Italian style.
Speaker 3: Like Italian style, And that's what I always had, and
Speaker 3: it's one of my greatest food memories because it's something
Speaker 3: that my mom made all the time.
Speaker 4: No, but we've established it. You had a bougier growing
Speaker 4: up than I did, because.
Speaker 2: Well, you know what I think it is.
Speaker 3: I think it's more that Laredo is more mechs right,
Speaker 3: is more Mexican. And even I just learned this recently
Speaker 3: when this area, Texas became part of the Republic of Texas.
Speaker 2: For those ten years, Laredo was like, no, we're good,
Speaker 2: We're Mexican.
Speaker 3: So Laredo is so Mexican, and I think that this
Speaker 3: is why so different.
Speaker 4: No, I grew up with chicken fried stak, which is,
Speaker 4: by the way, not a Panco kind of breadedness.
Speaker 2: It is a.
Speaker 4: Thick batter. It's like more batter than beef, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. It's like very very batter heavy.
Speaker 3: Chicken fr stiak is such a Texas dish. Right when
Speaker 3: I think of Texas. I think of chili barbecue and
Speaker 3: chicken fried stake. Chicken fried steak you have to eat
Speaker 3: with gravy totally. You have to otherwise It's like, what's
Speaker 3: the point the Milanessa that we would have it was
Speaker 3: just the milanesa on the plate. And I think when
Speaker 3: we were kids, my mom would make like French fries
Speaker 3: or something like that, or salad, and we always had
Speaker 3: it in lime and I had it with a one sauce.
Speaker 2: See, you were fancy.
Speaker 4: A fancy one sauce was fancy in our house.
Speaker 2: You had a one sauce. Good for you, we did.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm in Laredo and I'm gonna make it
Speaker 3: with my mom. It's like I haven't had my mom's
Speaker 3: been ascent forever.
Speaker 2: But let me let's talk about it, Like where does
Speaker 2: it come from?
Speaker 4: Because I feel like when you say milanesa, it's milanaise,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, yes, Italian.
Speaker 3: It comes from the which is a classic of Milan's cuisine.
Speaker 3: So yes Italian, and it gets the name of the dish.
Speaker 3: It comes from the meat that was traditionally used for it,
Speaker 3: that is traditionally used for it, called l which is
Speaker 3: a whole inch of thick bone in veal, so it's
Speaker 3: a thick veal chop right, and it's been a specialty
Speaker 3: of this area since the twelfth century a Milan, Yes, Milan,
Speaker 3: the Lombardi region, at least it's probably before. But there's
Speaker 3: a book that recorded a feast from the year eleven
Speaker 3: thirty four with by historian Pietro Veri in the book
Speaker 3: of the History of Milan, and he talks about a
Speaker 3: course of lombo skumpanio, which is a breaded veal loin Milanese.
Speaker 4: Came because because of the region exactly wiener Schnitzel.
Speaker 2: Wait, so there, what's a weener Shitzel. The wener Schnitzel.
Speaker 2: Theitle is the which I say Wiener.
Speaker 4: I say wiener Schnitzel because I am American and not
Speaker 4: that educated.
Speaker 2: I say, but yes, it's the Veener Schnitzel.
Speaker 3: Is basically like a cousin of the gotto let la milanis,
Speaker 3: so it's similar. Common theory is that the gotoleta la
Speaker 3: Milana was introduced to Vienna in eighteen fifty seven by
Speaker 3: a field Marshal Joseph Radetski, who was in Lombardi.
Speaker 2: That was then a part of the Austrian Empire. But
Speaker 2: so this is.
Speaker 3: A but in reality, breaded cutlets have appeared in Austrian
Speaker 3: cookbooks well before this time.
Speaker 2: There is a debate.
Speaker 3: The debate is that veener schnitzel is so central to
Speaker 3: the country's cuisine that the ingredients that make up the
Speaker 3: dish are defined by law. So it has to be
Speaker 3: made from a veal cutlet, which is pounded super thin
Speaker 3: than dredge and flour, egg bread comes and then fried
Speaker 3: and lard or butter.
Speaker 4: Vienna, So stitchel veener snitchel Schnitzel, I can't do it. It's
Speaker 4: the cutlet from Vienna, cutlet.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: Veen is the name of Vienna, the capital of Austria,
Speaker 3: and snitzel is cutlet.
