SC - Its All Geography (Was: Carne con chile)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Micaylah wrote:
> 
> While I agree with everything you are saying, I can't help but wonder if
> it really matters. I am not questioning this to discount or minimize
> what you are saying, but trying to put it into perspective. What are
> these "rules" you are quoting. I don't understand what you mean
> entirely.

I'll try to be as brief and as clear as possible because this topic has
since become rather unpleasant for me, which it hadn't been before
today, although through no action of yours.

Traditions are worth noting, understanding, and respecting, even if we
don't share them. It was the tradition of the cooks who first created
the American version of chili, as opposed to various Mexican dishes
containing chilis, to make it a certain way. In the place where this
dish was created, it is still regarded as traditional to make it in the
way I have described elsewhere. That doesn't mean you can't do it
differently. It doesn't mean you can't make Hamburger Helper with red
kidney beans, if you wish to, and call it chili. What it does mean is
that if you make chili in a heretical fashion (I _am_ joking here, for
all the strokes and ulcers this discussion seems to have brought on) you
will be regarded as a heretic by those people to whom this tradition is
important. That's all. Some people take this stuff more seriously than
others. Not being a part of the culture for whom this tradition is
important, I am neither able nor required to understand or explain why
they feel this way, I only report that some of them do, and report it
purely as a coincidence that the best chili I ever had was made that
way. I have had good chili made other ways, and have never complained
about or refused, or otherwise, to my knowledge, been rude about
anybody's attempts at chili con carne, but I still try to maintain a
reverence for the proto-dish.    
 
> All in all, I figure people will cook something dependant on where they
> live, knowledge of source or lack thereof, and call it Chili/Buffalo
> Wings or Chinese food, whatever. I suppose that makes everyone right.

Alas, you have just spoken the death knell for the American Regional
cuisine. I was hoping it wouldn't come to this ;  ) . The cuisine of a
people (as I carefully walk around the famous words of Brillat--Savarin)
helps define their identity. Their culinary traditions are a part of who
they are, who they were, and who they are becoming. When someone else
takes those traditions and changes them, it is harmful not because the
tradition has been changed, but because the changes are often made in
ignorance or disregard of tradition, until the tradition itself becomes
misrepresented, and a little bit of that culture vanishes from the
earth. When the last person living who knows the truth dies, lies become
true. I exaggerate, but only slightly.

Another example: the cuisine of the small region in the South of China
where my lady wife's family is from is based on some rather interesting
climactic and geographical conditions: they get several rather short
growing seasons, and their cuisine is typified by an enormous variety of
vegetables, fish, and other foods, but in order to have anything like a
standard agricultural "year" with a harvest at the end of it, and enough
for everyone to eat, they have to preserve a lot of their foods with
salt, or by pickling, drying, or smoking. It's geographically close to
places like Kwangtung and Hong Kong, but the cuisine is quite different
in many ways from those other places. The people of Toyshan would be
rather amused to be served the food of Hong Kong, but rather insulted if
it were misrepresented as their own cuisine, or if asked, "What's the
difference?" Now please note I'm not saying this is necessarily right or
wrong, it's just how it is.

The problem with everyone beiong right is that eventually everyone will
be the same.

A little note on traditions in general: I learned, I guess yesterday
(Monday) morning, that for Wayne Gretzky's final game as a New York
Ranger on Sunday, the lyrics to both the Canadian and American national
anthems had been doctored with references to Gretzky inserted. Yeccchhh!
Are you, a Hab (as Ranger fans used to refer to the Montreal Canadiens,
especially when at home in Montreal) bothered by this half as much as I
am? Would they put the man's face on the flag of either of our nations,
too?   
 
> I am interested Adamantius, in this Rheinheitsgebot that was enforced as
> "law" for centuries. Wassthat?

This was law in Bavaria, c. 1516, stating that beer _must_ consist of
malted barley, water, hops, and yeast, and nothing else. My reference to
it was in jest.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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