I went to shop for some of my chili ingredients today. Jackson accepted my challenge to concoct his own "authentic" chili. He found a rattlesnake meat supplier, but the rattlesnake got stopped at the border. I am not kidding. Instead of rattlesnake I got beef for Jackson, not the ground kind...apparently he is chopping the meat up to desired bite size pieces.
I had studied the lore of chili's over the last couple of days and went shopping with the thought in mind that I am going to create an "authentic" chili (no beans no ground meat) but use my bastard recipe (beans and ground meat) as a base to work from. Just before the checkout, I realized that I don't really give a darn about authenticity when it comes to chili. Sorry, Texans! Who gives you the right to claim the yummy chili as your own, exclude beans and ground meat? Back went the chunk of beef and with determination I paid for the ground beef.
Really, you chili snobs, what it comes down to is the taste...I have my secret ingredients at the ready. Let the battle of the chili's begin.
Oh, one last word. With all this purist talk about Texan chili's, I fear we are scaring off the vegans and vegetarian. Please do not feel intimidated and bring your vegetarian chili version before the judge. It's the taste that counts. Rules are there to be broken ;-)
