It seems logical that the Lone Star State’s favorite comfort food, chicken-fried steak, traces its heritage back to the many Central European immigrant cooks who found themselves in Texas but without the fixin’s for a fine, tender cut of veal to make Wiener schnitzel. Instead, they took a hunk of cow and beat the chaw out of it (with an old glass Coke bottle, according to legend), then fried it up like Southern-style chicken and served it with pan-dripping peppered milk gravy and mashed potatoes. This genealogical speculation is supported by the fact that the Hill Country, with its preponderance of German great-grandmas, is home to so many excellent chicken-fried steaks. In so many other places throughout the Southwest, CFS means diner grub at its worst.