Beans Or No Beans??? Early 1900s Chili Recipes - Old Cookbook Show 

Beans add that extra protein as you said, I do it when feeding a crowd, a few cans of beans in a large size pot/meal, no one really notices 😁. Delish!

Pimento, is the whole seed that when ground is what people call allspice.

@@rachelhunting In English (a crazy language of borrowed words) pimento can refer to a sweet / hot chili pepper (Capsicum annuum) - or it could refer to Allspice (Pimenta dioica). In this context, the recipes are probably calling for the chili pepper.

@@itzel1735 I think that one would cure a lot of meats so one could store it and ate it as it was when it became cured. Or perhaps one soaked it before preparing it. Or perhaps kept it in a heavy salt brine, perhaps with some spice.

Chili with beans. I just questioned my family and all 6 say beans. Typically 1can of black beans and 1 can of red kidney beans, although variations are acceptable.

I’m really gonna need someone to Photoshop Glenn onto Charlie.. it’s Pepe Silvia!

Truly I think all he has to do is go through his amazing cookbook collection. That usually backs up what he's saying.

I wouldn't be so sure. Stewed meat as we understand it require water and heat proof cooking vessels, which is pretty hard without iron or advanced ceramics. And there were other gaps in Native American cooking practices, like the use of fat, possibly because of no pigs and available animals being very lean (like Turkeys).

My family has taken to calling chili cowboy curry. A lot of the spices are very similar to spices that make up garam masala.

@@shangrilainxanadu people were stewing meat in clay pots for centuries before ceramics and iron and just because we brown meat now for flavor doesn't mean they did then so no need for fat when stewing

@@shangrilainxanadu there have been examples of pottery found from native Americans about 6,000 years ago so I'd say it's pretty likely

I think humans have been stewing since neolithic times.

Thank you for reminding us that we need to value the heritage contributions of the native Americans. Native American cooking would be another topic for Glenn to cover. In the meantime, I'm going to do some research myself. I would love to learn more about Native American cooking. Thanks again!

I would love to see your familie's traditional cooking. Maybe a collaboration with Glen could make that happen in an accessible way.

That was similar to my comment. My 4th grader is on the Texas natives portion of his social studies and we just did Cabeza de Vaca and his writings after spending years enslaved by and living and trading with the natives along the Rio Grande and into present day Mexico. I also follow a survivalist from my area in the Permian Basin who has really opened my eyes to the natives diets as much of what is readily available today in our Texas natives plants was available and consumed back then. Your basic Chili is simply that - pepper soup. Chiltepins, wild onion, false garlic all existed and still exist to this day. Then you catch a rattler, throw him in the pot and now you have chili con carne. Venison was also readily available. Leftover roasted deer from the night before still hanging over the fire and starting to dry out, shred and throw him in the pot to rehydrate the meat and add some variety of dishes. They also heavily relied on roots and I have it on good authority that some of them taste like soap. Specifically the ever abundant Yucca/agave family of plants. Some of these roots had to be baked in ground ovens for up to 2 days to make them edible and still they complained of the taste. Grind it and throw it in with a crapton of chiltepins and wild onions. Chili con soaproot. Maybe baking for days changed the saponins in the roots so less soapy, more bitter. The natives who knew have long since been eradicated or moved out. My husband is part Apache who were run out hy the comanche. I'm part Cherokee who were run off by the Europeans. I've been stocking books on native cooking and foraging for the last few years. To me it's fascinating and I have very little doubt that native pepper spiced soups didn't exist long before the Spaniards came, before Mexicans or Texians even existed to create the Tex-Mex version we have today.

I guess "Yankee Chili" kinda' makes sense, insofar as he mentioned that the further north you went the more likely one was to encounter beans in the Chili [hence probably "Yankee Chili" was the equivalent of "Northern Chili" or some such?], though even in Texas there were still preparations with beans in the mix. But, as he says, it's no "one thing," and as long as it tastes good, make it how you like it, beans or bean-less... I've always had it with beans, and it seems like most of the store-bought stuff [Nalley, Stagg, and whatnot] features beans in it, unless it's specifically labeled as "con carne [without beans]," or some such... But, I welcome all recipes, including purist "con carne." I'm sure green chili and veggie chili and all manner of others [Cincinnati Chili, etc.] are all great, too... Hope to try them all some day.

Lots of people forget that potatoes and tomatoes are new world crops, my South American ancestors were eating potatoes long before my Irish ancestors!

I made chili with a can of corned beef last week, because I needed not to waste some canned things that were a little out of date. Turned out pretty good!

