Monday, July 12, 2004
The Laws of Chili
First Law of Chili: There's plenty.
No matter how much chili you intended to make, you will always end up with enough to serve your unexpected guests, regardless of how hungry they are when they get there, plus have leftovers for lunch for a couple days.
Second Law of Chili: Sure, throw it in!
Pretty much anything's good in chili. I mean, maybe not ice cream or bananas (although I'm not so sure bananas would be such a bad idea), but certainly any veggie or legume you can get your hands on. Anything in your fridge that's gonna go bad if you don't use it real soon should probably go in the chili. Come to think of it, this might be why the first law of chili exists. Hmmmm.
Third Law of Chili: It's good.
It just is. It's so phenomenally hard to ruin chili that the only people who've been known to do it are school cafeteria types, and even then all they can usually manage to do is water it down and under-spice it to the point where it's not really chili, but just a slightly thicker minestrone soup. And these are people who've made a science of taking the yummiest, easiest, most un-ruinable things and rendering them inedible. If these guys can't ruin chili, no one can.
Fourth Law of Chili: Pick a carb, any carb.
Chili's a pick-your-carb meal. It's good with rice. It's good with potatoes. It's good on pasta. It's good on or beside bread. Or you could just cook some barley or leftover rice straight in. Doesn't matter, the chili makes it work.
Those are the laws of chili. Put together they make a pretty powerful argument in its favour, in my opinion. I'm in favour of making chili.
There are purists out there who will disagree with me, will tell me that it's not chili if it doesn't contain meat, or contains carrots, or wasn't made with a _certain_kind_ of chili pepper. To them I say "pooh pooh". If it looks like chili, smells like chili, and tastes like chili, then it's chili. The rest is just details.
No matter how much chili you intended to make, you will always end up with enough to serve your unexpected guests, regardless of how hungry they are when they get there, plus have leftovers for lunch for a couple days.
Second Law of Chili: Sure, throw it in!
Pretty much anything's good in chili. I mean, maybe not ice cream or bananas (although I'm not so sure bananas would be such a bad idea), but certainly any veggie or legume you can get your hands on. Anything in your fridge that's gonna go bad if you don't use it real soon should probably go in the chili. Come to think of it, this might be why the first law of chili exists. Hmmmm.
Third Law of Chili: It's good.
It just is. It's so phenomenally hard to ruin chili that the only people who've been known to do it are school cafeteria types, and even then all they can usually manage to do is water it down and under-spice it to the point where it's not really chili, but just a slightly thicker minestrone soup. And these are people who've made a science of taking the yummiest, easiest, most un-ruinable things and rendering them inedible. If these guys can't ruin chili, no one can.
Fourth Law of Chili: Pick a carb, any carb.
Chili's a pick-your-carb meal. It's good with rice. It's good with potatoes. It's good on pasta. It's good on or beside bread. Or you could just cook some barley or leftover rice straight in. Doesn't matter, the chili makes it work.
Those are the laws of chili. Put together they make a pretty powerful argument in its favour, in my opinion. I'm in favour of making chili.
There are purists out there who will disagree with me, will tell me that it's not chili if it doesn't contain meat, or contains carrots, or wasn't made with a _certain_kind_ of chili pepper. To them I say "pooh pooh". If it looks like chili, smells like chili, and tastes like chili, then it's chili. The rest is just details.
