When you grow up in a different region of the nation, you are exposed to a different kind of cuisine. What you take for granted in Texas is not very common in other places, and vice versa.
I never ate Tex-Mex food until I crossed the Red River 30 years ago. What Texans call “barbecue” was a meal I never ate. My barbecue world was solely beef ribs; we were never offered sausage or pork ribs (or even beef brisket) because of the high concentration of Jewish people in the Midwest and the Kosher rule against the consumption of pig.
My father requested the same meal a majority of nights - a large sirloin steak cooked on a charcoal grill (Kingsford, thank you) with a large baked potato and a vegetable (mostly asparagus or broccoli). What he ate, we ate.
If you “blackened” a piece of meat, it meant the cook burned it. The only thing fried was chicken, not a quality beef of cowhide.
When the Trailways bus finally opened its door to drop me in Conroe, Texas. I partook of Tex-Mex cuisine (except for menudo or jalapenos) and South Texas Catholic Church Sunday barbecue (da best).
But my favorite meal was a chicken fried steak (until my cardiologist said otherwise). I will admit to slipping once in a blue moon. I had a fine example in Flagstaff, Arizona at the Grand Canyon Café on Route 66 on my recent trip. Out of five stars, this rated 3 ½ with a light crusting and the brown (not cream) gravy nestled under the steak, not on top.
But the best that ever was (in Texas or elsewhere) no longer exists. Even though I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area (allegedly one of the steak capitals of the nation), I still try to find the kind of chicken fried steak to which I was introduced one Friday night on a road trip to Austin.
Between Austin and Brenham sits the oil boom-or-bust town of Giddings, a community symbolized the roller coaster dependency that Texas had on big oil in the 1970s and 1980s. It was a quiet town of 5,000 people in the early ‘70s until the state’s largest pocket of oil was discovered along the geological formation called the Austin Chalk. Soon the population and income level rose dramatically. Mercedes dealers and hotels began to populate the sleepy Washington County city. In five years, the bottom dropped out, only to see a mirage of hope in the late 1980s. Alas, oil still cost less than $20 per barrel for the longest time and most of Giddings died.
Among the casualties was Schubert’s Restaurant, a old quaint establishment on the eastern outskirts of town, next to the older Sands Motel. It had the kind of peeling linoleum floor that only small-town eateries possess (bless them).
It also served the finest chicken fried steak of them all. It was a real round steak, often with the bone embedded, hand-dipped in a perfect batter (not too thick) and fried to the right tone. When you took a bite, you tasted the meat more than the covering. It was not a bogus chicken fried steak, meaning a fried hamburger patty inundated with so much batter you can’t tell which is which. Nor was the meat so pounded (or laughingly tenderized) out of existence that the texture was gone.
Included was true milk gravy, with the proper amount of lumps, fresh-made rolls and a steaming baked potato or Texas fries from fresh cut spuds. A salad was offered in those perfectly cheap walnut bowls from a small salad bar; drinks came in the classic diner-type glasses.
A small steak covered a regular plate, the large saw its edges spill past the lip of a large platter. It was the best bargain in the Lone Star State, and customers ventured from all points to sup at their tables. Football teams, college and high school, went out of their way to stop at Schubert’s for a pre-game or post-game meal.
When oil went boom for the last time in 1990, Schubert’s silently closed its doors, and Texas was not a better place to live. No one in the Metroplex has been able to duplicate the quality, taste, value and atmosphere that caught my imagination and love as an imported Texan.
I continue my search, but places with claims of having the best chicken fried steak around are only pretenders to the throne. If you have a suggestion to help me complete my journey, contact me immediately.
I’d like to smile just one time after a meal. Quick, while the doctor’s not looking.
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4 comments:
Chuck,
I moved to Minneapolis 3 years ago and continue to miss the amazing food of Texas. Reading your article reference to Schubert's brought a tear to my eye. I spent summers in the early 70's working in a ranch near Dime Box and relished my meals at Schubert's.
You described it perfectly. It will never be reproduced and is something few can truly appreciate never had actually experienced it!!!!!!
I don't know if this blog is still active, I just found it in a Google search for chicken fried steak in Giddings, Texas. The chicken fried steak from Schubert's has been on my mind frequently over the years.
My first experience there was around 1962 or 1963. I was on vacation with my parents and two brothers. We lived in California and was visiting family in the Houston area. We stopped late one afternoon in Giddings at the Sands Motel. It was new then, the owner said we were the first people to swim in the brand new pool. Right next door was this restaurant, so that's where we had dinner. We all ordered the chicken fried steak. My older brother ordered the large while my younger brother and I had the small size. Wow! The large was a full bone in round steak and the small was one half the size. The best part was the taste. We stopped in again on our return to California. It became an annual event after that.
Years later, I joined the U.S. Air Force and was stationed at Bergstrom AFB in Austin, Texas from 1971 to 1975. I made many trips to Giddings and that restaurant during those years. I haven't been back since.
I know they closed some time ago but Giddings, the Sands Motel, Schubert's and their chicken fried steak are a fondly remembered part of my life.
Lots of memories of Schubert's in Giddings. I grew up in Johnson City, about 45 miles west of Austin, but two of my grandparents and nearly all aunts, uncles and cousins lived between Houston and Beaumont. So in the 1960s we made many drives back and forth, and Giddings was along the way. (Interstate 10 eventually would become the quicker route, but not in those days.) Whenever possible, we'd stop at Schubert's for CFS. It was as already described: amazing, and a bargain. Plus, the hand-cut fries were awesome. Just a great Texas family eatery.
In 1974, when I was a senior in high school, a number of my schoolmates and I participated in UIL competitions of one type or other. I recall that in '74 our regionals were in Brenham. I won a couple competitions there, so as a treat, the teacher told us I could pick where we'd eat on the way back west. That was an easy call: Schubert's. Not sure all my companions had eaten there before, but afterwards they felt I'd made a great choice.
Who else recalls that a silver dollar (or maybe a half-dollar) was imbedded in the floor right by the cash register? I sure do, because I kept trying to figure out how to pry it loose. Hope someone from the family ended up with it.
During the 80's and early 90's, my parents owned the Lucky Belle Ranch in Paige, TX located between Giddings and Elgin. After a long day of working cattle, repairing fences, etc., I fondly remember voraciously devouring the chicken fried steaks at Schubert's in Giddings or the BBQ at Bigger's in Elgin, depending on which town I ended up being nearer.
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