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Chili w/o beans


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I have no idea why that appears brown in the photo, but it’s tomato purée with chili powder and cumin. It came out of the jar red. Maybe the fat from the meat colored it?

I’m not culinary purist at all and have thought of chili being something that has a tomato base and chili powder, and after that it’s built to preference.

Whatever. It was delicious.

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55 minutes ago, Texzilla58 said:

Texas red chili has no fresh chiles in it. Just dried.

Not true at all.  The original San Antonio Chili Queens recipe archived at the Institute of Texan Cultures Libray includes serrano peppers.

You can also see an early 1930's restaurant adaptation of that recipe in Robb Walsh's book "The Chili Cookbook", on page 79 "Chili Queen Chili".  Serrano peppers.

Edited by jimmyjazz
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2 hours ago, Al_4_ISU said:

I have no idea why that appears brown in the photo, but it’s tomato purée with chili powder and cumin. It came out of the jar red. Maybe the fat from the meat colored it?

I’m not culinary purist at all and have thought of chili being something that has a tomato base and chili powder, and after that it’s built to preference.

Whatever. It was delicious.

Actually, the hardcores here will tell you that it shouldn't have tomato in it either.

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Not true at all.  The original San Antonio Chili Queens recipe archived at the Institute of Texan Cultures Libray includes serrano peppers.
You can also see an early 1930's restaurant adaptation of that recipe in Robb Walsh's book "The Chili Cookbook", on page 79 "Chili Queen Chili".  Serrano peppers.

I got that book. I’ll look it up. I don’t like a Serrano in anything though. It’s just heat no flavor to me. To me it’s the black olive of chiles. I tend to go back further with my chili history to the Ft Worth purveyors like Pendery’s who sold chile powder to cattle drive cooks. We both know it goes back even further back.
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14 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Not true at all.  The original San Antonio Chili Queens recipe archived at the Institute of Texan Cultures Libray includes serrano peppers.

You can also see an early 1930's restaurant adaptation of that recipe in Robb Walsh's book "The Chili Cookbook", on page 79 "Chili Queen Chili".  Serrano peppers.

I know, I’m an asshole chili heretic. But I still put some scotch bonnet peppers in my chili because I love the fucking taste.

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6 hours ago, Texzilla58 said:


I got that book. I’ll look it up. I don’t like a Serrano in anything though. It’s just heat no flavor to me. To me it’s the black olive of chiles.

I'm ok with serrano.  It's jalapeno that usually turns me off a bit.  Some days it works, though.

 

Quote

I tend to go back further with my chili history to the Ft Worth purveyors like Pendery’s who sold chile powder to cattle drive cooks. We both know it goes back even further back.

The Chili Queens showed up around that same time.

Chili Queens recipe, slightly updated for modern ingredient availability.  I spoke with Robb Walsh about the meaning of "dried red chiles", and he seems to think it's a Mexican version of what is referred to as a Hatch red chile in New Mexico, although they generically refer to it as "guajillo":

Spoiler

2 lbs beef shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes

1 lb pork shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes

¼ cup suet

¼ cup pork fat

3 medium-sized onions, chopped

6 garlic cloves, minced

1-quart water

4 acho chiles

1 serrano chile

6 dried red chiles

1 Tablespoon comino seeds, freshly ground

2 tablespoons Mexican oregano

Salt to taste

 

Edited by jimmyjazz
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The Chili Queens showed up around that same time.
Chili Queens recipe, slightly updated for modern ingredient availability.  I spoke with Robb Walsh about the meaning of "dried red chiles", and he seems to think it's a Mexican version of what is referred to as a Hatch red chile in New Mexico, although they generically refer to it as "guajillo":
Spoiler

2 lbs beef shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes

1 lb pork shoulder, cut into ½-inch cubes

¼ cup suet

¼ cup pork fat

3 medium-sized onions, chopped

6 garlic cloves, minced

1-quart water

4 acho chiles

1 serrano chile

6 dried red chiles

1 Tablespoon comino seeds, freshly ground

2 tablespoons Mexican oregano

Salt to taste

 


Going back to that chili queens recipe, what would an easy substitute be for that half cup (!) of fat? For “starter fat” I typically fry up bacon (and set aside the bacon) or chorizo (will leave in chili) and then brown the beef and keep a little bit of that fat. But it’s never amounted to that much before.
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56 minutes ago, ohchaucer said:


Going back to that chili queens recipe, what would an easy substitute be for that half cup (!) of fat? For “starter fat” I typically fry up bacon (and set aside the bacon) or chorizo (will leave in chili) and then brown the beef and keep a little bit of that fat. But it’s never amounted to that much before.

