Joe Cooper's With or Without Beans and Frank X. Tolbert's later A Bowl of Red were calls to action quickly answered by a battalion of chiliheads. At first the recruits just met and exchanged recipes, but they soon discovered a way they could proselytize and play at the same time. They begat the chili cook-off, the ultimate missionary tool, when Tolbert stirred up a challenge in 1967 between Texas chili master Wick Fowler and Midwest humorist H. Allen Smith.
Smith had been brazen enough to write, for a national magazine, an article titled "Nobody Knows More About Chili than I Do," which debunked Texas red. Tolbert tested the proffered recipe and declared it "a chili-flavored low-torque beef and vegetable soup." That led to the first World's Championship Chili Cookoff, in remote Terlingua, Texas, a high-noon event that ended in a draw but spawned a rollicking stream of successors.
At this point almost every town in Texas hosts a chili cook-off during the average year, and so do hundreds of other burgs across the country. Total nationwide attendance approaches a million people. Three big annual events each claim to be the global championship, including two at the same time in tiny Terlingua, where the entire county population is under nine thousand in an area the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. These days chili covers more ground than ever before, and still discharges a lot of hot air.
* * *
O. Henry, who lived in Austin many years, loved to visit the chili queens. In one of his tales, "The Enchanted Kiss," a shy San Antonio drugstore clerk eats at one of the chili stands and hallucinates about being a Spanish conquistador who has survived hundreds of years by living on chili.
* * *
* * *
Some people get riled up about the last letter in the spelling of chili or chile. Like most people today, we use an i when we're talking about Texas red and an e when we're referring to the fruit that provides much of the flavor in chili and other Southwestern dishes.
* * *
Your Own Chunk 'Em Chili
As the San Antonio chili queens taught the world, chili is more like a parade than a product, an expression of the cook's personality rather than codified chow. All the major recipes enjoy an element of eccentricity, and they often contradict each other with gleeful passion. Use the versions following as exemplars, not the final truth, your ultimate goal as a chili cook is to create your own individual bowl of red. You can start by tinkering with a championship recipe or, like the chili queens, by chunking things in a pot and tasting the result until it's right for you. In either case the first step is to get a feel for the key ingredients, beyond that, the only nuance is realizing that your best chili will always be the batch you're about to make.
Meat
Chile
Imagination
Serves you and your friends
In your favorite pot, preferably cast iron, chunk in some combination of meat, chile, liquid, spices, and maybe more. Cook the mixture long and low. Taste it frequently during the last hour, adding any more of the basic ingredients that you think will improve the deep throaty flavor. Eat enough out of the pot to satisfy your immediate appetite, and age the rest in the refrigerator overnight before serving your friends.
Remember that chili is a meat dish, not a stew or soup, so you want plenty of meat relative to the other ingredients. The meat is usually beef, but you can find advocates for anything from venison to rattlesnake. Most chiliheads favor cheap cuts, which benefit the most from the slow cooking process. Cut the meat into small pieces, say ½-inch cubes, or buy it ground coarse in the style called "chili grind." Don't use hamburger, because it would turn to mush. In the past most cooks seared the meat in a lot of fat, leaving the chili swimming in grease, but the tendency today is to use a little vegetable oil or nothing at all.
The meat is the medium, but the chile is the message. You can use commercial chili powder, a mixture of chile and seasonings, but the pros generally start with dried chile pods, which they grind into powder after toasting the skins briefly in an oven or dry skillet and removing the stems and seeds. Anchos or New Mexican red chiles (or both) typically provide the basic flavor, and a smaller amount of cayenne, pequín, or another hot chile contributes some fire.
The meat and chile simmer in a liquid. Some folks make do with water, but others swear by beef stock, beer, or black coffee. The essential thing is to keep the amount moderate, so the chili isn't runny. If you need a thickener, even after long cooking, masa harina is the choice of most Texans. Some people use it just for the extra dimension of sweet corn taste.
The key spices are garlic, oregano, and cumin, each important to the full flavor of a traditional chili. Dedicated cooks usually seek out Mexican oregano, rather than European, and take the time to toast and grind their own cumin seeds.
The original chilis never contained tomatoes or onions, but they are common—and controversial—additions today. If you like onions, chop them small and add them early in the cooking process so they dissolve into the sauce. If you like tomatoes, some Texans will be sympathetic, but others will offer to buy you a bus ticket to Illinois.
Never, ever chunk in beans, at least in the Lone Star State. Serving them on the side is acceptable, even encouraged, but if you put them in the pot many chiliheads will be tempted to feature you as the exotic meat at their next cook-off.
A confident cook can make a good chili from these elementary guidelines. All the unknown inventors of chili, and all the champions who created the recipes below, started out in a similar chunk 'em fashion. That's the fascination of chili, and the challenge too.
