This discussion may draw blood: I just won a Chili Cook-Off

[Recursion]

I just have to warn you. Blood will be drawn in this discussion.

I made a Cincinnati-style chili for our chili cook-off here in Mumbai. I was voted the best chili among the Diwali attendees.

I just want to get this out there, to start the fight early:

1. Beans have no place in chili
2. Beans still have no place in chili
3. Chili is not a bean-based dish

Those are the basic thoughts I have here.

[cyberswede]

1. I like beans in chili...especially vegetarian chili

(Congrats on your victory!)

[Xyzse]

2. Congratulations on your victory.

Chili means different things to different people.

My female best friend lives in New Mexico, and it took me a while to figure out what "chili" meant to her.

[ashling]

3. Cincinnati-style chili is an oxymoron

just sayin'

[dr.strangelove]

4. Where does chili come from?

Essentially this is the question one must answer if you want to answer the "with ot without" beans question. For some, Texas chili come from the ranch riders, cowboys herding cattle and making one pot meals over a fire. They certainly were not soaking dry beans on horseback and slow cooking them. So chili in the cowboy sense of the word certainly has no beans. But Aztecs were serving bean based meat stews for hundreds of years, far longer than any white man was ever thinking about Texas cattle. So if you think chili is a mexican dish, it certainly has beans in it.

to me, chili is whatever you want it to be. the stereotypical Texan claims ownership of the term, but that is as insane as kentucky claiming fried chicken. Its just a stew. Put in whatever veggies, beans, meats, tofu, spices that you like, and enjoy it.

Food is meant to be eaten, not debated. I like mine with beans, spicy, but not too spicy, served with an icy cold pale ale and bread for dipping (corn or other).

[Major Nikon]

30. I don't think too many people would win cook offs if they stuck to authenticity

As a trail dish, chili was made with dried meats and suet, along with spices and dried peppers, then pressed into bricks so it could be reconstituted on the trail. Beans were widely available and used by the same people both native and cowboy who were making chili and there's nothing inauthentic about adding them to the dish. The idea that there's something wrong about adding beans to chili is a modern idea that reflects little more than personal preference. Personally I like chili con carne both with and without beans. I also like it both Texas style and the bastardized Cincinnati 5-way style.

[Recursion]

46. It was almost closer to a pemmican (nt)

[A Simple Game]

32. Cowboys most certainly did have beans, have you never watched "Blazing Saddles"? n/t

[dr.strangelove]

38. I LOVE that movie!

And now that I have a young son, Fart Jokes have made a new appearance in my life. As my boy says, Fart are Funny Dad!!!

[calimary]

50. God! They LOVE their fart jokes, don't they?

Little boys and fart jokes. Mine could make farts under his armpits as well. He makes a mean chili now, btw, too. Quite the cook he is. And your boy is correct. Farts ARE funny!

[tk2kewl]

5. Beans have no place in chili? I think spaghetti has no place in chili.

And congrats on the win!

[sharp_stick]

6. Cincinnati Chili

is just spaghetti sauce with some Cumin and Chili Powder in it and they only liked it because there has never been a decent spaghetti sauce created in Mumbai.

I will agree with you on the beans even though I like them in chili. I tend not to put them in because my wife and kids will outright reject it, they really agree with you.

My brother claims beans were added to chili by the Texas Department of Corrections to make it go farther and to torture the convicts.

[pinboy3niner]

7. Congratulations!

It's bean great knowing ya. Now duck!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

8. There is Chili and then, there is Chili w/ Beans. Simple.

[Kali]

9. never mind the beans - the pasta is my problem

[Tuesday Afternoon]

10. That is another dish altogether = Chili Spaghetti, where the east meets the west

[Kali]

11. too weird for me

I am with you - chili and chili with beans. spaghetti sauce should be garlicky but not have cumin in it.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

14. you are so totally correct. no cumin in my pasta, thanks!

somehow I suspect Ohio for this conglomeration ....

[KamaAina]

41. Oddly enough, chili spaghetti is quite popular in Hawai'i

it's a classic at Zippy's, sort of an Asian-fusion Denny's that are all over O'ahu. Zippy's chili, flavored with, among other things, ginger, is available frozen in stores, including some in expat hotspots like Vegas and the Bay Area. And when not served over spaghetti, it is generally poured on top of... drum roll, please... rice.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

48. Rice ... ? now ya soundn' creole, dude !!

[Le Taz Hot]

12. Wait

"I was voted the best chili among the Diwali attendees." OK. Out with it. How many competitors were there?