You could try this:

image.png.bde543f844d7296cd3d74c113db671e4.png

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18 hours ago, TexasHooch said:

...though I don't think that it elicits the same level of pretend outrage that adding beans does. 

The chili queens would sometimes mix other things with chili, I'm sure beans would have been the number one thing. Only actual mention I've found left it open to interpretation as to whether the beans were actually IN the chili or on the side, but I wouldn't see why it wouldn't sometimes be added to the pot to stretch the pot at the end of the night. Have definitely seen it documented the use of peas to stretch it out. But, as we've stated many times on this chili WITHOUT beans thread, those were/are "in addition" to the original chili. It's then chili with beans, or chili with peas. Chili with peas and beans. Chili on top of avocado toast. You don't throw your pantry in the pot and still call it chili. I mean, for all the shit we give Cincy for the Skyline Chili, at least they have the decency to specify by name that it is not actual chili. 

I've eaten beans in chili, and it's good. I'm sure I'll do it again. As the chili queens would tell you, and my grandparents etc..., it's a good, inexpensive way to spread out a meal when you're feeding a lot of people. For the chili queens, that meant a little more money. For regular folk, it meant feeding more mouths in the family. But there's no doubt that it takes a chili, or chili con carne, the original, and turns it into something else. From the texture of the beans themselves, to the texture of the gravy. It's just a completely different thing, which is okay, but here on this thread, as the title suggests, we're not talking about that. 

As for the tomato part previously mentioned, sure, originally they weren't a part of these recipes. But whenever whatever group it is that decides these things met somewhere around the mid-ish 1900s, and the white smoke emerged from the Alamo, variants with tomatoes/tomato sauce made the cut. Is what it be. 

Edited by UncleBuck
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@UncleBuck this is a reasonable take, but I'll quibble with this one bit, that beans were in addition to the orginal chili. OF COURSE the Chili queens routinely mixed in peas/beans in the original chili. These are people living on the fringes of society, eeking out a living using the literal cheapest ingredients they could- tough and borderline rotten meat, roadkill, scraps, and extenders, tenderized and homogenized with heat and water for endless hours, and covered up using a grabbag of flavorings brought together from 4-5 different different European, indigenous, African and Caribbean food cultures. We have a a reasonable enough idea of what was in the Chili, and beans were almost certainly often in there, whether they presented that way or not. They didn't brag about the horsemeat, either. 
I'm not the stickler for authenticity, because there's nothing less Texan than letting somebody tell you how to like your chili, but two things we can most certainly exclude from Chili are 
1) fresh tomatoes and most particularly,
2) Any high value beef cut

The whole insistence that nobody eat beans frankly strikes me as mid-century gentrification (much like the introduction of cut steak and tomatoes), but either way I say beans are as welcome as venison, which is plenty.  There's nothing less Texan than letting somebody else tell you how to like your chili.

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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25 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

@UncleBuck this is a reasonable take, but I'll quibble with this one bit,ell you how to like your chili.

You've espoused this before, I was waiting for it, and I still disagree.  I'll have to dig into it, but I know I've seen references to Chili Queens selling beans ONLY on the side.  Customers were of course allowed or even encouraged to mix the two.

That said, this "no beans" mantra is only about Texas chili.  I think beans are acceptable in other styles.  Like @UncleBuck, I've eaten it many times -- shit, I worked at Wendy's for two years in high school and made thousands of pots of ground beef and kidney bean chili -- but it's just not Texas chili.  I don't see why that's so controversial.  I don't consider TexMex as an inferior food to interior or coastal Mexican food, it's just different.

