True chili-heads are strong willed ... one might even say vehement ... in their beliefs about what is or isn't chili. I am such a chili-head.

Given the condescending nature of society today, even misguided souls who believe that there are beans in chili — or that it can be made with ground hamburger meat or turkey or some such idiocy — are entitled to their heretical notions, I guess. But if you're of that ilk, I suggest you go find some yuppified, pseudo-chili website,because all we serve here is real chili — stewed from chunks of chuck and loads of peppers.

As far as I'm concerned, chili may contain many and varied ingredients, as long as most of those ingredients are chilis and meat and none are beans. Beans are a condiment, to be served with chili, for inclusion at the diner's discretion, not an ingredient to be cooked into the chili.

Chili is made mostly from chilies. Some chili-heads use nothing but jalapenos, but I find that limiting and somewhat boring, both in the cooking and to the palate. Along with the mandatory jalapenos, I include habanero, portuguese, cayenne, and several other hot varieties. But there's more to chili than hot. Flavor and texture are every bit as much a part of the chili-experience as the heat. Cubanelle and/or other mild/sweet peppers, add their own identity to the mix. My own chili recipe contains a wide variety of chilies, but the assortment isn't cut in stone. It's meant to encourage experimenting with different types of chilies, different degrees of ripeness (most become sweeter/less hot as they ripen from green to their eventual red, orange, yellow or brown color), combining fresh and dried chilis in various ratios and adding them at different points in the simmering process. It's not important to be specific about precisely how much or which chili to add, as long as the how much part is a lot.

If you haunt enough good produce outlets, you should be able to assemble a nice assortment locally.

Chili doesn't have to be precisely the same every time. In fact, I like the idea of treating it as a stock, with a pot of red kept simmering on a back burner indefinitely...added to with whatever appropriate ingredients are at hand, whenever it starts to get low. When making chili, as long as chilies and beef make up the lion's share of your ingredients, feel free to veer off in any interesting/appetizing direction from the precise path prescribed by the recipe. I often substitute chorizo or andouille sausage for the bacon in my own recipe, and toss in chunks of whatever meat I happen to find in the refrigerator. As long as it doesn't involve legumes or sweets, it's probably OK. But don't try make chili in a hurry. Slow simmering is one key to good chili. Chili also doesn't seem to take well to being made in small batches. Devote a day, and plan to fill your largest stewpot. The effort will be well worth it.

And please don't try to pass off vegetarian concoctions as chili. I don't care how wonderful they might taste; Chili as a meal is short for chili con carne. Leave out the carne and what you've got isn't chili, no matter how great it may taste. Feel free to make and enjoy your meatless dish. I enjoy lots of foods with chilis and no meat...gazpacho, chili dressed salads, refried beans and cheese enchiladas come to mind. But I wouldn't think of calling any of them chili! You've got to have meat, and when it comes to meat, forget the lean cuts...this ain't no health-food, it's Chili. Its raison d'etre is to make the least valuable parts of the steer into a meal worth savoring. It should never be made with anything leaner or more expensive than chuck. Expensive meat won't make it taste any better. In fact, the lack of natural juices (Yes, they're really fats...but juices sounds so much more appetizing, doesn't it?) inhibits the proper blending of the various flavors, and leaves you with a lifeless concoction only marginally related to the real thing. If you're concerned about your diet, exercise moderation as far as how often and how much of it you eat, (Lord knows, I sure have to) but don't dilute it into some bland, devoid-of-character mush in the name of health consciousness or weight control.

You'll have to go a long way to find a more satisfying or better tasting bowl of red than my recipe. If you haven't yet done so, click here and check it out.



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