Chili didn't originally have any certain recipe: bear/venison/buffalo/beef/horse cooked in a pot on a fire in the middle of nowhere with whatever spices (usually just salt and peppers if they had it) and some water. Beans were a staple, meat was a luxury. I do get a kick out of the "chili can only be this" people. I've been that guy. It began as a whatever you got so you don't starve meal. Although it is always better if you cook your meat and beans separately....
Just letting y'all know I have defended Texas honor and struck a blow against the heathens in Cincinnati. Yesterday on KFAN MN Sports Radio, The Common Man Show, there was a segment on Cicinnati Chili. Here is my response that was read on air: "Common; Beans should never be in Chili and putting cinnamon and chocolate in chili and then ladling it on spaghetti noodles is an abomination. Houston Sports Guy"
I have family in Cincinnati and my dad always insists on Skyline... last time we went they had habanero flavored cheese that sort of helped hide the cinnamon flavor but yeah that stuff is nasty.
my dad was born in Marlin TX in 1919, and he left school in the fourth grade to pick cotton with his sharecropper family. Meat was TRULY a luxury, so of course I grew up with beans in my chili. Even in the pot. I was born in Houston, so I’d like to think of myself as Texan. I can now afford to leave the beans out.....and I do so for my Dallas bride. But I still like pintos in my chili. Don’t care what that makes me.
I remember my granddad saying that when he was a kid, Oak Hill outside of Austin, Depression era, "If it weren't for brown beans and squirrels I'd have starved to death." He was the best shot with a pistol or rifle I've ever seen, because he had to be growing up: can't waste ammo and if you want to eat meat you better come home with something. "Here's your 2 .22 shells, come back with 2 squirrels or rabbits" to feed a family of 4 as an 8 year old.