Edited by jimmyjazz
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44 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

@UncleBuck this is a reasonable take, but I'll quibble with this one bit, that beans were in addition to the orginal chili. OF COURSE the Chili queens routinely mixed in peas/beans in the original chili. These are people living on the fringes of society, eeking out a living using the literal cheapest ingredients they could- tough and borderline rotten meat, roadkill, scraps, and extenders, tenderized and homogenized with heat and water for endless hours, and covered up using a grabbag of flavorings brought together from 4-5 different different European, indigenous, African and Caribbean food cultures. We have a a reasonable enough idea of what was in the Chili, and beans were almost certainly often in there, whether they presented that way or not. They didn't brag about the horsemeat, either. 
I'm not the stickler for authenticity, because there's nothing less Texan than letting somebody tell you how to like your chili, but two things we can most certainly exclude from Chili are 
1) fresh tomatoes and most particularly,
2) Any high value beef cut

Yah, I don't have a problem with a lot of that, where I guess you'll lose me is on your "things we can most certainly exclude from chili." 

1. "High value" 150 years ago is much different from today, for starters. We know the queens used a mix of pork butt and beef in the 1880s, that and just beef seemed to be most common. I'm sure there were a lot of times they used whatever they could, especially long before that, but for the most part, these pork and beef cuts they used weren't high value. Hell, brisket was a garbage cut until somewhere after the mid 1900s ffs. 

2. As *chili became to be defined*, tomatoes were absolutely accepted. 

Again, we're not talking chili con carne, what it was known as before the chili queens took it to the world, we're talking about what we came to define as "Chili" in the mid-ish 1900s. Remember, The Chili Queens were going on until the 1930s, by then it was almost exclusively beef. 1940ish we see tomatoes. 1950s it's widely referred to as "Chili." IF I make a chunky chili without tomatoes, I'll call it Chili Con Carne. If I make my regular, competition style chili grind chili, with a little tomato sauce in it, or add tomatoes to it at home, I'm more inclined to call that "Chili." And I'd also consider them to both be chili "without beans."

No one's advocating that it should be made and eaten like like the Spanish settlers in SA in the early 1700s did, and no one's saying you can't eat yours however you want to eat yours, but when it became known as "Chili," that was a certain thing. 

 

 

Edited by UncleBuck
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18 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

You've espoused this before, I was waiting for it, and I still disagree.  I'll have to dig into it, but I know I've seen references to Chili Queens selling beans ONLY on the side.  Customers were of course allowed or even encouraged to mix the two.

That said, this "no beans" mantra is only about Texas chili.  I think beans are acceptable in other styles.  Like @UncleBuck, I've eaten it many times -- shit, I worked at Wendy's for two years in high school and made thousands of pots of ground beef and kidney bean chili -- but it's just not Texas chili.  I don't see why that's so controversial.  I don't consider TexMex as an inferior food to interior or coastal Mexican food, it's just different.

Fair enough, and I obviously strongly agree with your last point, but that's the central bone of contention - whether Texas Chili can also include beans and still be Texas Chili. I say it can, and that every argument I've ever heard to the contrary is basically nonsensical.
 

 

16 minutes ago, UncleBuck said:

"things we can most certainly exclude from chili." 

 

That was imprecise on my part - I meant "historical" or "original" San Antonio Chili Queen Chili.

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3 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Fair enough, and I obviously strongly agree with your last point, but that's the central bone of contention - whether Texas Chili can also include beans and still be Texas Chili. I say it can, and that every argument I've ever heard to the contrary is basically nonsensical.

Well, it's entirely reasonable to expect that chuck wagon cooks and Chili Queens and whoever else might have used beans as a secondary protein but NOT mixed them with the chili itself.  It's still a cost-saving action.  I don't cook my green beans with my mashed potatoes but I commonly eat both when I'm having a steak.

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3 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Well, it's entirely reasonable to expect that chuck wagon cooks and Chili Queens and whoever else might have used beans as a secondary protein but NOT mixed them with the chili itself.  It's still a cost-saving action.

Think about what you are saying here and examine whether it makes sense in any way other than trying to place beans in context while working backwards from a conclusion.

 

 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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10 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Fair enough, and I obviously strongly agree with your last point, but that's the central bone of contention - whether Texas Chili can also include beans and still be Texas Chili. I say it can, and that every argument I've ever heard to the contrary is basically nonsensical.
 

I think things should be defined clearly. Chili con Carne was/is it's thing, which became to be Chili, which is its own thing. Then we have Chili with Beans, which is also its own thing, as again, it completely changes the dish. We lose the origin of things when we don't define them clearly, so I'm big on that. I don't have a problem with people putting beans in an existing "Texas Chili," but I'd take some issue being invited over for "Texas Chili," and then there are beans in there. Now, I wouldn't be mad, or I wouldn't turn it down, I'm not one of those assholes, but I'd definitely feel tricked, as that is not "Texas Chili," it's "Texas chili WITH beans." As a matter of fact, that's how most out-of-staters refer to chili without beans, "Texas Chili."  IMO, putting "Texas" in front Chili IN Texas is redundant. 

