Veggie chili.
Our friend Norma, who lives with husband Bill in McClean, Virginia close to Washington DC, has given me permission to reproduce her wonderfully detailed survey of chili traditions.
Tempting one day to cruise the Chili Trail!
Do you know that “Chili” was strictly a “Gringo” invention? The only chili the Mexicans know is the sauce. It was the ranchers and cowboys who first started putting together the recipe, mostly to cover up stale meat while out on the trail drive. They also needed the extra protein while on the long cattle drives north to St. Louis, Kansan City and then Chicago. People in the southwest don’t add beans to their chili. That is a Midwest way to do it. Cincinnati cilli has a dash of cinnamon.
Bar-B-Q: Texas Bar-B-Q is always dry. They rub seasonings and spices on the raw meat, put it on a grill and smoke it slowly until it is done.Memphis and Kansas City Bar-B-Q is “wet” cooked in a sauce until it falls of the bone. Most of them start with a tomato base sauce. Also includes vinegar, molasses & paprika.
St. Louis has mustard and brown sugar.Thanks, Norma!Anyone care to add other chili wisdom?
Robin Ellis 
Had this for lunch and only added one more ingredient…a can of chopped chilies! Lovely snow falling here, so couldn’t have had a better dish while watching the squirrels, cardinals, and sparrows vying for the bird feeder outside the window.
I’ll add just one more “chili” fact: there are people here in the South who actually consider adding any bean to chili a desecration.
I don’t like kidney beans either, and use a combination of black beans and cannelloni (small Italian white beans). I always add cumin, and a teaspoon or more of unsweetened cocoa powder. When making a vegetarian version I sometimes add, at the end, chunks of roasted sweet potatoes or squash, and skip the rice. A canned chipotle pepper adds smokiness and heat. Lemon juice sounds like a great addition– I might also try lime. Making a day or two in advance adds to flavor. But all of this moves it away from the simple version you started with.
Spelling correction– that should have been “cannellini.”
We in the Southwest have mellowed as regards adding beans to chili. In fact at many chili cook-offs, it seems anything goes! Several years ago my pork verde chili won best alternative chili. The optional toppings were cilantro, sour cream and sharp cheddar cheese. Too bad the reporter got my name wrong. Oh well.
Belated congratulations, Lynn! Did you keep the recipe?
Looks lovely and the brief step on the history trail was extremely interesting. I really enjoy savoury chilli – cannot do the fashionable chocolate chilli thing though! Anyway – Neredith’s dish – Bon appetite 🙂
Meredith even…. Typo, sorry 🙂
In Altus OK we were given a barbecue sauce which was like an old fashioned English white sauce, seemed to be full of flour and not much flavour. Pretty gross actually. Sorry Oklahoma: you are the weakest link.
Actually Robin my collection of American cookbooks does contain some interesting delicacies which may not have passed across Meredith’s plate when she was little. The ladies of Concordia Lutheran Church MD offer a cheese soup containing one carrot and 1/2 lb of Cheez Whiz and a Mrs Gunderson of Osterdalen Lutheran Church in Argusville, ND proposes a barbecue sauce – “You will need equal parts of Coca-Cola and ketchup (mix according to the amount of meat you are fixing)” Apparently delicious on chicken, ribs or pork chops. There are many other, essentially Norwegian, dishes in these two books, including for example Corned Beef Hot dish, that is the one with macaroni shells, cream of chicken soup and 1/2 can of Carnation milk, which are not easily found outside the American heartland and show a unique picture of that homely cuisine.
WOW Chris!! Priceless–and pure ‘Fifties cookbook fare.
Meredith says she and Mother once had brownies made with coca cola at a fair in Woodstock Vermont.
Her Ma liked them so much she asked the vendor for the recipe.
Not sure if this is quite the sort of wisdom you are after, but… A young neighbour and I were just recently talking about South America and its wildlife. She is particularly fascinated by ducks, and we mentioned Chilean ‘Torrent Ducks’. “Chile is that really long country….” I began. “I know”, she said, “the one that’s shaped like a chili”..!
Mmm … while chili con carne may have had its analogues on the trail, the classical form of the dish was probably created in San Antonio, Texas in the late 1800s where women would serve it from small kiosks to the late-night traffic (yes, it was originally after-the-pub food). Certainly the first documentation of the dish traces to San Antonio.
And beans in chili … it’s OK to serve beans and chili at the same meal. It’s even OK to mix them in your bowl at table. What isn’t OK is to cook the beans in the same pot as the chili, this for the practical reason that you’ll end up with tough beans.
The other principal difference between Texas BBQ and BBQ in other places, which Norma didn’t mention, is that in Texas “barbecue” commonly implies beef, occasionally mutton or kid. (Cabrito al pastor is certainly barbecue within the meaning of the act.) In other places, “barbecue” involves pork, a meat that in Texas usually goes to sausage.