[Sca-cooks] Chili dishes...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Laura C. Minnick:
>At 11:27 AM 1/28/2005, you wrote:
>>Also sprach Aurelia Rufinia:
>>>Recipie for Minnesota Chili:
>>>
>>>One lb ground beef.  Maybe half an onion if you're
>>>feeling daring.  Two cans campbell's tomato soup (if
>>>they're on sale, otherwise the grocery store generic
>>>is just as good), a can of kidney beans, two stal;ks
>>>of celery.
>
><snip>
>
>>Thank you for this, lady! I feel much better now...
>>
>>Adamantius
>
>If it helps, Master A, that is very like my mom's recipe for chili, 
>only she uses tomato sauce and stewed tomatoes instead of the soup.

Mine, too, except she used, I think, either canned tomato sauce or 
marinara sauce from a jar (in theory, it didn't contain anything that 
was too vastly antithetical). I don't remember if celery was 
involved, but there were Bell peppers. I don't think this version was 
as spice-free as the other ones under discussion, though: the stuff 
my mom made had at least a nominal sprinkle of the standard mixed 
chili powder (ground, dehydrated garlic, oregano, cumin and, of 
course, some form of chile). No cheese or sour cream, though. I 
vaguely recall there was Tabasco on the table for the truly 
adventurous <shrug>.

>  It was served over crumbled saltines. Of course, my mother had the 
>most white bread of white bread upbringings in So Cal. Garlic salt 
>was an exotic spice.

We were of the rice and/or cornbread school (yellow, no sugar), 
thereby giving rise to the great family anecdote wherein my mom baked 
a pan of cornbread which hadn't browned in the oven to her 
satisfaction before being declared legally "done". So, she put it, 
very briefly, she thought, under the broiler, saying that this would 
make it "attractive", only to remove it some time later with the pan 
of cornbread actually in flames. We, of course, all agreed that that 
was pretty attractive (and for our tact, we were served that 
cornbread). Now, some 35 years later, no one in my family is ever 
able to use that b-appliance or speak of it without making some 
comment about making the food in question "attractive"...

I should mention that I'm the youngest of eight children my parents 
raised, plus a ninth adoptee, and I'm firmly of the opinion that 99% 
of the culinary indiscretions my mom committed were not matters of 
ignorance, indifference or cultural limitations (she had an amazing 
grasp of theory, and could tell you how to cook virtually anything, 
even if she had never actually cooked it herself) so much as being 
too flanking busy all the time.

>I suspect she has changed some though- my stepfather is Japanese, 
>and he does all the cooking. She must like it, because my sister 
>says Mom had gained a lot of weight...

When my lady wife, who, as some of you have probably heard, is of 
Chinese ancestry, is just about five feet tall, and weighs in at 
about 103 pounds, was pregnant with our son, she went to see her 
doctor, who had a specialty of sorts in handling difficult 
pregnancies for smaller Asian women. Doctor Wan told her that the 
last time she had seen her, she'd been a wonton, and was now in 
severe danger of becoming a jiao-tze...

I guess your mention of your Mom's weight gain reminded me...

Adamantius

-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04