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Aug. 26, 2005 Man does not live on bread alone; he's got to have a bowl of red. Chili con carne is my favorite dish and has been ever since I was about ten years old when my mom would serve me a bowl on those cold winter evenings in northeast Ohio. As I grew old enough to cook for myself, it was the first dish I was able to make that was reliably edible. Mostly, I make it in the winter, fall, and spring, but sometimes I get a craving for it in the middle of summer, no matter how hot the temperature is. Oddly enough, when I'm recovering from the stomach flu, it's the first dish that I have to have. Maybe this is because chili is the single most important dish in human history and has helped man conquer whole continents. The origins of chili begin ten-thousand years ago. The abundance or scarcity of food forced man into nomadism, and people wandered in search of rich lands bountiful in edible plants and animals. Man gradually occupied most of earth's land mass. Some early technical genius invented the atlatl (or spear throwing stick), and this advance helped make killing big game much easier. Buffalo roasts, horse ribs, lion steaks, and chunks of mammoth were on the menu. Some of these animals--the mammoths in particular--provided such large amounts of meat that the whole tribe couldn't eat it all at once. To conserve meat for leaner times, people would cut the meat into strips and dry them in the sun. They could condense this jerky even more by pounding it into a powder with rocks and storing it in pouches made out of animal skins. This transportable food supply enabled them to migrate. When they needed to eat, the meat powder could be reconstituted with water. For added flavor wild onions and berries could be added and a tasty stew was the result. The recipe was handed down all the way to the men who rode with Attila the Hun, and they left the recipe in Hungary where it eventually evolved into Hungarian Goulash--a close cousin of the dish everyone knows as chili con carne. The American Indians brought the recipe for powdered meat stews to North America from Asia. In most of North America the Indians used blueberries (try making a soup out of ground meat, blueberries, and leeks. It's surprisingly delicious. The blueberries add acidity like tomatoes). But in the southwest the berry used was from the wild chili pepper. The dish became more like the modern version. Many a chuck wagon cook began using dried chili peppers in their meat stews which were a staple of the cowboy's diet. Cowboys were poor and couldn't afford to marry white woman, so oftentimes they shacked up with Indian women or Mexican women living near border towns. The cowboys could only afford cheap cuts of meat and beans, but the women they moved in with knew about the old powdered meat recipes--they substituted finely chopped, cheap cuts of meat instead of powdered meat, and they served it on beans. Though the dish is not Mexican (the Mexican dictionary states that it is a disgusting dish falsely attributed to Mexico), it was Mexican women living in border towns who added the finishing touches to the dish. Catering to the cowboys in little stands around the turn of the century, they served tortillas, tamales, and bowls of chili. They improved the dish by adding their home grown tomatoes and cumin--a spice brought to Mexico by Spanish people from the Canary Islands. As cowboys settled across the country, they brought their addiction to a bowl of red with them, and the dish became popular everywhere in the U.S. This is how I like to make mine: Brown two pounds of ground chuck over very high heat. Remove with a slotted spoon and get rid of the excess grease. Return the meat to the pan and turn the heat down to medium. Add one teaspoon of salt, four tablespoons of pure New Mexican chili powder, two teaspoons of ground cumin, and one bay leaf. Stir and heat for twenty minutes or so. This is an important step because it toasts the spices. Add one chopped onion, and four crushed cloves of garlic, and dump a twenty-eight ounce can of Hunts crushed tomatoes on it. Put the lid on and turn the heat to medium low. Simmer for two hours, stirring occasionally. Serve on beans: pintos, black, kidney, cajun red, or even roasted peanuts are all good. With corn bread on the side this is gastronomic heaven. ------------ About the author Mark Gelbart: My book, Talk Radio, is a black comedy about a radio talk show host who gets kidnapped and psychologically tortured by a loser. www.mark-gelbart.com Email: agelbart@aol.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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