Hey, is that a chicken fried steak or a country fried steak?

Fried steaks

I’m convinced most people — including me — don’t know the difference between “country fried steak,” “chicken fried steak” and “chicken fried chicken.”

“Why would you kill the flavor of a steak and make it taste like chicken?” said Eli Nesterov, who works with me at the newspaper.

When William Fason, one of my colleagues, ordered chicken fried chicken for the first time, he told his server he wanted dark meat. “She said, ‘It’s not that kind of chicken,’ ” Fason said.

I visited some area restaurants to learn a thing or two about chicken fried, country fried and chicken fried chicken steaks.

The Cottage sells country fried steaks and chicken fried steaks. The country fried version, listed on the breakfast menu, comes with two eggs, grits or hash browns, biscuits with gravy or toast. It’s covered with white or “milk” gravy. The chicken fried steak is covered with a brown gravy. They’re not strict about which gravy goes with which item. My server said you can get “either one or naked.”

One customer confessed she didn’t know anything about chicken fried or country fried steaks. “I’m a Yankee,” she said.

My chicken fried steak was a steak that was battered and fried and drenched in brown gravy. I loved it.

So brown gravy means chicken fried and white gravy means country fried. Right? Wrong. The Port’s exceptionally tasty “Giant Country Fried Steak” comes with brown — not white — gravy. And it’s still a chicken fried steak.

PHOTOS BY MICHAEL DONAHUE/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL FROM TOP: Country fried steak at Fat Larry’s; Chicken fried chicken at The Cupboard; Chicken fried steak at The Cottage.