On chili
First, bacon is not a vegetable. I’m pretty sure about that. Secondly, if it has beans in it, then it is chili with beans. Chili has no beans. I am definitely sure about that.
28 Responses to “On chili”
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December 30th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Dunno. I think the beans is a regional thing. I had never had chili with Macaroni till a road trip through Indianapolis during college. I thought the owner was nuts but I have since run into the same concoction elsewhere and they have also called it chili.
Only thing I have ever found to be common to chili is tomato base with some kind of ground meat. The rest is whatever you want.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
And if you’re gonna use one of them chili spice packs you see at the supermarket, Wick Fowlers kicks Carroll Shelby’s ass.
It’s also better when made with stew meat as opposed to ground beef.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Oh, the bacon thing is spot on. Pigs do not grow on plants.
December 30th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
That’s the best vegetarian chili I’ve ever seen.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Chili has beans.
Chili con Carne has meat also.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Maybe you could verify this with BitterBitch – her blog is now “Bitchin in the Kitchen” with recipes and such….. my dad was from Texas and his chili was all meat and onions and garlic in the tomato base, spicy as hell. If he needed to make it feed a few extra mouths, he added kidney beans. He used to say “chili” with just beans and spices was jailhouse chili, no meat available.
December 30th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Kidney beans are mostly for cheap fill, but the flavor does add something.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Nah nah nah….
Chili has nothing but meat, chilis, MAYBE tomatos and onions, a flavorful liquid base, and seasonings.
If it’s gots beans in it, it isn’t chili, it’s chili bean stew.
I’ve got good recipes for both here:
Recipes for REAL Men
December 30th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
There’s no tomato base in chili. Or beans. There’s beef, and there’s chili powder. Peppers and tomatoes are welcome (I use Rotel, since I live in God’s Country), but they are not the base.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Bacon may not be a vegetable, but it certainly deserves to be its own food group.
As to chili, I start mine with freshly ground (as in I do it – with the coarse plate in) meat. Usually venison, but also beef and/or pork loin or pork belly and then seperatly stew some tomatoes down and onions. Maybe add a dash of garlic and then the chilis. When all is good and ready, I combine the two and then cook, over low heat, stirring occaisionally and add kidney beans to taste (we are a pro beans family, but uncles right they make chili with beans).
December 30th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Then what the hell is Chili con Carne? “Meat with Meat?”
December 30th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
actually, it’s peppers with meat. but chili in this case doesn’t mean pepper.
December 30th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
That atrocity that some midwesterners call “chili” (looking at you, Cincinatti) should demand punishment from the people.
I mean, really, NOODLES? WTF?
December 30th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
We can all just get along here, without any violence, as long as we agree to be tolerant of the disgusting eating habits of those unlike ourselves. As my mother used to say to me in my childhood, when spooning something unfamiliar onto my plate, “You don’t have to like it, but try it and maybe you’ll learn something new.”
I come from North Carolina but am a happily implanted Texan now. I got here as soon as I could. My mother is from way up North, and makes the best cabbage rolls in the world. My father loved grits for breakfast. I grew up eclectically fed, to say the least. So trust me when I say it can ALL be good.
Chili is meat and chilis. Chili with beans has beans. Tofu chili is tofu and chilis. Chili (non-Texan) has a tomato base.
This is easier than talking about BBQ, at least.
Pass me the hot sauce (and don’t get started on that subject!)
December 30th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Bacon – peace be upon the pig that died to make such a heavenly food! – needs neither excuses nor apologies nor embellishments.
A really good BLT is perhaps as close as one can come to true happiness on earth.
December 30th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
What are you talking about? Of course it is– http://store.dieselsweeties.com/products/bacon-is-a-vegetable-shirt
December 30th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
To borrow a phrase from Anarchangel, real chili has no beans. Chili stew is the stuff with beans. Chili con carne is where chili gets its name; chili is just the abbreviation (unless you’re making chili sin carne, in which case you should be hit with a 2×4 so a real person can cook).
