At 04:26 PM 8/12/2005, Gill Ediger wrote:
[...]Chili is an entity unto itself--almost holy in its own right.
[...]"Chili with Beans" is adulterated chile. "Vegetarian Chili" is
adulterated chili. Again, remember, it is not chili. It is something else;
it is chili with something else added; it is adulterated chili--but it is
not chili.
Diana --
Gil's eloquent message effectively communicates the fundamentalist zeal
typical of religious zealots, and should serve as an education to us all
about the perils of violent culture clash in the modern world. Note that
in Gil's account, the "religion of chili" has a sacred narrative ("invented
by a San Antonio jailer") and displays the identifying cues intended to
keep the cult "pure and free from contamination by "heterodox dogma." That
which does not meet the cult's definition of "chili" is condemned as
"adulterated" or simply "not chili" just as members of various heterodox
religious groups condemn each other as "not true members of the Holy
Church" or "apostates" or "innovators" or something like that.
The true fact is that beans have been around Texas a lot longer than
"chili" has, and they have probably always been mixed into it, in varying
degress depending on the poverty of the cook. Poor people put beans in the
chili because they couldn't afford meat, therefore, chili with beans tended
to take on an aura of dirty, low-class poverty. This is especially likely
because chili itself probably originated as a spicy way to prepare old,
stale, tough or otherwise low quality meat. It is always the relatively
poor, who are most vigorously resentful of the truly poor. It was an act
of pride to cook the beans separately and serve them on the side, thereby
allowing your guest to see just how much of your chili was actually made of
meat. This sort of history accounts for much of the passionate cultural
cleansing that goes on about chili and its ingredients. I warn you,
equally violent religious battles are fought on the subject of tomatoes,
and "Cincinatti chili" which is poured on hot dogs in the midwest, is
despised with the fervor that only a true believer could display.
As for the "invented by a jailor," story -- it is true that chili has been
served in Texas jails and prisons for a very long time, and still is. It
was probably invented by street vendors in South Texas. In the 1930s, San
Antonio enacted public health regulations against the "chili queens:"
ladies serving chili out of open pots on the town square. Could this have
been because the meat therein was found to be other than the canonical
"mature venison, beef or pork" and perhaps came from smaller game that
barked or meowed? The veil of the past conceals the answers to such questions.
One thing this exchange proves, is that Texas cavers are prone to religious
arguments about "real chili." My advice is cook whatever you damn well
please and don't worry about the Thought Police.