Speaker 2: Why are we having such a hard time, my.
Speaker 4: God, Jesus, really hard. It's just the cut of meat.
Speaker 4: That's the only difference, right one. The mela, they say,
Speaker 4: is loin and boning, and the schnitzel is without bone,
Speaker 4: comes from the flank or the rump, and that's very similar.
Speaker 2: Very similar.
Speaker 4: If fried food is king in America, then chicken brid
Speaker 4: steak is royalty.
Speaker 2: At least for us. Right because we're from Texas. Correct, Yes,
Speaker 2: don't go anywhere.
Speaker 4: We're diving into the history of chicken fried steak next.
Speaker 4: So you did have chicken fried steak? Right?
Speaker 2: Are you team white gravy or brown gravy?
Speaker 3: I think for chicken fried steak white gavy, white, creamy,
Speaker 3: white and creamy and just.
Speaker 4: Peppery, peppery peppers of pepper.
Speaker 2: Yes, like it has that woomph to each bite. And
Speaker 2: what is its connection to Texas?
Speaker 3: Well, it has it's connected to these two dishes. So
Speaker 3: there's one theory that claims that a man named Jimmy
Speaker 3: Don Perkins, he was a short arder cook at Lamasa, Texas,
Speaker 3: at a place called Ethel's Home Cooking, and that he
Speaker 3: invented the dish by accident in nineteen eleven. According to legend,
Speaker 3: Jimmy down misread an order for chicken and fried seake
Speaker 3: and chicken fried steak was born. But in reality, the
Speaker 3: dish was introduced in the mid eighteen hundreds by German,
Speaker 3: Austrian and Czech in Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes sense because you know tekano music is
Speaker 4: based on German polka.
Speaker 2: Yes, so there was a lot of German influence in Texas.
Speaker 2: A lot. Yeah.
Speaker 3: In the eighteen hundreds, thousands of primarily middle class farmers
Speaker 3: and artisans from West and central Germany arrived in Texas
Speaker 3: seeking opportunities, and by the twentieth century, more than forty
Speaker 3: thousand Germans populated a stretch of Texas known as the
Speaker 3: German Belt.
Speaker 2: So it's close to.
Speaker 3: San Antonio, New Bronfas and Curvelle. In Curvelle, Yeah, they
Speaker 3: settled there and they found a ton of beef.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, wait, is this true that during the
Speaker 2: Civil War Texas supplied the Confederacy with beef, which led
Speaker 2: to a steep rise in cattle population. Yesn't that wild.
Speaker 4: We supplied, We supplied the beef to the I know,
Speaker 4: it's horrible. Yeah, I know, come on, Dixes. But then
Speaker 4: they switched to cheaper cuts of beef. The one thing
Speaker 4: I would do say is like I prefer the texture
Speaker 4: of a chicken price steak because it's thicker, but it's tougher.
Speaker 4: You gotta you have apt a sharp knife, and it's like,
Speaker 4: it's not the best cut of meat.
Speaker 2: And it never was. It never was like you gotta cut,
Speaker 2: you gotta cut deep.
Speaker 4: And so the the switching to a cheaper cut of
Speaker 4: meat obviously occurred somewhere along the line.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, pounded, tenderize it like crazy, and then bred
Speaker 3: it and fry the hell out of it.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: It just reflected the tougher times in Texas, right, like
Speaker 4: the tough struggles of early settlers trying to make something
Speaker 4: out of nothing. Uh, you know, like kind of all
Speaker 4: home cooked dishes. I'm sure there was many variations then.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you said, the struggles, so the dish, they're
Speaker 3: trying to make something delicious, delectable out of, you know,
Speaker 3: a tough cut of meat. Texans call it the perfect
Speaker 3: marriage of meat batter in Greece.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you gotta, you gotta pound that meat. And and
Speaker 4: you know this is our. The batter for chicken freast
Speaker 4: steak is milk flour. You know, it's not pancoa.
Speaker 3: It's not panco no, no, no, it's flour.
Speaker 2: It's egg.
Speaker 3: It's flour again. And then it's fried and large and
Speaker 3: lard and gold and brown. Like you said, with mashed
Speaker 3: potatoes and gravy just clog those arteries.
Speaker 4: There's a West Texas version that just does the meat
Speaker 4: and flour, no egg, and that's what cowboys called pan
Speaker 4: fried steak.