* * *
Cincinnati is properly proud of its Three-, Four-, and Five-Way Chili, but Dallas's legendary Shanghai Jimmy was the king of options. At his hole-in-the-wall joint that was continually changing addresses, devoted customers ordered by the number, from one to eleven. The basic dish was chili and rice, a Number One. Jimmy added embellishments at each step up to his ultimate creation, a pint tub with rice, two scoops of chili, two kinds of cheese, chopped onions and celery, sweet pickle relish, oyster crackers, and, on the side for extra spice, a couple of salsas. Late in life Jimmy took up ice skating and relocated his business by a rink, calling the joint "Chili Rice on Ice is Nice."
* * *
Joe Cooper's Chili
Joe Cooper's historic With or Without Beans wasn't a recipe hook, but the original proselytizer did provide broad instructions for his own version of chili, reformulated here in faithful but contemporary terms. Cooper said his recipe, "like most all worth-while others, was conceived out of an uncertain past; born of a belief that no man can live long and prosper without good chili; reared in the confusion of trial and error; and now exists in maturity with the respect of neighbors and friends."
¼ cup olive oil
3 pounds lean beef, chopped
1 quart beef stock
2 bay leaves, optional
8 ground dried chile pods, preferably ancho
3 tablespoons paprika
10 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon cayenne, or more, to taste
½ teaspoon black pepper
6 tablespoons cornmeal
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Serves 4 to 6
In a large saucepan or Dutch oven, heat the olive oil over high heat. Add the meat and sear it. Stir constantly, cooking only until the meat is gray. Pour in the stock, and reduce the heat to a simmer. Add the bay leaves, and cover the pan. After about 20 minutes remove the bay leaves. Continue simmering the meat, stirring occasionally, for another 1½ hours.
Add the remaining ingredients except the cornmeal and flour. Simmer uncovered another 30 minutes, stirring frequently. Skim all accumulated fat from the chili.
In a small bowl, stir together the cornmeal and flour, and add enough water to make a thin paste. Mix the paste into the chili quickly, to avoid lumps, and cook 5 m
ore minutes to eliminate the raw flour taste. Add a little extra stock or water if the chili seems stiff. Serve it hot.
* * *
The earliest Texas chili authority was E. DeGolyer, a Dallas oil millionaire and scholar. He concluded from his research that chili began as the "pemmican of the Southwest." In an adaptation of a Plains Indian food, frontiersmen pounded together dried beef, fat, chiles, and salt to make a nonperishable trail ration, a sort of chili brick. They boiled it in water for as tasty and nutritious a meal as you might find on the road in those days.
* * *
Frank X. Tolbert's Original Bowl of Red
One pundit said that if chili were a religion, A Bowl of Red would he its Bihle and Frank X. Tolbert its Moses. Courtesy of his family, this is the trailblazer's approach to making chili.
12 dried ancho chiles
3 pounds lean beef chuck, cut in thumb-size pieces
2 ounces beef suet
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon cayenne
1 tablespoon tabasco sauce
2 or More garlic cloves, chopped
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons masa harina, optional
Serves 4 to 6
Break off the stems of the chiles, and remove the seeds. Place the chiles in a small saucepan, and cover them with water. Simmer the chiles for 30 minutes.
Purée the chiles in a blender with a bit of their cooking liquid to make a smooth, thin paste. Use as little liquid as possible, unless you want the chili to be soupy. Pour the chile purée into a Dutch oven or large, heavy saucepan.
In a heavy skillet, sear the meat in two batches with the beef suet until the meat is gray. Transfer each batch to the chile purée, then pour in enough of the chile cooking liquid to cover the meat by about 2 inches. Bring the chili to a boil, and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Cook the chili 30 minutes.
Remove the chili from the heat, and stir in the rest of the ingredients. Return the chili to the heat, and resume simmering for 45 minutes, keeping the lid on except to stir occasionally (too much stirring will tear up the meat). Add more chile cooking liquid only if you think the mixture will burn otherwise.
When 45 minutes are up, add the masa harina if you wish. Not only will it add a subtle, tamale-like taste to the chili, but it will thicken or "tighten" the chili. Cover the chili again, and simmer it for another 30 minutes, until the meat is done. During this last 30 minutes, do a lot of tasting to see if the seasoning suits you. Adjust the seasonings as you like, although you should go easy on the orégano to avoid ending up with a spaghetti sauce flavor. Take the chili off the heat, and refrigerate it overnight.
Skim as much fat as you wish from the chili before reheating it. Serve it hot.
* * *
Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders trained for the Spanish-American War in San Antonio during the heyday of the chili queens. When the civilian soldiers returned to their hometowns across the country, they brought back the memories and makings of an exotic, manly dish. The cult was a-borning.
