Posted on 10/03/2009 1:53:18 PM PDT by JoeProBono
You've read in my five previous columns history is all a matter of perspective. Well, today I'm going to challenge your perspective with the most serious topic you'll ever see in this space.
Chili.
That's right. With the season just changing from the vernal to the autumnal equinox, a steaming pot of chili looms on my horizon, and on many others.
There's nothing better on a cool day than a bowl of chili. It’s more American than apple pie and the hot dog. And, in that same context, I'm going to break one of the cardinal rules of journalism. You never talk about people’s politics or their religion. It just invites an argument and trouble.
Well, there is an unwritten cardinal rule ... you never disparage someone else’s chili recipe.
Until today, that is.
While America debates health care, the war in Afghanistan and nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea, it’s safe to say a person’s chili recipe should rank right up there among the world’s most pressing debates.
I’m not here to cast aspersions on anyone’s chili recipe — that blend of meat and spices and aroma that lures us into overindulgence during the cool months — but I’m afraid this area of our state is chili challenged.
I come to this conclusion, for want of any other proof other than my own observations, because people in this area of Oklahoma tend to make casseroles and call it chili.
If there was an 11th commandment, it would be: thou shalt not throw together a bunch of stray ingredients that sear the palate, meld it with barbecue sauce, hot sauce or beans and then call it chili.
For my expertise and pedigree, I offer the following.
My chili recipe actually comes from the Civil War — the four years this country couldn’t agree on just about anything and killed each other to prove it. So why should the topic of chili prove any different?
My great-great-grandfather was a Texas sorghum farmer, living just south of Greenville.
From family stories handed down generation to generation, he was an exceptional cook for his unit, the Confederacy’s 22nd Texas Cavalry, to the point he apparently concocted the Christy chili recipe for his company between battles.
Anyway, he handed down his chili recipe to his son, Jim Christy, who served four years in the Texas Rangers back in the 1890s, and who moved to southwest Oklahoma and opened Jim’s Lunch in Granite. And, of course, chili was the mainstay of pre- and post-Depression lunch counters the nation over.
No less an authority than renowned Daily Oklahoman & Times columnist Ray Parr wrote in his “Parr for the Course,” on Aug. 17, 1975, about my great-grandpa’s chili:
“For deluxe dining, Jim Christy served chili for 10 cents per bowl — and it was a man-sized bowl, with plenty of crackers. Old-timers around Oklahoma City still talk about Baxter’s (restaurant) chili. But that’s because they never had a sniff of the real stuff, Jim Christy style. When old Jim got his chili simmering on the stove you could smell it the entire length of Granite’s booming business district. I was 12 years old before I knew restaurants ever served anything but hamburgers and chili. During my expense account years, I have tried out gourmet eating from New Orleans to San Francisco. But none of it has ever approached that Jim Christy chili.”
That recipe was handed down to one of his two sons, my great-uncle Barney, who operated Christy’s Lunch on Weatherford’s Main Street for many years. I’m sure anyone who went to college at Southwestern would attest to his legacy of fine chili.
And, about a year before he died in 1987, we made a trip to Weatherford for our last visit with him. As was his habit, it was one big genealogy lesson and bull session. Plus, he handed down the family chili recipe to me.
It came written on brown kraft paper, penciled on an old, worn paper bag. But, it was like the Shroud of Turin to me — entrusted with the family recipe for “Texas Red.”
And, I was sworn to its secrecy, on penalty of my everlasting soul, with the caveat I never make my chili too spicy, use exotic meats or other assorted road kill, put beans in it or divulge the ingredients.
Colleagues here at the paper have asked for the recipe, but it’s still safely tucked away. Not even my wife knows its secrets. And, someday, I’ll have to decide which of my three sons to pass it along to — for posterity.
So the next time someone tells me they make a good bowl of chili, I’ll just have to shake my head and chuckle.
That’s right, I’ve thrown down the gauntlet, drawn a line in the dirt, questioned your heritage and your veracity ... and your chili.
