Joe Gracey’s Texas Chili Non Carne

If you were a Native Texan 400 years ago and you had a mess of peppers and onions and beans and garlic and corn and handful of herbs like oregano and comino, well, your first idea would be to throw them all in a pot and stew them together. All of these things grow wild in Texas and Mexico so the cooks of the bunch developed this soup/stew ten thousand years ago.

When Cattle Culture became paramount in Texas and Northern Mexico, this stew came to be called “chilis con carne” since beef was easier to come by and meat was less of a delicacy.

Texas kids in the 50’s grew up eating Chili Con Carne and Beans & Cornbread once a week or so, and every cook in Texas has her own unique interpretation of the dishes. Little of the “chili” made north, west, or east of Texas is what a Texan would recognize as a Bowl of Red.  Additions such as pasta, kidney beans, tomatoes, turkey (!!!) etc. have caused considerable confusion and panic amongst the people, but here I attempt to set the record straight.

With the modern-day interest in non-carnivorous eating, it is but a short step back to the aboriginal intent of this dish and so I present my version to you here. The only bean that has the correct flavor for this stew is the Texas Pinto Bean. It cannot be a white bean, or a kidney bean, or a black bean. They all have their place in the pantheon of bean dishes, but only the Pinto will do. Nothing else has the earthy but delicate assertiveness required. If you are desperate, try what Americans call “red” beans, or try the Italian “borlotti” bean. The flavor of this dish depends on the presence of the “poblano” pepper, which is called the “ancho” chili in its dried state, or the dried powder of this pepper which makes up most of the “chili powder” sold in Texas. You can get this online from Penzey’s. Please note that there are no tomatoes of any kind in this dish. The characteristic deep red-brown color and flavor of Chili does not rest in any way upon tomatoes; it derives from ancho chilis.

 And so, with those caveats, I give you this dish:

1 pound Pinto Beans, soaked overnight, water discarded

2 yellow onions, peeled, chopped and lightly sauteed in oil

3 cloves garlic, peeled, chopped

6 ancho chilis (simmered and processed or chopped, or 6 tablespoons of Texas chili powder)

Kernels from 3 ears of corn

1 tablespoon of cumin (or more, to taste- careful, there is a delayed reaction with each addition)

1 teaspoon of Mexican Oregano, dried

salt and pepper

vegetable stock to cover

fine cornmeal

Drain the beans. Cover with stock, add the vegetables (except the corn) and the herbs and salt and pepper. Use the chili pepper simmering water as part of the stock. Simmer until the beans are done. Add the corn and simmer for another half hour or so. Add cornmeal as needed to thicken.

Adjust salt and pepper, and serve it forth!

Serve with ice-cold beer, Iced Tea, corn and flour tortillas, and garnish with chopped white onions and grated Monterrey Jack or Queso Chihuahua cheese.

 

Some of my friends have asked for a medical update. Although I generally shy away from this type of blogging (I'd rather be writing about other things), I will give you the short answer: I just got back from MD Anderson. I am still cancer-free, as would be expected.

They tried to insert a TEP prosthesis and for various reasons, it had to be removed. I am going back in late July to try again. Try googling TEP and listen to the people using them, it is rather amazing. Not entirely new, but only about ten years old now and really good.

One of my doctors recommended that I not do the TEP but I think he was wrong and I am proceeding, based on the advice of the rest of my team there. 

As for food, I am still on a liquid diet- i.e. soup, diet supplement drinks, and red wine. I am slightly dejected because it will be November or December before I can eat food again. Having built such a large part of my existence on cooking and eating and writing about food, you may imagine how miserable this makes me. However, soup is a good thing and I am trying to accept what has been handed to me and perhaps I will write a soup book or something. I started out in that direction when it hadn't really sunk in that it would last so long, so I am in the process of attitude adjustment now. 

As I tell people, soup is just fine as long as it is not your only option three times a day, when it begins to pale. Going to a grocery store brings its own little agony every time I spot something and think "oh I'll do that tonight!" and then remember I can't eat it even if I do cook it. Some normal dishes actually do go into the food processsor and become soup, even if it is mildly ridiculous, but any foxhole in a fight, right? 

Last night we had a tomato soup that we learned from Chef Paul Baumgartner in Buchs, Switzerland. Soon as I write it all down clearly, I'll post it here. 

Ripe Fruit

Peaches on the tree in the back yard. I'm still all stove up from surgery but I am determined to pick as many of them as I can reach, standing precariously on a chair, fighting the yellowjackets for them.  This tree rises from the middle of a giant rosemary bush, so as I plunge clumsy below trying to get to the ripe ones, the scent of rosemary swirls around me. A mockingbird sings the dove's song goofily. Ripe peaches have a scent too, and these have none of the melony aspect that the supermarket varieties have, thank a loving God. I find myself doing something very human, cartoon-like, old as ancestors - I grab a branch and bring it down to me so I can reach the big ripe ones that hang against the sky above me. Some of them are already too ripe, too fed-upon by birds and hungry creatures, and they fall to the ground under the rosemary and I find myself thinking "the gods' share, of course" like a Greek pouring out the first tip of the wine to the gods, or a priest placing a bone wrapped in fat upon the altar so that the aroma might rise to meet Them/Him/Her/It and they be pleased. You cannot get every peach - the gods will have theirs, too! I expect a farmer learns this pretty fast. Peach ice cream soup tonight!

What better way to be reminded to love life, and love the earth, and love a ripe Texas peach? With sight, smells, sounds, tastes? To love my wife with a love like an ache, who "like a fruitful vine"  planted this tree long ago with a vision in her heart that is now real, here, now? 

I'm very, very grateful.