Seriously, dude. Congratulations. It's fun winning stuff like that.

[Recursion]

13. 5. Including 2 Texans

And a Kashmiri cook who made a Rogan Josh (which, let's be honest, is really just Chili By Another Name).

[Le Taz Hot]

15. OK. That's respectable then.

I get excited when this gringa wins any ribbons for salsa seeing as how I'm usually competing against lots of Hispanic women who've been making salsa since, like, birth. Again, congrats, dude.

[malthaussen]

16. I am still trying to assimilate "chili cook-off in Mumbai."

I guess I'm not as cosmopolitan as I like to think.

-- Mal

[Recursion]

17. Expats doing expat things...

Though my trick was that I only used 1/3 beef; the other 1/3 were lamb and pork, which are really easily sourced here.

[KamaAina]

42. Pork?

Lamb i can see. But I don't believe I've ever seen a pork dish in any of the many Indian restaurants I've been to over here.

[Recursion]

44. It's popular in Goa and the other Portuguese areas

And Kerala does some pork dishes too. But, yeah, it's mainly a west coast thing, and that's a subcuisine that doesn't get exported much.

[KamaAina]

47. Ah, I see

Our center director is Gujarati. She made us all a home-cooked meal (!!) that doesn't get exported much, either.

From your description of your trip there, methinks Goa-style restaurants would do quite nicely across the Big Pond.

[Xipe Totec]

58. The full name of the dish is also the list of ingredients: Chile con carne means chilli with beef.

There is nothing else.

[alarimer]

18. Chile without beans is HOT DOG TOPPING.

Nothing else. Sorry to yell, but chili is supposed to be a meal, so it should be complete and include vegetables, such as onions and peppers (i put green and red bell peppers in mine).

Are you Texan by any chance? They are adamant about the no-beans rule. But they'd hate Cincinnati style too.

[Recursion]

19. I lived a block from Ben's Chili Bowl in DC

Yes, chili is a hot dog (or half-smoke) topping. I don't see what's wrong with that idea.

I lived a part of my childhood in Texas, and my mother's family is from there. That's probably where I get his idea.

[OriginalGeek]

25. whaaaaat? MEat is a meal!

I did grow up in Texas but My dad and Grandpa are from Ohio so I like both.

AS long as there's no beans.


I'm OK with peppers and onions though. But no beans.

[irisblue]

20. no CINNAMON EVER IN CHILI1111111!!!!!! EVER!!!!!

Johnny Cash song next time you even think about putting cinnamon in chili....Gods' gonna cut you down......don't do it man, just don't it is wrong.

[AwakeAtLast]

21. Didn't happen unless there are pics

I'm not a purist - I like pretty much any kind of chili.

Congrats on you win!

[bigwillq]

22. Congrats on winning!

[LiberalElite]

23. I won't eat chili without beans nt

[OriginalGeek]

24. I see no controversy here

That all is as chili should be.


Congrats on your win!

[csziggy]

26. OK, no beans - but you're in India - what meat are you using?

I gather beef is out.

I only ask out of pure curiosity - I can't eat chili or anything else with hot peppers.

[Jenoch]

27. I did not realize you were in Mumbai.

Would it be an intrusion to ask why you are there?

Last week I made a small dice of venison (1/8&quot and made chilli using only rehydratd New Mexico peppers and small diced onions. I added the pepper liquid, beer, and homemade beef stock. At the end, I added cooked mayocoba beans. I did that mostly because the rest of the guys at deer camp expect beans to be in chilli. They would maybe freak out if I told them the chilli had no tomato product in it.

[AngryAmish]

35. The best chile is venison

Bar none. Hard to do for a non hunter like me but it is the balls.

3 shank or shoulder in the slow cooker all day, anything else is just gravy.

[Jenoch]

36. There's something we like about

eating food at our deer camp tha is prepared with venison. Since we don't have a lot of time to cook the evening meal, I generally cook the food at home and heat it up at our hunting cabin. So far, I have made venisn chili, bolognese, and taco filling.

I remember reqding about a Texas chili contest in which a guy enterd the contest, cooked some chili, but instead of entering his chili to be judged, he mixed together all of the samples he got from the other contestants. He won first prize. He then 'fessed up. I think there was talk of prosecuting him for fraud.

[betsuni]

28. I'm interested in what spices you used

I have a recipe for Robert Joffrey's (the choreographer) father's chili. He was from Afghanistan and used a spice mixture of ancho or pasilla chilies, curry powder, pickling spices, cumin, coriander, cayenne, cardamom, sage, garlic, paprika, and bay leaves added to onions, ground beef, tomatoes, bell peppers, and black olives.