Speaker 2: I actually heard of that one before pan brad steak.
Speaker 3: East Texas has a version dipped an egg and then flour,
Speaker 3: similar to Southern fried chicken, and then Central Texas is
Speaker 3: closer to the venersintil with bread crumbs instead of flours,
Speaker 3: so they're different variations. But an early printed American recipe
Speaker 3: is in the La Times from nineteen twenty four, so
Speaker 3: it appears as beef steak rolled and flour fried in
Speaker 3: a pan and served with country gravy, so the steak
Speaker 3: placed over the gravy.
Speaker 2: I've always had it the other way around. Where can
Speaker 2: you find the best chicken fried steak? Is it only
Speaker 2: a Texas sneak?
Speaker 3: I think it's a Southern like a Kansas and Oklahoma
Speaker 3: also have chicken fried steak, But I had an amazing
Speaker 3: one at a restaurant in Bandera last summer called the
Speaker 3: Old Spanish Trail Restaurant, and it's one of the oldest
Speaker 3: continuously operating restaurants in the state. It's been in business
Speaker 3: for over one hundred years and they claim to have
Speaker 3: world's best chicken steak. I'm such a sucker for people
Speaker 3: that say world's best this or Texas best that but
Speaker 3: that is the best chicken fried steak that I've ever had.
Speaker 4: What about you in Katula, Texas, if anybody's passing through Coatula, Texas,
Speaker 4: Jaj's Country Store, that's really good country pri steak.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you dairy queen, dairy queen.
Speaker 4: In Texas with the if you can find one that
Speaker 4: serves food, and if you find one that has the
Speaker 4: steak fingers, the steak finger basket, it's it's chicken fried steak,
Speaker 4: but instead of like chicken fingers, it's steak and you
Speaker 4: dip it in your gravy.
Speaker 2: It's the best. That's dairy it's like the best days queen. Really.
Speaker 4: Yes, Laredo for sure, dairy Queen Laredo's have it. Falfouria's
Speaker 4: had it. Falfouria's dairy queen. And in the Valley and
Speaker 4: Corpus Christie there's still one dairy queen that has chicken
Speaker 4: fried steak fingers.
Speaker 3: Okay, because I'm in Laredo and there's dairy queen not
Speaker 3: far from my mom's house, yes, take it out.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like it's very hard to find a dairy queen
Speaker 4: that serves food nowadays.
Speaker 2: And if they do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they don't serve the food anymore. And now if
Speaker 4: they do, it's a burger, it's a burger and fries thing.
Speaker 4: But there's certain places that have the steak binger bascot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have to try it. I've never I've only
Speaker 3: ever had their their dipped. Well not just that, but
Speaker 3: I have all the ice cream.
Speaker 2: It's the best. Oh my god. I was just in
Speaker 2: a studios.
Speaker 1: I was just in a studios and I ate and
Speaker 1: you asked me, and I was like, I have.
Speaker 4: No idea what you're talking about. And the day you
Speaker 4: asked me, have you eaten a kutcha pool? A gotcha pool?
Speaker 2: Gotcha poo? How do you say it? Pol You're like,
Speaker 2: have you eaten a katcho pool? And you sent me
Speaker 2: a picture? I go, no, I've never seen that. I
Speaker 2: haven't been.
Speaker 4: I haven't seen it. I was there for like two weeks,
Speaker 4: literally the last two days.
Speaker 2: That's all I saw.
Speaker 4: And I had it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I meant to send you a picture. Yes, but.
Speaker 4: It's it's so it's veal, but it has ham and cheese.
Speaker 2: Inside of it, and it's but it's super thin.
Speaker 4: It's definitely pounded out and it's like a cord on blue.
Speaker 2: That's what I thought it was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't really associate it with like a a
Speaker 4: milanaise or Veener schnitzel. I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 4: a cool cord on blue because it had the ham
Speaker 4: and cheese inside of it.
Speaker 2: But it's breaded and fried. It was bread bread. It
Speaker 2: was delicious. It was delicious.
Speaker 4: I'm not a fan of milonnaise or the Riener Schnitzel
Speaker 4: or this thing.
Speaker 2: Because I find them dry. I find it dry. It's
Speaker 2: too thin of a cut.
Speaker 4: It's like it's that's why I think my chicken fried
Speaker 4: steak is like with the gravy and it's super battery
Speaker 4: and it's a thicker cut of meat.
