There’d be no crime to use two or three small pieces of top round or bottom round or sirloin and knit it together in the cube steak machine,” Certainly, the practice of knitting together odds and ends has contributed mightily to the cube steak’s reputation as a mystery meat. There’s nothing wrong with improving a good, but tough, cut of beef by running it through a tenderizer, and then selling it at beef prices. But when there’s no way to tell the difference between that product and meat scraps, perhaps with fat added, the products should be defined by law.

That kind of controversy has not dampened true fans of the cube steak. In the South, the cube steak is countrified under a blanket of onions and gravy. In the Midwest, the cube steak is happily baked into the casseroles. In Texas, it’s buried under the cream gravy, and in Miami it’s nestled alongside a pile of onions seasoned with lime.

 Bistec de palomilla, the Cuban national steak can be a cube steak and is popular in the Cuban kitchens.

In the Southeast and mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, the cube steak dresses up regularly as a smothered steak. Braised slowly with fried onions and chicken stock, cube steaks were an essential part of dinning at home.

Texans view the chicken-fried steak as a birthright, but you best not call it a cube steak.