Do You Like Beans in Your Chili?
Friday May 22, 2009
If you're camping at this chilly time of year, a hot bowl of chili will warm your bones. There are lots of recipes for making chili, but one of the main differences in recipes is the addition of beans. Some folks just can't tolerate these little gas pills. So what is your preference?
TIP: if you rinse your beans to remove the bubbly juices before you add them to your chili (or any recipe with canned beans), they don't seem to be as gassy.
We want beans and mac
I was taught that beans have no place in Chili, If beans were added then it is Chili con carne. If you add macaroni then it becomes Chili Mac. Chili Mac has beans as well. I like it any way you fix it.
“Con Carne” = “With Beef” in Spanish, so how would the addition of beans = con carne. It is the addition of beef that makes it chile con carne.
Chili doesn’t contain beans, that’s a perversion created by non-Texans. Kidney beans have no place anywhere close to chili (pinto beans are served as an accompaniment on occasion). For a true chili recipe, take a look at Frank Tolbert’s _A Bowl of Red_, which is a cultural and culinary look at chili.
Chili originated in the jails and in street vendors carts in San Antonio and other Texas towns, as a way to use cheap, tough beef cuts. The beef was chopped, not ground, though modern cooks may use ground beef if it is ground with the coarse blade of the chopper, once through only, producing what is called “chili grin”d. Chocolate, cinnamon, other such fanciful ingredients were far from the minds and pots of such cooks.
Your recipe is sacrilege.