A Bowl of Red
By John Morthland
I arrived in Texas from New York City in 1984, and soon afterward I knew I'd made the right move. A friend invited me over to watch football, and when I got hungry, he handed me an ambrosial stew. It was beefy yet silky, heady with cumin, tangy, and spicy hot. "This is great" I declared, as the concoction danced down my throat. "What is it?"
I was taken aback when he said it was chili.
I'd always thought of chili as either an elaborate, takes-all-day dish—like the 40-ingredient soup a San Francisco friend called chili—or a bland can of mush plucked off the supermarket shelf.
This chili had little broth, wasn't made with finely ground beef, and didn't even include beans, one element I thought all chili required. It was my first bowl of traditional Texas red, made with reddish-brown ancho peppers—a dish popularized in the mid-1800s by the Mexican American street vendors of San Antonio, who came to be known as the Chili Queens. Those early settlers had a knack for making the most of what little they had—basically, a steer and some wild pepper plants, a handful of ingredients whose distinct flavors contributed to a wonderful whole.
Chili has long since mutated into countless different recipes, but the crucial thing about Texas red—and it's something chili cook-off champions, for all their exotic ingredients and secret seasonings, don't always achieve—is that you're pretty much bound to get an irresistible result. With just a little care, this dish tastes like a revelation every time. To me, Texans are still at their best when they're making something tempting out of next to nothing.
John Morthland, a writer at large for Texas Monthly, also writes a food column for AAA’s Texas Journey magazine.
Spice Tip
Give spices like cumin a lift by dry roasting whole seeds in a skillet until aromatic, then grinding them yourself.
Turn up the heat with these chili recipes
The AARP/Blue Zones Vitality Project sponsored by United Health Foundation features 