Originally posted by: loup garou
Can we just agree that chili is chili regardless of its bean content? That's all I was trying to say to those saying that chili without beans is not chili. That's just patently false no matter how you slice it.
All the historical mumbo-jumbo is a bit silly, no? I didn't mean that meat and chiles are the only way to cook chili, simply that they were base ingredients that others are added to.
I just don't think you are understanding our point. There is a completely different way of looking at this issue. Maybe I can try to explain the other way to you.
Suppose you have a burrito. Suppose you want to kick it up a notch, you put enchilada sauce on it (enchilada = seasoned with chili).
Enchilada sauce is chilis with spices and usually meat. Chili is chilis with spices and usually meat. By ingredients alone, they are the same thing. But we don't eat them the same way. What is the difference? To me, one is a low-viscosity sauce that you pour on other foods to enhance their flavor. The other is often a higher-viscosity soup/stew that you eat alone.
How do you make a sauce into a stew? You make it more savory, thicker, etc. Beans are often the key for this. Yes, it is chili without beans. But it is a chili sauce (better for a topping) without beans and it is a chili stew (better for a meal) with beans.
Food is filled with subtle differences like that. The ingredients may basically be the same, but the way it tastes and the way you eat it is so much different. Heck look at chilis themselves. Dried or fresh and they have two different names - yet they are still just the same pepper. It is the human side, how we use it, that I use when I look at chili - not just the list of ingredients.