We know Chili is a meal in itself in Texas. So are beans. Throw a little pepper sauce in 'em, some fried potatoes, cornbread or whatever. So you mix two meals, and call it by one of them? Nah. I don't get that. 

Edited by UncleBuck
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6 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Think about what you are saying here and examine whether it makes sense in any way other than trying to place beans in context while working backwards from a conclusion.

Except there are historical references to beans ONLY being served on the side.  I mean, why discount that?

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30 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Except there are historical references to beans ONLY being served on the side.  I mean, why discount that?

Um, OK? But we aren't debating whether beans were also available or served alongside chili. We're debating whether the lip of the chili pot is a sacred barrier that beans may never cross. It's not. 

OK, this (P.99) from 1857 is possibly the first mention of "Chili Con Carne" for an American audience, as a mexican food sold by Rancheros to the North Americans long with carne seco, tamales and goat milk,  in camp near Monterrey during the Mexican war
 

Quote

Chili con carne - a popular mexican dish - literally red pepper and meat

literally - red pepper and meat, a hash fried in grease.

According to Texas Monthly: this, from 1877 is possibly the first mention of "chili con carne"  to refer to the looser, stewy hash sold by women in San Antonio by name in print, from an anonymous reporter from Ft Scott Kansas:

Quote

Speaking of hot things, at San Antonio they have a dish called chili con carne. It is of Mexican origin, and is composed of beef, peas, gravy and red pepper. 

So we know
a) there was a historical Northern Mexican dish that was called chili con carne and
b) That dish evolved from a kind of hash into a stew by way of the Chili Queens, which became the Texas Chili we know today and
c) The dish the chili queens made had beans in it at least sometimes, if not all the time. 

I will grant you that it is no doubt true that sometimes chili was made without beans, and that beans were very commonly served on their own, with many of the same flavors for the same reasons. And I will also grant you that by the 1950s, coming out of 20 years of depression and meat rationing, whites had turned up their noses at beans in Chili along with every other sort of poverty food. But it is a fact that Texas Chili can include beans, and has included them from the beginning, QED. 
 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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14 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

c) The dish the chili queens made had beans in it at least sometimes, if not all the time. 

I'm sorry, I took a quick look and didn't see that.  Can you point out the quote?  That's a longass article full of shit I don't care about and I'm not particularly inclined to reverse my stance given other explicit claims I've read to the contrary.

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2 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I'm sorry, I took a quick look and didn't see that.  Can you point out the quote?  That's a longass article full of shit I don't care about and I'm not particularly inclined to reverse my stance given other explicit claims I've read to the contrary.

this is the full quote, in a quote block about halfway through the article, from 1877

Neither Ramsdell nor Jameson had access to today’s internet—specifically, newspaper databases searchable by keyword and date. Thanks to one such database, the subscription-only Newspapers.com, we found a mention of chili con carne that predates Gould’s by a full five years, courtesy of an anonymous reporter visiting San Antonio from Fort Scott, Kansas.

Speaking of hot things, at San Antonio they have a dish called chili con carne. It is of Mexican origin, and is composed of beef, peas, gravy and red pepper. It is awful seductive looking, and gives a fellow the idea that he has a soft thing on hash. They always have enough to go around, for no stranger, no matter how terrific a durned fool he is, ever calls for a second dish. He almost always calls for a big cistern full of water, and you can’t put the water in him fast enough with a steam engine hose. 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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7 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

this is the quote, about halfway through the article, from 1877

"Speaking of hot things, at San Antonio they have a dish called chili con carne. It is of Mexican origin, and is composed of beef, peas, gravy and red pepper."

That cannot be disputed. I've mentioned it before that there were peas in it, and I can't find the quote, but it wasn't the article you posted. But that's 1877. By the time that the chili queens were done in the 1930s, their chili con carne, and what finally became to be known as "Chili/Texas Chili," was just meat, peppers and gravy. Tomatoes were accepted at some point. Texas Chili was not the chili con carne of 1877. That's one of the origins we know, including the dry chili bricks the northern mexican army used in the late 1840s etc... I'm sure it'd be even much more different if we go back to the Spanish Canary island settlers of the 1730s, which is another origin, whose recipe may have been being cooked by an early version of the SA chili queens in the early 1800s pre-Mexican occupation. 