[Recursion]

45. The kashmiri chili powder was definitely a big part

My rig is:

Kashmiri chili (called "paprika" here, confusingly)
Smoked (actual) paprika
Cumin
Cinnamon
Cayenne
Molasses
White wine vinegar

Plus some tomatoes and onions.

[Throd]

29. Beans get in the way of beef. You are using beef?

If not, it ain't chili.

[whistler162]

31. So what kinda beans do you put in

your Chili?

[A Simple Game]

33. Beans have no place in chili but meat does?

I never heard of chili beef, or chili pork, or chili lamb. I can however go to the pantry right now and get a can of chili beans. As another poster said, chili without beans is hot dog topping. I do however prefer kidney beans for filler and flavor in my chili.

Don't let the cow pushers tell you how to cook they just want to sell more meat.

As for the meat in chili or many other old time spicy dish, traditionally meat that had turned or was about to turn bad was used, that's why the spices were so heavy, to hid the fact that rancid meat had been used. The dishes were also cooked for very long times to make sure the bacteria, not that they knew what it was back in the day, was killed.

[AngryAmish]

34. Amen, brother.

Brisket, few tomaters, and chiles only. Plus one cup of magic that has won me three cookoffs in a row.

Question: anyone ever toss demiglace into a veggie to win? Cause that is the flavor note to nuke veggie chili. Uuuuuummmmammmiiii

[panader0]

37. Here in So Arizona there are many chili contests.

The local "pod" will host a cook-off with maybe 30 to 40 "pots". or entries. The winner gets 3 points, second gets two, and third one.
For two or three bucks you can buy a spoon from every pot. I was a judge twice, free beer. And you are correct. No beans in chili!
At the end of the year, the winners of the regionals go to the national cook-off in Texas. Melt in your mouth, spicy chili.

[KamaAina]

39. Oddly enough, Texas chili aficionados agree with you

about the beans, at any rate. Beans are strictly verboten at Terlingua, the Super Bowl of chili.

Oddly enough, one of my FB peeps here in the Bay Area just posted a request for Cincy chili. And get this -- a guy we know up in Sac worked on political campaigns there, so if anyone knows where to find it out here, it'd be him.

The Yale dining halls serve, or did in my day, a dish referred to by one and all as "Cincinnati five-way chili" , but I doubt it's authentic. And wouldn't you know it, the one and only time I ever changed planes at the Cincy airport, it was early morning, so Gold Star wasn't open yet.

[Enrique]

40. without beans, there is no reason to eat chili

chili is basically an opportunity to eat beans.

[MADem]

51. I have to agree, despite what others say. I get my guidance from Rocky....

and Bullwinkle.....!!!!

Eenie meenie chili beanie, the spirits are about to speak!!!

[elleng]

43. 5-way is???

[calimary]

49. I'm okay with that. I'll take either, but the first line I'd go to would be the just-meat one.

I'm also not thrilled with overly-spicy, which will confirm me as a complete and utter disgrace. Flame away! (Pardon the pun...)

Beans do bulk up the chili, though. I find I will eat chili with beans more because I have to than because I want to. Beans provide a lot of good fiber and protein and all that. They're okay. But meat-only would win out. And I add sour cream and grated cheddar and chopped green onions. I do that whenever I have the house chili at Souplantation. Doctor it up.



CONGRATULATIONS on your tasty triumph, Recursion!!!! That is fabulous! An impressive title to win!

[Blue_Tires]

52. Oh...So you weren't making chili then, just some spicy meat-based sauce?

[Autumn]

53. Point 1. 2. and 3. are all

correct and I will add point 4. Beans have absolutly no fricking place in chili. SO DO NOT USE BEANS IN CHILI .

Beans do not belong in chili. If you put beans in chili you do not have chili, you have chili beans. These are two completley different dishes.

[Enrique]

56. "chili beans" is redundant

since "chili" presupposes beans.

[Autumn]

57. I will not eat chili beans. I will eat chili. I will also eat beans with my chili as a side

but I will not eat chili beans. I will cook chili beans if my family absolutely must have them on a cold winter evening served with some crackers or home made bread . Chili is a year round meal, green chili with pork or red chili with beef, for breakfast lunch or dinner.

[lame54]

54. Bens have no place in chili?...

I guess i don't like chili as much as I thought

[blackcrowflies]

55. not that fond of chili

Boston baked beans are the food of the Gods.