Speaker 2: It's like just heartier.
Speaker 4: This whole like milanaise with a salad on top, and
Speaker 4: it's like not my thing. So it wasn't my thing,
Speaker 4: although I will say, I will say adding the cheese
Speaker 4: inside the breading made it less dry. And I was
Speaker 4: going to have any of those three, it would have
Speaker 4: been the because it was just moist. More moist, because
Speaker 4: it's right. But I think it's real. I think it
Speaker 4: is real.
Speaker 2: But the main thing is that it's stuffed. Yeah, like
Speaker 2: a stuffed. Yeah, that's so much because there are these these.
Speaker 3: Similar foods, you know, all over this sort of breaded
Speaker 3: and fried foods.
Speaker 4: I've been all over Spain, and that's the only place
Speaker 4: that has that dish. It's not like, oh, let me
Speaker 4: go have that in Madrid, or let me go have
Speaker 4: that in Marbea.
Speaker 2: It's not like a Spanish dish. It's righty from the
Speaker 2: north of Spain, which is weird in relation to Italy
Speaker 2: or Vienna. It's not any bar. Let's go way back.
Speaker 2: I always am.
Speaker 4: Interested in, like who did it first, Like who dredged
Speaker 4: meat in flour or whatever and fried it?
Speaker 2: Like how far back does this go?
Speaker 3: Dredging meat all kinds of meat and flour and frying
Speaker 3: or baking.
Speaker 2: It dates back to ancient times.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: The cooking method really tendorizes the meat and enhances the flavor.
Speaker 2: Right, fried stuff tastes good.
Speaker 3: So it's impossible really to say who was frying, who
Speaker 3: was doing it first, because this was being done well
Speaker 3: before recipes we were recording.
Speaker 2: But it's an art. Frying is an art.
Speaker 3: Like if the temperature of the oil is too low,
Speaker 3: the food is kind of gross and greasy. If it's
Speaker 3: too high, the outside will burn, the inside won't really cook.
Speaker 3: But if it's just right, this sort of flour egg
Speaker 3: breadcrumb becomes magic. It sort of instantly becomes the seal,
Speaker 3: preventing the fat from entering the meat.
Speaker 2: So it's just sort of perfect. Where does the term
Speaker 2: golden brown like that comes from?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 3: I this is something that I that I love to
Speaker 3: this reference, right, It may come from the practice of
Speaker 3: gilding food and gold that was popular during the Byzantine
Speaker 3: era and medieval period. And I say may be because
Speaker 3: there are some references to this, and some people are like, oh, yes,
Speaker 3: this is why this idea of gold and brown, that's
Speaker 3: something so romantic. In the tenth century, the Byzantine emperor
Speaker 3: named Constantine, the seventh por Pharaohgenitus, he wrote about these
Speaker 3: descriptions of imperial ceremonies and he mentions fried bread crumbs
Speaker 3: resembling gilded gold. And so during the Middle Ages, putting
Speaker 3: gold in your food was a way to show off. Well,
Speaker 3: it's like, wealthy people used to do this, and they
Speaker 3: used food and gold so much that in the sixteenth century,
Speaker 3: the Council of Venice set limits on the amount of
Speaker 3: gold that could be used in the kitchen. And legend
Speaker 3: has it that not being able to use gold, cooks
Speaker 3: of this sixteenth century in Venice looked to bread crumbs
Speaker 3: that they would fry until golden brown.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I have never been to Argentina, but
Speaker 4: I have a lot of Argentinian friends, and I know
Speaker 4: the Italians had a huge settlement in Argentina little way
Speaker 4: so that milanaise had to be popular in Latin America.
Speaker 4: I mean it had to have gone with the Italian immigrants.
Speaker 3: Yes, in the nineteenth century, tons of Italian immigrants, and
Speaker 3: so from milanaise to milanais, it's one of the most
Speaker 3: popular dishes, like you said, in Argentina Nuduay. Huge Italian
Speaker 3: populations in both countries, and Argentina's first published recipe for
Speaker 3: milanessa is in a book called in a cookbook al
Speaker 3: Manaca la Cocina Argentina of eighteen eighties.
Speaker 2: Argentina has a milanes a day May third.
Speaker 3: But in Mexico we also see early recipes for milanessa
Speaker 3: in the nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Speaker 2: Also because of the.