Chile Colorado is amazing! Pinto beans all the way lol

Same here except Arizona via northern Sonora on my Dad's side. Pinto beans all the way in our region. Black beans are favored further south but love them both.

I use black beans + "small red beans" (softer and less gritty than "kidney beans" [which I stopped using due to the grittiness]). Yum! Plus corn kernels. Which provides a little crunch and natural corn sweetness...

You are 💯 right. I really don’t know anybody who makes chili “the same,” unless it was because they follow a recipe they got from somebody else. Otherwise, it seems everybody follows their own directions. As Glenn has shown, recipe books are loaded with different methods, and as Glenn always says… “Make the recipe your own. Make it the way you like it.”

@@Ranman451 We don’t even make chili “the same” at our house from one iteration to the next! A written recipe for chili around here is unofficially forbidden. The dish is always made up as we go along.

@@mikezimmermann89 Right? I always free-hand it with what I have on-hand, and eyeball the amounts. I always have a rough idea of what will go in it, but it varies from batch to batch, and varies with how much I end up making, whether a large or small batch, which kind of changes how much spices / herbs and such you'd need for it to be "the same" [it never is, like ... ever].

@@Ranman451 Quite right... My chili is an evolution from an old Lea & Perrin's recipe called something like "meat skillet," which is now fairly lost to the ages. But, basically it was ground meat and beans, maybe corn, with tomato paste or spaghetti sauce, a fair amount of steak sauce, a bay leaf [I pretty quickly dropped that requirement as unnecessary], and maybe some other stuff I forget. I used to make this all the time as a teenager. But, as I grew up, I kept adding stuff to it, or subtracting stuff from it, and then noticed the similarity to a lot of chili recipes, and basically added chili powders and other stuff, and "evolved" it over time into my own chili recipe, which I think is pretty good. ^_^ As you say, everyone makes it their own way, whether by recipe, or by eyeballing it, and customizes it to their own taste. And as the OP says, ask 10 people, get 20 different recipes. ;) I myself have at least a few variants...

I grew up with ground beef (browned, crumbled, and drained), kidney beans, tomato, chili powder, onion and garlic. Maybe started with a can of Campbell's chili soup (that I haven't seen in years. My mom made it loose, like a stew/soup, and we ate it with buttered saltines. But never added rice, potatos, or pasta. What I make today is completely different in flavor and thickness.

Yes! Ham & beans are pintos for us, too.

I used to use kidney beans, but honestly, I kinda' dislike their grittier texture, and have all but stopped using them in favor of "small red beans," which are very much the same, but IMO better texturally [none of what I perceive as the tougher "grittiness" of kidney beans]. Though, I'll still throw in kidney beans once in a while in addition to the other beans, and they're okay, I guess. But I still think I like the "small red" better...

That sounds like a fascinating but tragic book.

That's basically my approach. Some sort of ground meat - might be beef, might be pork. Diced tomatoes. Might include chopped onions. Might include sliced chile peppers. Prolly some sort of beans - usually I go with blackeyed peas but I've used pintos and kidney beans too - sometimes all three. And yeah, I do use chili powder.

Except broccoli. I like broccoli but in chili it is horrendous.

Indeed... I have my basic recipe in the back of my head, but it varies with what's in the cupboard, rarely exactly the same twice... Just 'cause my cupboard contents tend to vary. But, regardless, it's truly hard to "screw up" chili, 'cause it's very forgiving and almost always edible barring completing burning it or not putting in any salt / spices / chilies or powder.

Actually, Empress Chili was first. It started out as a food cart outside the Empress burlesque theater in the 20's. One of their employees went on to start Skyline in the 40's.

I just recently moved a bit east of college station. Do you have any examples of where to get what you think is a good example of Texas style beef sausage? Also I'll have to make a trip to Austin to try that!

@@alecwallisch9045 I prefer Southside Market or Meyers Sausage, both from Elgin near Austin. There's also Chappell Hill Sausage Co. near Brenham. All three might be available in some HEBs around Central TX.

@@alecwallisch9045 I'd also recommend Giddings Meat Market for fresh made sausage, and for some amazing BBQ, Snow's in Lexington (only open on Saturday mornings).

What kind of dishes and cooking styles and cooking implements were common in the new world before europeans arrived? I'm wondering, what animal they got fat from for frying and what did they make larger cooking pots from(no ironworking) for soups and stuff?