I personally prefer chili stew, with a bunch of non-bacon vegetables and some tomatoes added in, topped with cornbread and a dollop of sour cream, but it’s best to know what the name actually means or you’ll get the wrong stuff.
December 30th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
Chile? Chile con carne? Pepper with meat soup?
Dead easy. Two pounds or a bit over of lean
meat, DICED not ground. Half pound of chiles.
I prefer red ‘uns, some like ’em green. Masa
flour. Or you can cheat and use Wick Fowler’s ready-mix. And water, a pot, and a little time.
Dice the carne, half inch or so cubes. Put in pot.
Boil until meat is done. Skim and discard fat.
Add chiles, boil until chiles are done and the meat
is coming apart. Add masa until it thickens to
suit you. Taste, if it’s not hot enough add
GENUINE Tobasco until it is.
Serve on corn chips, oyster crackers, or
Teddy Roosevelt’s favorite, crumbled soda
crackers. Saltines. Muy bueno. Serves 1 man or
1 hungry woman liberally, or two people if
they are skinny. Good for that bad company,
Arthur Itis, and other things that hurt you.
Now remember, Chile has no added salt, no
added nothing. And certainly no tomate’s, no frijoles, no judia, de nada. Just meat, chiles, and
masa thickening for the sopa, plus a bit of
crunch to make it go down good.
Extrano
December 30th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Bacon is as Bacon does , it transcends all food groups , and some suspect it may well cure the clap . I wont even start on the ” purest ” chili stuff since strictly speaking no red chili is real chili , much less when you pitch in such abomonations as ground beef . By the time yall talk about beans or not your talking a regional goulash not a chili LOL .
<< puts on the asbestos undies and hides now .
December 30th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Real chili is however YOU like it to be. To me, chili just aint chili unless there’s beans in it. Without beans it’s just a different form of spaghetti sauce.
December 30th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
hi….
your web site is still not working. everything is all mixed up and the middle of the site wgere the stories are is partially covered by the coulum on thr right.
regards
rick wagner
December 30th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Chili is like BBQ. Everyone has a different way of making it, and they’re all convinced that their way is the one right way.
December 31st, 2008 at 1:47 am
Mom was born in Sweetwater, Texas in 1917 and she said that real chili never met tomato nor bean. Bean and tomato soup with ground beef ain’t chili.
December 31st, 2008 at 8:45 am
Sadly, bacon is no longer bacon.
I blame the socialists and their cousins the progressives.
Pork chops are next. We are becoming England.
December 31st, 2008 at 10:04 am
“People that know beans about chili know that chili has no beans”. End of story.
And when chili was invented, people still thought tomatoes were poison. To that takes care of tomatoes.
And if you wouldn’t expect to find it stuffed in the back of chuckwagon in 1860, then THAT doesn’t belong in chili either.
You can glop together some sort of foppish slop with “three leaves of French oregano” and a “dram of jerez added just before plating” and you can CALL it chili, but is no more chili than Obama is a “leader”.
Here’s a chili recipe: http://mostlycajun.com/wordpress/?p=3
MC
December 31st, 2008 at 11:12 am
Without jumping into the argument, I would say, having eaten it, that while the spaghetti is fairly awful, the very worst thing about Cincy chili is that it contains cinnamon. Lots of it.
December 31st, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I’m sure glad I’m not as intolerant as some of you.
I like Cincinatti chili. I also like Indiana style chili which is more of a tomato based chili soup with meat and beans and served with macaroni. I also like Texas chili and have been known to enter the occasional chili cook-off (never won one, but I’ve placed in the top 5). I also like white chicken chili.
Call it what you want, the important thing to me is that it tastes good. Variety is the spice of life.
December 31st, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Instead of beans, I use hominy as a fill. Yes, hominy, the stuff grits come from. Works out well.