Speaker 3: Italian immigrants, and in Mexico it has always been a
Speaker 3: staple of home cooking, which is what I grew up with,
Speaker 3: typically made with thinly pounded bistick or thinly pounded meat.
Speaker 3: My mom and I had so much fun cooking milanesa together.
Speaker 3: I hadn't tasted it in so many years. I must say.
Speaker 3: She got a little nervous once I put the mic
Speaker 3: on her, warning there are giggles.
Speaker 5: Lista okay, that metal.
Speaker 2: Plate, okay.
Speaker 3: Plate She explains, to lay out three plates, one with flour,
Speaker 3: one with three beaten eggs, and one with bread crumbs
Speaker 3: mixed with salt and pepper.
Speaker 1: The and there, okay, and the plate.
Speaker 2: Where was the new plateau?
Speaker 1: That is?
Speaker 2: Okay? Le pongo?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: I find it out with each other.
Speaker 6: Okay, gis as a sender and stay at the end
Speaker 6: of they go well.
Speaker 2: And plato cavili.
Speaker 3: When I found saw my younger brother showed up, she
Speaker 3: forgot she was miked and for a split second sounded
Speaker 3: like her normal sweet and sassy self.
Speaker 7: Turn Hello, do you go hellos.
Speaker 3: And flour, egg, bread crumbs dry, wet dry, yeah, super
Speaker 3: arena wabo fan yellow bell get it and then we
Speaker 3: fry on both sides until golden brown and lay out
Speaker 3: on paper towels to absorb any excess oil. It was delicious.
Speaker 2: It's come on and chicken price.
Speaker 3: Okay, my brother said the Milanessa tasted like a time.
Speaker 2: Machine, a.
Speaker 4: Machine.
Speaker 3: See what are your song? So in Mexico, there is
Speaker 3: a late nineteenth century recipe from a cookbook from a
Speaker 3: woman named Martinez from Jalisco, and it's different and it's
Speaker 3: it's really interesting because it cuts. It calls for cutting
Speaker 3: the meat into small pieces and then pounding the meat
Speaker 3: like most of them, for pounding the meat and then
Speaker 3: putting them in vinegar, salt and pepper, before the beaten
Speaker 3: egg and bread crumbs and frying and lard. And that
Speaker 3: one she serves with tomato, sauce, lettuce and radish.
Speaker 2: I've really seen that. I have you had that?
Speaker 6: Never?
Speaker 2: Never, But it's an interesting worst.
Speaker 3: It's one of the earliest recorded recipes for milanessa and
Speaker 3: it's something completely different.
Speaker 4: So but it's interesting because our least go is west
Speaker 4: and you and I are from northern Mexico. Technically, I
Speaker 4: could see why we have the Zener Schnitzel, But the
Speaker 4: milanac you grew up with that's so weird to me
Speaker 4: because I we Di didn't grow up with it, and
Speaker 4: we don't really have it in Mexico. In Mexico City,
Speaker 4: where I live, we don't. We don't really. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm sure it's that's some restaurants, but it's not like common.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like in Laredo, definitely, it's more of
Speaker 3: a home thing. It's not something that you really see
Speaker 3: in restaurants. It's more of sort of the steple of
Speaker 3: home home cooking. It's delicious. It's the ultimate comfort food
Speaker 3: for me.
Speaker 4: Alongside Fierre, alongside Fidel, Tacos best the best. So Argentina
Speaker 4: has a chicken fried Steak date. Texas has a Chicken
Speaker 4: fried Steak Day October twenty.
Speaker 3: Sixth twenty six and there's a chicken fried steak song.
Speaker 2: What Yes.
Speaker 3: A singer named Jimmy Baldwin. He wrote Peace, Love, and
Speaker 3: Chicken fried Steak to fight racism in the States.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's actually a good song.
Speaker 3: A line in the song says, we've got to learn
Speaker 3: to love one another, white, black, brown, We're all just brothers.
Speaker 2: I'm no guru, but I know what it'll take a
Speaker 2: taste of chicken fried steak.
Speaker 4: I agree, I agree, I agree, Jimmy Baldwin, I agree.
Speaker 2: Well, we want to hear from you.
Speaker 4: What did you grow up eating Amila Neesa or chicken
Speaker 4: fried steak or a Wiener Schnitzel.
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