* * *
Wick Fowler's Lazy-Way Chili
Frank X. Tolbert's favorite chili cook was the Austin newspaperman Wick Fowler, who defended the honor of Texas red against H. Allen Smith in the first Terlingua cook-off and won the 1970 event. The celebrity he gained through the brouhaha led him to create Wick Fowler's 2-Alarm Chili mix, a commercial facsimile of the seasonings he used in his scratch chili. The packaged product provides an easy, no-fuss way to make a solid chili, which can be tailored to your taste with the addition of some of the original scratch ingredients, such as Tabasco, chili powder, oregano, cumin, garlic, onions, cayenne, dried whole chiles, and chiles peguins. This rendition of Fowler's recipe comes from the international Chili Society.
2 pounds chili-grind ground beef
8 ounces tomato sauce
2 cups water
1 package Wick Fowler's 2-Alarm Chili seasoning mix
Salt to taste
Serves 6
In a heavy saucepan or Dutch oven, sear the meat over high heat until it becomes gray. Add the tomato sauce and water, and all of the chili seasoning's ingredients except the masa harina. Cover the pan, and lower the heat to a simmer. Cook for about 75 minutes, stirring occasionally.
At the end of the 75 minutes, the meat should be quite tender. Skim off excess grease. Mix the masa harina with enough water to make a runny paste, and stir it into the chili quickly. Simmer the chili an additional 15 to 20 minutes, then add salt to taste.
Chill the chili overnight, if possible, and rewarm it before serving.
* * *
The judge who voted first at the original World's Championship Chili Cookoff in 1967 cast a ballot for "Soupy" Smith, as she called him. A Lone Star Beer executive then opted for Fowler's entry. The last judge to taste was David Witts, a local land developer. He took a bite of Smith's chili, feigned convulsions, and fell to the floor. When he finally regained his voice, Witts declared that the Midwestern concoction had paralyzed his taste buds and left him unable to vote, forcing a draw.
* * *
H. Allen Smith's Midwestern Chili
H. Allen Smith's chili recipe changed gradually over time, as most do. This is our composite of several versions he published in the 1960s and seventies, containing all his trademark ingredients. Accusing Texans of being gristle-lovers, Smith started his chili with tender, expensive cuts of meat. He also insisted on tomatoes and really tweaked Texans by throwing in bell peppers and beans.
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 pounds chili-grind sirloin or tenderloin
1 quart water
6
to
12 ounces tomato paste
3
to
4 medium onions, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
6
to
8 garlic cloves, minced
3 tablespoons or more ground dried red New Mexican chile from Chimayó
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon dried basil
Salt and pepper to taste
1
to
2 16-ounce cans pinto or pink beans
Serves 6 to 8
In a Dutch oven or heavy saucepan, warm the olive oil over medium heat. Fry the meat in the oil until it is gray. Add the water and tomato paste, and stir to combine the mixture. Add the remaining ingredients, except the beans, and stir again. Reduce the heat to a simmer, cover, and cook for 2 to 3 hours, stirring occasionally.
Taste the chili, and correct the seasonings if needed. Add the beans, and cook the chili about 15 minutes more. Serve it hot.
* * *
Whatever you think of Smith's ingredients overall, you've got to appreciate his taste in chile pods. He was among the first writers to recognize and promote the virtues of red chiles from Chimayó, a small northern New Mexican village. The combination of weather and soil contribute to chiles with a perfect balance of sweetness and heat. In great demand these days, New Mexican pods from Chimayó will be proudly labeled as such and priced accordingly.
Smith was scheduled to battle Fowler a second time in Terlingua in 1968, but had to withdraw because of illness. His replacement was California champion Woody DeSilva, nicknamed "Wino" because of his propensity for champagne, which he applied liberally to himself and his chili during the contest. Once again the duel ended in a draw, this time because masked bandits stole the ballot box and threw it into an outhouse erected above a mine shaft.
* * *
C. V. Wood's World's Championship Chili
Born in Texas and bred in Hollywood, C. V. Wood, Jr., helped design Disneyland and brought the London fridge to the Arizona desert, but he was just as proud of winning two World's Championship Chili Cookoffs. His unorthodox recipe, provided courtesy of the International Chili Society, offended some purists but impressed the judges.
½ pound be
ef suet
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons chili powder
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 tablespoon ground black pepper
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon minced cilantro
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup beer
1½ quarts chicken stock
6 long green chiles, preferably New Mexican, roasted and chopped
4 15-ounce cans whole tomatoes, preferably Hunt's
¼ cup minced celery
2 garlic cloves, minced
5 pounds center-cut pork chops, cut into ⅜-inch cubes
4 pounds flank steak, cut into ¼-inch cubes
3 medium onions, cut into ½-inch pieces
2 green bell peppers, cut into ⅜-inch pieces
1 pound Monterey jack cheese, grated
Juice of 1 lime
Serves 12 to 16
In a skillet, render the suet over medium heat.
Texas Home Cooking Page 12