What We Talk About When We Talk About Chili

[The Author's tequila-spiked, three-bean rattlesnake chili with diced white onions, shredded cheddar cheese, and, of course, Fritos.]

Scenes like this unfold regularly on stage and screen, usually in hospital or police dramas.  Someone in an official uniform, a handsome but somber-faced physician or a dutiful detective, has been tasked with issuing news that no family member ever wants to hear: There has been a horrible tragedy, and nothing will be the same ever again.  It is brutally heartbreaking every time, no matter how many of these same scenes you’ve seen.  And as punishingly emotional as they are, they never get old.  Recently, I was put into a similar situation, having to steel my nerves and muster every ounce of resolve I could to perform this timeless and devastating proclamation.

“I’m sorry,” I said to my friend, “I have some…bad news.”

“Oh my god,” she said, and I was certain that, by the detached and hesitant tone of my voice, she could tell that something awful had just happened.  ”What is it?”  she asked.  I exhaled, and as calmly and bravely as I could, I told her the truth.

“It’s the chili,” I replied.  ”It’s gone nuclear.”

* * *

There are very few foods that are distinctly American.  In our short run as a nation, most of the cuisine that the world associates with our country is derived from other places.  Hamburgers and hot dogs (frankfurters, wieners)?  Hamburg, Frankfurt, and Vienna, naturally.  French fries?  Duh.  We likely scarf down more pizza than any other nation in the world, and as much as it’s become an American staple, we can’t rightly lay claim; we have the Neapolitans to thank for that.  And even the Cajun food of my beloved Louisiana — no matter how distinct it is to traditional French cuisine — owes its roots to French “Acadians,” who immigrated to Canada, were thrown out, and eventually settled in the Mississippi Delta.

But chili, believe it or not, is a purely American invention.  No matter what ideas you might have about it making its way up from Mexico or Central America, the chili we know today is as American as apple pie made by your Mom, who is playing baseball with a bald eagle (and who, between innings, belts out John Phillip Sousa marches while she drinks Jack Daniel’s from the bottle and fires off a few rounds from her .45 Colt revolver, because dammit, that’s her right).  According to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America:

Historians seeking the more modern roots of the specific dish called “chili” trace its origin to several possible sources: chuck wagon cooks on cattle drives, prospectors from the Southwest en route to the California gold rush, military field kitchens in the West, the kitchens of Texas prisons, immigrants from other countries who substituted local American ingredients in their own traditional recipes for highly spiced meat stews, and even a Spanish nun to whom the recipe for a chili-like dish was supposedly revealed in a vision. [Author's note: I like this last explanation the best.  Divine chili!]  Whatever its origin, historians agree that chili began as a peasant dish prepared by poor people using cheap, inerior cuts of meat cooked together with other inexpensive, readily available ingredients, primarily peppers and onions.  They also agree that chili is an American, not Mexican dish–although chili is associated closely with the Mexican population in Texas, and dishes similar to chili can be found in Mexico, particularly in the north.

Better still, the chili cook-off is a long heralded American tradition, as is evidenced by what might possibly be the best episode of The Simpsons ever created, from the eighth season, titled: “El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer” (The Mysterious Journey of Homer).  Homer, a chili fanatic — which should surprise no one — finds his nemesis in Chief Wiggum, who, at the annual Springfield chili cook-off, concocts a dish featuring “the merciless peppers of Quetzlcacatanango, grown deep in the jungle primeval from inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum.”  When he is at first humiliated by the Guatemalan insanity peppers, Homer coats his gullet with candle wax and triumphantly returns to down several of the evilly luminescent chiles, after which he proceeds to, as the famous poet once put it, “trip his balls off.”  Also, Johnny Cash plays the voice of Homer’s spirit animal, a coyote.  Genius.  But more importantly, it highlights the cultural significance and pure American-ness of the chili cook-off.

A few years back, my friend Matt Timms, in that same, patriotic and epicurean spirit, started a series of chili cook-offs, called “Takedowns,” with his friends.  Why?  ”Because I like chili,” he says.  After turning the events into no-holds-barred amateur competitions, the Takedown gained steam, until today, Mr. Timms is somewhat of a cook-off celebrity (it’s also worth your time to check out his hilarious cooking quiz show, Mind Kitchen, on the Heritage Radio Network).  A couple of years ago, right after my book was published, Timms invited me to be a guest judge for one of his Chili Takedowns.  I was tremendously excited, as I love the thrill of victory and agony of defeat that are the quintessence of a good chili battle.  Unlike the stringent guidelines specified by organizations such as the International Chili Society — meat based, with no beans, hominy or similar ingredients — the Takedown is gloves-off and rules-free.  This, I thought, was going to be interesting.