 

edit: I'll get accepted/excepted right at some point ffs

Edited by UncleBuck
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I'm not sure what the "pea" reference is -- could be either green peas or (more likely) the African/Caribbean word for "bean".  But I'll continue to say that one anonymous quote is hardly proof positive, especially when we have historical evidence in the form of recipes that include no beans.

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48 minutes ago, UncleBuck said:

That cannot be disputed. I've mentioned it before that there were peas in it, and I can't find the quote, but it wasn't the article you posted. But that's 1877. By the time that the chili queens were done in the 1930s, their chili con carne, and what finally became to be known as "Chili/Texas Chili," was just meat, peppers and gravy.

I think what you are referring to is when they got forcibly shut down in 30's and restaurants/cafes stepped in. By that time both were likely preparing meat chili separately  from beans because it's more cost effective to accommodate preferences that way. And look, I want to be clear that I understand public opinion widely turned against beans and all other meat extenders in packaged foods from the early 1900's on, and extensive mass marketing was done to exclude beans and all meat extenders from the 1920's on, in part to protect the food industry from further federal regulation and in part to convert poverty food to a premium product as modernity brought processed foods into the home as America become more prosperous.
But despite all that beans have stuck around, from the beginning to the present day. 

26 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

But I'll continue to say that one anonymous quote is hardly proof positive, especially when we have historical evidence in the form of recipes that include no beans.

I think I'm about done here, but this was too silly not to address. Nobody is saying that you cannot make chili without beans - you are contesting whether some historical chili included them. It did, and "one anonymous quote" is evidence to that point, as is the great multitude quotes from companies and people marketing chili complaining about or insisting that they not be included them from the early 1900s on. And yet they persisted. 
 

Edited by Bozo_Casanova
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4 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

I think I'm about done here, but this was too silly not to address. Nobody is saying that you cannot make chili without beans - you are contesting whether some historical chili included them. It did, and "one anonymous quote" is evidence to that point, as is the great multitude quotes from companies and people marketing chili complaining about or insisting that they not be included them from the early 1900s on. And yet they persisted. 
 

I honestly don't know what the fuck you're on about.  We aren't talking about "chili" writ large, we're talking about "Texas chili".  Ohio chili has beans.  It's roughly as old as Texas chili and there is a big distinction to draw. 

We have historical references to recipes AND multiple observations that San Antonio chili -- the first commercial chili in Texas -- explicitly did NOT contain beans. 

This has no clear end, I see no reason to keep arguing.  The historical evidence is overwhelming when it comes to chile con carne in Texas.

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6 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I honestly don't know what the fuck you're on about.  We aren't talking about "chili" writ large, we're talking about "Texas chili".  Ohio chili has beans.  It's roughly as old as Texas chili and there is a big distinction to draw. 

That you even made this comparison illustrates the truth of the first sentence. 

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2 minutes ago, deft said:

We need a chili thread sharing recipes and pics and then a CR chili thread waxing poetic about what the original intent of chili was and what shouldn’t go inside.

I mean, this came about from a pic being posted that wasn't chili. 

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Maybe to kinda get back on track: Ordered some goods for the competition chili last week. Haven't used the Cowtown Light before, but probably gunna use it as a substitute for the gebhart I'd use, which was only maybe 2 tbsp out of 9 tbsp of the chili powder bill. We'll see what I do after a test batch. 

CaptureTime.PNG.6800cbef3cf1a5f975e8f712559bc333.PNG

Edited by UncleBuck
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21 hours ago, South Austin said:

This thread is approaching the level of the Israel/Palestine discussion in Cloak Room.

Always does on this specific topic.

That said, the thread title is explicit and is obviously, specifically referring to Texas chili, as we all know.  Anyone debating putting green peas into the fucking chili, is just being an asshole.

Which is, of course, quite appropriate for this site.  Carry on, surly assholes.

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On 10/16/2023 at 2:25 PM, elfenix said:

People in SA in the late 1800s probably had a giant pot of beans constantly going which just went with everything, much how there's always warm rice pretty much everywhere in much of Asia or stews going constantly in northern Europe.

Have we discussed a scoop of rice in the bottom of the chili bowl yet?

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