@@lasskinn474 bison was usrd for lits of things. They used the entire bison for fats, they made soaps, meats, used the hides for clothing, shelter, and warmth. Over 100 different products and uses. They made tools. Nothing was wasted. Look it up sometime. It's a good read. Unlike the white Europeans who killed the bison and took out a hunk of meat and left the rest to rot.

They also used the bladders to store water in

You definitely didn’t win any sanctioned ICS or CASI competition’s! No filler’s like beans are allowed.

I take tongue-in-cheek "personal offense" at dismissing beans as "filler." IMO, they are an integral part of a good bean-chili or meat-bean-chili dish. As much as tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, garlic, or any other ingredient. It's like some trolling asshole excluding pineapple from a pizza cook-off, 'cause they don't like it and are feeling salty... 🙃🤣

There's no season for Chili. I make it all year, my family always has.

@@trirycheman we always have chili around deer season and through the winter ☺️.

You mean to say there's a non-chili season?? Heresy! :P

I seem to remember that it is called Kema in Greece. Also most of Detroit's Coney Chile sauces are of Greek influence as well.

@@howardbartlett3026 I believe you are totally correct. It goes to show how radically different two chilies can be, even with a similar origin. They are individually very tasty, but have little similarity in look, consistency or flavor. Rather than focus on the differences, let’s celebrate that both Detroit and Cincinnati chilies have coney restaurants with loyal followers who will debate forever which is better. If we are being honest, though, they are both wonderful!

@@howardbartlett3026 Interesting. Indian ground beef curry is called "keema". I wonder if it travelled with Alexander.

no, it also means fried twice, but can also mean something like well-fried, although I don't believe that's the meaning

You're correct. Refrito means fried, plain and simple. However, that meaning for refrito nowadays is only used in Spain, and, to an extent, Europe. What Glen served would be called frijoles fritos in most of Latin America. Frijoles refritos are cooked with oil in a pan to the point where they are forming a sort of dough, to call it someway, and separating from the bottom and the sides of the pan. In that case, refrito would mean something like "very fried".

@@CalebCalixFernandez thank you to both repliers very good information.

Personally, I don't consider beans to be "filler," I consider them to be an essential part of the chili, as much as the meat. It's called "chili," not "meat stew," and it should be the chilies that take center stage [flavoring whatever other ingredients are added to the dish, whether beans, onions, bell peppers, meat, zucchini, or something else], not an argument over meat vs. beans as the protein source. IMO, the source of protein is quite irrelevant. Heck, make a purely vegetarian "chili" that's all beans, or no beans at all and just uses other vegetables like zucchini, tomatoes, etc., ... with chilies / chili powder. Why the hate specifically for beans? Are you allowed to use tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, and other vegetables? If so, one should damn well be able to use beans... The whole "it has to be meat and nothing else" thing seems like little more than a hand-out to the cattleman's association. If nothing else, they should maybe have a "con carne" competition [for those purists who thing chili should **only** have meat (and nothing else other than chilies; even tomatoes, onions, bell peppers?)] and an "everything else" competition (where things **other than meat** are allowed).

I have found reference earlier this week thanks to my 4th graders social studies lessons to Castillo in the 1500's and a type of mole the aztecs made with peppers and tomato assumed to be like a chili base. I tend to think like you said - the chili soup base with whatever you added to it. As far as others have mentioned Texas Natives had access to chiltepin peppers, wild onion, false garlic, etc so there's nothing unreasonable about assuming they'd have a chili soup base and throw in whatever venison, bison, rabbit, etc they happened to have leftover to stretch the meat and flavor it. I tend to think of chili as potentially a thousands of years old dish that has been tweaked by the addition of the Spaniards and the hogs and spices they brought with them and later by European Texians after the natives had been bred out or ran off for the most part into the Tex-Mex version we have today.

Same here.

I used to take script glasses off, then after having cataract surgery, I went for distance vision...so I could drive & use readers for the obvious.

By the way, my four alarm chili was served in a bowl over lightly crushed tortilla or corn chips and a slice of American cheese.

I’d be an awful judge… I’d be like “oh, that’s really good” “so is that” “that’s different, but delicious “… lol

Well I prefer chili in my beans how about that

@@CharlesLumia to each their own my friend lolol.

As someone who hates beans in any form, I thank you on your husband’s behalf! 🙂🙂💟💟

@@thebigfs2330it's just as easy to do it that way because I cook the beans from dry separately anyway while the other ingredients are cooking.

I'm from Maryland, but I did a brief investigation of the Delta tamale issue in Mississippi... I really enjoyed them and wonder why this presentation hadn't spread further afield.