A thread that will never die

Yeah, but it’s more than 12-pages of info.

I got curious a dozen years back and researched it. Made 12-15 batches (thrown out) before I was satisfied.

San Antonio is the key. “The Chili Queens” (is the story).

Post Civil War Texas has both the US Army in abundance, and cattle drives from south of there (during the war 100k drifted south).

These guys lived on beef and beans, dried.

But when they got to SA, they’d beeline for the long tables set up in Alamo Square.

Just for the chili. Where it was invented.

The difficulty is the preparation. What most of us don’t keep around. Beef suet, for example. That needs rendering first.

Then the proper selection of Chile peppers. Which is about flavor over heat. (If my forehead breaks a sweat, it’s right). Then how to prepare them. Takes a time or two.

Some of this prep can be done far in advance. Just freeze or refrigerate. When I start from scratch I start four days out. So that no day has too much work.

Of course I’m going to make a considerable amount to freeze and give away.

So those 12-pages are context. Help with choices.

So what I normally do is to recommend, FRANK X TOLBERT,
A Bowl of Red.

Can’t go wrong. It’s much about understanding. More than details

Tolbert was a sportswriter for a Dallas paper many years. And the book is more about excuses for drinking. (The Terlingua Chili Cookoff). Competition.

Some simple recipes.

Mines a whole other bowl.

 

Here's the one I use.
1/4 lb. suet, finely chopped (render suet and discard rind) 6 lbs.. lean beef, coarsely chopped 1 Cup chili powder 2 Tbs. ground cumin 2 Tbs. ground oregano 2 Tbs. salt 2 Tbs. cayenne pepper 4 cloves garlic, finely minced 2 quarts beef stock 1/2 cup masa harina 1/2 cup cold water Method: Add beef, pound at a time, to the grease rendered form suet and brown. Remove after each pound is browned. When all is browned, put your meat in a chili pot and add seasonings and beef stock. Cover and simmer for 2 hours. Skim fat. Combine masa and cold water and stir into chili. Simmer for 30 minutes.

 

Half of my family hails from Wyoming, they homestead out there back in the 1870's. A few of my cousin's do these chuck wagon cook offs and we've been out to a few of them, chilis vary out there at some of these events.

 

Mine too. Colorado right before the war. Nebraska just after.

The Rebbes got has the right idea. (Except chile powder; the secret is prep of fresh and dried chiles)

Our bodies know what they want. Meat simmered in fat is close to heaven.

NOW, how attractive that is in terms of depth of flavor

Is the thing.

Chile peppers help the body assimilate the massive amount of meat (I’m convinced). And the hotter it is outside, the more we dial up THAT temperature.

.

 

Our first trip out west, we stopped in some small town in Wyoming to get gas and eat. There was an old cook at the road house who had to be in his 90's. He told me a story that in the wintertime, he would make a stew like chili to lower the tolerance for heat, it kept you warm - he said he would let his stew on the stove for two days. He then said he would add chilis to it in the spring and then make it hot in the summer to "thin the blood". Since then I have made it a practice to make it like he did, which has helped me deal with the cold and heat. My cousin told me a few years later that the guy was 98 when I met him, he was nearly 105 when he passed, born in 1859.

 

They may have had fewer tools, but they did a better job of thinking about their use.

Thx, RL.

That was an America I remember.

From a different direction, but concern for health being foremost, I find the use of lye soap to aid the skin in hot & cold. Use it almost exclusively. (GRANDMA brand), as pine tar soap is also useful (ironically, GRANDPA brand).

We’re getting us a Chautauqua going.
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Bump

 

I do actually tune up the radio and amp coupled together to get the cleanest output, set the drive up, but that is not the same as tuning an antenna to be resonate at a certain freq.

 

If you guys keep talking about chili, I guess this thread never will die. Lol.

 

No but it has a smell of its own