Little did I know how interesting it would be.  Turns out, when you let people into a kitchen without constraints, sometimes their imaginations can run away with them.  Most of the 25 chilis we tasted were okay, and a few were clear winners — it always helps to start out with double-smoked bacon — but there were some bizarre entries, to say the least.  One guy poured six cans of Hormel and half a bottle of vodka into a bowl and called it a day.  Then a pair of eager young women created a “dessert chili” which, I have to say, was thoroughly gross.  But what really scared me was a pot of chili created by the president of the local chapter of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine fanatics, based on a recipe favored by one of the show’s popular characters.  It had raisins in it.  Now, I don’t mind raisins, but if there’s one place they do NOT belong, it’s in a bowl of chili.  I will go to my grave carrying this conviction.  Then, of course, was the task of actually attempting to taste twenty-five different chilis without having to go all Ancient Roman and shove a digit down your gullet halfway through to clear some space for the next entries.  It wasn’t easy; even with only taking one or two bites of each, one’s tank fills up quickly.  But I soldiered through, for such is the duty and obligation of an honorable chili judge.

The ultimate question was, what is chili?  Barring the draconian ICS guidelines, what, I wondered, was the one common element that made chili chili (or, in a philosophical sense, “chili qua chili”).  It wasn’t meat, because there are plenty of vegetarian chilis.  Nor was it beans, as mentioned above, or color, since green and white variations are both popular as well as the classic bowl of red.  Then it hit me: chile!  With an e!  Yes, the magical quality that binds all chilis together is, naturally, chile peppers.  If a chili doesn’t bring the heat, it can’t rightly be considered chili at all.  Which brings me to back to my own kitchen explorations.

The first time I ever created my own chili recipe, it was solely for the purpose of eating rattlesnake.  As part of my “month of meat” (attempting to eat 31 animals in 31 days), rattler was on the menu, and I had no idea how to prepare it.  Then I learned, in a cooking history book, that frontiersmen and rough riders would kill rattlesnakes and turn them into chili.  Perfect, I thought.  The whole experience was of mixed success: the chili tasted delightful (see photo at top), however I learned a little late that one should probably parboil the animal and pick the meat off the bones before adding it to the slow-cooker if he or she doesn’t want their guests picking snake ribs and chunks of spinal column from their bowls.  They didn’t rightly mind too much, however I owe this to the liberal flowing of good tequila throughout the evening’s festivities.  Also, there was an unfortunately hysterical episode in which I inadvertently snorted chili oil up my sinuses, but you’ll have to read my book to find out about that.

My next chili attempt was a slight step up from the ratter: I substituted alligator for snake, and used it to top a frank in a friend’s hot dog cookoff.  The finished piece, I thought, was a hands-down winner: A Wagyu beef frankfurter that I butterflied, grilled and stuffed with a three cheese blend, then topped with my three-bean, tequila-spiked alligator chili, and finished with sour cream, chives, and crushed Fritos.  Sadly, it didn’t take home the trophy that day, however a photo of my hot dog masterpiece did end up on This Is Why You’re Fat.

And now, I had to deal with my most current experiment in chili cookery, which had crossed some event horizon of spiciness and turned into a singularity, a black hole of tongue-searing heat from which not even light can escape.  For all I know, it was melting through the bottom of my Crock Pot like the acidic green blood of the title creatures in Aliens.  Maybe I should have known better than to trust my friend, the butcher Tom Mylan, who gleefully gave me some large, dried guajillo peppers to be the lynchpin of my dish.  But rather than ditch the whole batch (for shame!), I trusted my instincts, and hoped that, with time, the fat of the ground beef and pork would mellow out some of the heat, which it did.  I ate a whole bowl of chili two days later for breakfast, topped with a single fried egg.  While still searingly spicy, as I’d hoped the more insidious notes had subsided, and I considered my latest incarnation to be, if not a rousing success, then at least an edible one.  Sure, it had me sweating and red-faced, but isn’t that part of the whole ethos of what chili is about?

After all, if you can’t stand the heat…go back to Canada.