Sure you can.
But if you do, I recommend Dublin Dr Pepper.
Best chili I ever made had venison, red wine and beans in it. Daggone freaking good.
Oh, now you’re in trouble!!!! KC has THE BEST barbeque ever! LOL! I still say I make good chili and I don’t put chocolate chips in it. I know it sounds weird but a tablespoon of cocoa adds an incredibly unique flavor. But you know, if you want to be the same as everyone else, by all means don’t work outside of the box! ;0)
Adding garnishes is fine. I personally enjoy eating chili with grated cheese and onions on top, and sometimes even a bit of sour cream or plain yogurt. All these items are great when added to the chili AFTER it is served. Adding them DURING cooking, however, spoils the authenticity of the chili.
Sorry, I don’t know Houston. Even here in Tarrant County the real thing can be hard to find.
In my opinion, some foods such as chili and fried chicken are best when made at home.
California “chili”? No thanks! I’ll save the chocolate and malt liquor for after dinner.
From here: http://golfterlingua.com/chili.html
Aviator and editor, George Haddaway, and Jim Fuller are credited with creating the Chili Appreciation Society anywhere from 1939 to 1947 depending on who is telling the story. It did not merit mention in Joe Cooper’s 1952 book, With Or Without Beans, but by 1960 the Society was making news in Tolbert’s Texas. On November 2 of that year, Frank X. Tolbert reported that Haddaway and Ted Malloy were members of the “Dallas Press Club’s new chili research and development department . . . dedicated to ‘the discovery of the finest chili recipe in the world’.” They were openly soliciting samples from the public and keeping score. Fred Massengill of Terrell was cited as, “having the best yet presented.” Tolbert closed his column with, “Personally, I think the committee has just thought up a scheme to get a lot of good, free chili.”
Haddaway’s Chili Appreciation Society was becoming very much appreciated in its Dallas, Texas headquarters. It’s eclectic membership met with semi-irregularity to partake in the eating of chili and to carry on with fellow chili aficionados. One scene of this nonsensical reverence was the Adolphus Hotel, a block or so from Bob Pool’s heralded chili joint of a decade earlier. With George Haddaway as Chief Chili Head and Wick Fowler as Chief Chili Cook, the Society gained international status in a well-documented investiture ceremony held in Mexico City on April 7, 1964. Among the devoted chili heads making the south of the border trip were the afore mentioned newsman, Ted Maloy, Dallas attorney David Witts and American Airlines public relations man, Buck Marryat
Texans would have more credibility if they didn’t make their BBQ with beef. rofl
Not that I've ever had, sorry. Chili is one of those things that must be prepared.
No kidding there ... I'm annoyed just being in the same thread at this point. How many people have to be attacked and how many times does the same thing need to be said? I think we got it.
I think that adobo sauce does about the same thing as the cocoa, but I never realized until I read this thread that chocolate would go in chili. Adobo sauce is about as nasty as a mouthful of non-sweetened cocoa powder, but it adds something to chili that can’t be described.
So good. So very, very good.
I’ll have to try the adobe sauce. I have to be careful. I have little kids in the house.
We grow our own peppers but the habaneros didn’t take. Only the purple jalepenos and they just didn’t have any heat to them. We got a total of two tomatillos which did us absolutely no good, either, as far as making sauces. I like to make enchiladas with leftover chili. I’m hoping for a larger, more successful garden next year!
...you've got spaghetti sauce, NOT chili!
My friend makes Cincinnati Chili. It’s very runny and is served on spaghetti. It’s very odd but tastes decent. You could serve it one night and a bowl of my chili the next and no one would complain about eating chili twice in a row because they are so completely different! :0)
I haven’t attacked anybody. If you are easily annoyed by strong opinions, perhaps FR is not the place for you.
I’ve had that stuff you guys call barbecue. It’s tasty.
Tasty — but it isn’t barbecue.
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