Chili! Chili! Chili!

[Imran Siddiqui]

By itself it's fairly nasty.

And you are trying to tell others about chili?

And Oerdin is right. It was originally made because people wanted to maximize the little amount of meat they could afford into a meal that could feed the family for a while.

[Dinner]

I've read a couple of different links and they basically have all said that chili started out as a meal for poor people. Often there wasn't enough meat to go around so they'd mix it with beans, tomatos, onions, a chili peppers to create a meal large enough for everyone. Also since it was poor people who made this food they would sometimes buy meat that was slighyly rotten because it would cost less (thus allowing them to buy more) and plenty of chili peppers were added to cover the rotten taste.

Luckily, chili has blossomed from its humble 19th century origins into a really great meal.

[General Ludd]

Chili con carne

Chili sans carne

[Japher]

Chili

Meat or no meat

I prefer it with meat, but then that is just me. I have excellent versions of both.

The meat; I use ground beef because I am lazy and reserve stew meat for beef stew. Chicken is also good, it all depends on your taste.

My recipe:

Brown 1 pound ground beef with 1 Tablespoon garlic salt, 1 Tablespoon chili pepper, and 2 teaspoon pepper, reserve

In a large pot or Dutch oven, place two tablespoons of olive oil and bring to smoking point. Add 1-2 jalapeños (diced), 1-2 gloves of chopped garlic, and 1 large white or yellow onion. Cook until onion is transparent.

Add 2 10 oz. cans of chopped tomatoes (drain and reserve liquid), sauté tomatoes for 5 minutes.

Add reserved tomato liquid, 4 cups beef stock/broth, 1 can of beer, 1 can kidney beans, 1 can black beans, and 1 can pink beans. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 1 hour or until reduced by half.

Add 1 Tablespoon cumin, the beef, and 2 oz. chocolate (optional). Continue to simmer for 15 minutes.

---

The following is not chili, but is an excellent bean dish like baked beans, but better! Just thought I would share; I know you'll like it Oerdin.

½ Lb. Bacon, diced
1 Lb. Ground Beef
1 Large Onion, chopped
1 can pork and beans
1 can kidney beans
1 can butter beans
1 Cup catsup
1 Cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon dry mustard

Brown 1st three ingredients drain off grease. Mix all ingredients in greased casserole. Bake at 325 C for 2 hours.

[Japher]

And if anyone has a cornbread recipe...

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

By itself it's fairly nasty.

And you are trying to tell others about chili?

Have you ever had Cincinati chili all by itself?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I've read a couple of different links and they basically have all said that chili started out as a meal for poor people.

Well, then the article I read had it wrong. They had five different kinds of chili recipes: Texas, Idaho, Cincinati, Hawaiian, and another type.

[Japher]

There's more types of chili than there are types of BBQ. However, Alton Brown (Good Eats), sides with Oerdin on how chili began. Still, the chilis used are traditionally Mexican, and it could be argued that Chili was cooked by Mexicans long before any cowboy stumbled acrossed it. Assuming, that is, that "chili" does not require meat.

[chequita guevara]

I love watchin' Good Eats. Great show!

[Japher]

I like his show a lot because he really gets behind the dish or ingredient.

He seems to encourage you to experiment by just telling you the properties of the food, instead of telling you what to do he tells you what he does; "what I like to do is..."

Also, his skits are stupid and make me laugh.

[Dinner]

I don't think I've ever seen that show. Is it on the food network?

[Japher]

Yup, every night at 7pm (during Jeopardy, it's a tough choice)

[Dinner]

I'm afraid the news is all I watch on TV other then the odd History channel or Discovery channel show.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Japher
There's more types of chili than there are types of BBQ. However, Alton Brown (Good Eats), sides with Oerdin on how chili began. Still, the chilis used are traditionally Mexican, and it could be argued that Chili was cooked by Mexicans long before any cowboy stumbled acrossed it. Assuming, that is, that "chili" does not require meat.

One of the four items of the staple diet of the Aztecs was beans- the others being maize/corn, huauhtli/amaranth and chian/sage.

The beans were routinely served with sauces made of tomatoes, peppers and herbs and spices. The Aztecs also used a dried chili powder, although according to one American cookery book I have, American style chili powder dates from 1835.


The diet of the Aztec peasant was varied, but there was very little fat (they didn't appear to press oil for cooking from vegetables/nuts/seeds). They did have access to various lean meats- dogs, deer, game birds and domesticated turkeys, and freshwater fish, lizards and batrachians. Oh, and man-soup and tamales too.

Every country settled by the Spanish in the New World seems to have a distinctive bean dish- frijoles in Mexico, habichuelas in Puerto Rico, caraotas in Venezuela and Moros y Christianos in Cuba. The Spanish effectively changed how the peasants could cook with the introduction of cooking oil and milk products and farmed pigs and beef cattle.

Even British Barbados gets in on the act with jug-jug, where gungo or pigeon peas are the pulse used instead of beans.