SC - OT/OOP - Real Texas Chili recipe

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Hullo, the list!

I've been talking about this a lot; I thought a recipe would only be fair.

This isn't Tolbert's original recipe, or even exactly like the recipe as
originally published by Tolbert in "A Bowl Of Red" in the 1950's, which
chronicles the history of Texas chili from its origins to the first
chili cook-offs in Terlingua, Texas, with additional material about the
cook-offs added later, including the Great Chili Wars of the 1960's,
involving such people as Wick Fowler, Tolbert, and New York
writer-turned-self-proclaimed-chilihead and heretic H. Allen Smith...the
following is pretty close, but in a more usable "recipe" format, rather
than the prose description Tolbert gives. This is also fairly close to a
good recipe by Jeff Smith in one of his books, probably "The Frugal
Gourmet Cooks American", or whatever it's called. Smith fans will know
which one it is, I guess.

>From Raymond Sokolov's "Fading Feast: A Compendium of Disappearing
American Regional Foods", ©1979, 1980, 1981 Raymond Sokolov and the
American Museum of Natural History, published by E.P. Dutton & Sons, New
York City:

"Frank X. Tolbert's "Simplified Texas Chili"

3 pounds lean beef
2 ounces suet (or substitute vegetable oil)
2 to 4 chilis anchos
2 tablespoons cumin
1 tablespoon oregano
1/2 cup paprika
1 tablespoon cayenne (optional)
1 sprig fresh coriander (cilantro) chopped [Not in Tolbert's original -- P.T.]
1/3 cup finely chopped garlic

1. Cut the beef into bite-sized chunks.

2. Render the suet in a heavy skillet, and saute the beef chunks until
they turn gray.

3. Pour the liquid from the skillet into a heavy pot, leaving a small
amount in the pan. Continue cooking the meat until it is well-browned on
all sides.

4. Meanwhile, remove stems from chilis and puree in a blender with a
small amount of water. Add puree to chili pot.

5. When meat is browned, add it to the chili pot and simmer for 30 minutes.

6. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes or until meat is
tender. (Use choice chuck. That old myth about bull meat is not for the Tolberts.)

7. Keep the chili overnight. In the morning, scrape off the grease that
comes to the top.

Yield: 6 to eight servings."

Tolbert originally advocated anchos only, or a close substitute, but
mentioned that one might add another chili product, such as chili powder
or paprika, for the color. He also says that beef is generally
preferred, but that venison became popularized by the publication of a
recipe by Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson, created after her husband suffered a
heart attack. He sternly warns us to avoid prime meat, because he says
it will disintegrate in the cooking. As noted above, he originally made
no mention of cilantro, but, as I recall, includes salt in his original,
while Sokolov doesn't mention it. Tolbert ends his recipe with the
advice to skim off the fat if it bothers you, but says that the
old-timers wouldn't.

His recipe is based on interviews with numerous surviving chuck-wagon
cooks, most of whom were, until the 1950's or so, still cooking the
dish, more or less unchanged, and handed down from earlier cooks as far
back as the mid-19th century.

Oh, and he talks a lot about Son-of-a-b***h stew, too, which would make
an interesting topic for us SCA types, for reasons both culinary and
linguistic: no, not because of the name, but rather the name of one of
the traditional ingredients, the marrowgut of a calf, a.k.a. the margut
or mugget.

As for the chili recipe, I suspect that it looks deceptively simple, and
many might look at it and think it really needs something more to give
it a kick. To such people I can only suggest they try it first, before
behaving so rashly ;  ) .  

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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