As you may know, I currently live in Texas, where we as a collective have very strong (almost religious) opinions on chili. I, however, am no chili essentialist. I am from Pennsylvania, and my mother is from Indiana. Growing up, I thought "chili" meant Hoosier chili, a thin, sweet soup with ground beef and macaroni of all things. I was shocked when I found out that most normal people do not eat macaroni in their chili. Today, I have many different chili recipes, and I enjoy making and eating it in a variety of ways (not in the Hoosier style, though...sorry, Mom). Meat only, meat and beans, vegetarian with quinoa or wheat berries, you name it. I am very far from a chili snob, because chili is not in my roots. I mean, really--Hoosier chili? Would anybody fight to the death to defend Hoosier chili? Hoosier chili is not the stuff of which strong chili opinions are made.
In my mind, the more chili varieties, the better. Not everybody agrees. That's okay.
One type of chili that gets a particularly bad rap from chili essentialists is Cincinnati chili, which is by far the best known regional food in southwestern Ohio (and parts of Indiana and Kentucky). Now, I'm not from Cincinnati, although I am a fan of the city. In fact, I feel a little out of my element even writing about this topic, because I'm sure some readers are much more familiar with the Cincinnati chili scene than I am. I grew up not too terribly far from Cincinnati, and my mom and dad actually met there (my mom went to school in the city). So I have Cincinnati in my background, and I've always been aware of the city's style of chili, even if I didn't grow up eating it. It wasn't until later that I got hooked on it.
My title kind of pokes fun at how some locals describe their chili: "Well, it's not really chili..." And truthfully, nobody really eats a bowl of Cincinnati chili. It's meant to be a thin, heavily spiced meat sauce, which can be ladled over hot dogs (similar to the iconic Coney Island chili dog) or spaghetti, along with heaps and heaps of cheese. Cincinnati is loaded with chili parlors, and anybody familiar with the Cincinnati chili scene knows of the rivalry between Skyline Chili and Gold Star Chili, perhaps somewhat analogous to the great cheesesteak rivalry in Philly. As a collective, Cincinnatians consume over 2 million pounds of the stuff each year, along with 850,000 pounds of cheese. Cincinnati chili is serious business.
This chili is a product of immigrants. Paste Magazine explains:
Besides being known as Porkopolis in the mid to late-1800s, Cincinnati has never really had a culinary identity. Unlike other Midwest cities like Chicago and St. Louis, Cincinnati has always been a blank slate in terms of its food and gastronomic reputation. A little too southern to really be the North, and a little too northern to really be the South, Cincinnati’s food has always been influenced by immigrants, starting with the Germans and their obsession with the pig in the 1800s. As the pork processing industry later moved on to Chicago, Cincinnatians looked for a new food to hold dear, but no one thought it would come from a handful of displaced cooks hailing from the Balkans.
Like most regional delicacies, transplanted immigrants created Cincinnati chili as a utility food. During the first half of the 20th century, Macedonian and Greek immigrants started serving chili seasoned with a Middle Eastern flair on hot dogs. Eventually the chili was paired with spaghetti (more on that later), which makes absolutely no sense, but because of its non-sensible deliciousness, locals just went with it. Eventually, chili parlors started popping up across the city, with Empress being the first, and both Skyline and Gold Star emerging as mini-empires soon after. Almost a century later, chili is everywhere in Cincinnati and has become the unofficial bonding topic of displaced southern Ohioans the world over.
A little more historical background,
courtesy of Wikipedia:
Cincinnati chili originated with immigrant restaurateurs from the Macedonian region who were trying to expand their customer base by moving beyond narrowly ethnic styles of cuisine. Tom and John Kiradjieff began serving a "stew with traditional Mediterranean spices" as a topping for hot dogs which they called "coneys" in 1922 at their hot dog stand located next to a burlesque theater called the Empress. Tom Kiradjieff used the sauce to modify a traditional Greek dish, speculated to have been pastitsio, moussaka or saltsa kima to come up with a dish he called chili spaghetti. He first developed a recipe calling for the spaghetti to be cooked in the chili but changed his method in response to customer requests and began serving the sauce as a topping, eventually adding grated cheese as a topping for both the chili spaghetti and the coneys also in response to customer requests. To make ordering more efficient, the brothers created the "way" system of ordering. The style has since been copied and modified by many other restaurant proprietors, often fellow Greek and Macedonian immigrants who had worked at Empress restaurants before leaving to open their own chili parlors, often following the business model to the point of locating their restaurants adjacent to theaters.
Empress was the largest chili parlor chain in Cincinnati until 1949, when a former Empress employee and Greek immigrant, Nicholas Lambrinides, started Skyline Chili. In 1965, four brothers named Daoud, immigrants from Jordan, bought a restaurant called Hamburger Heaven from a former Empress employee, noticed the Cincinnati chili was outselling the hamburgers on their menu, and changed the restaurant's name to Gold Star Chili. As of 2015 Skyline (over 130 locations) and Gold Star (89 locations) were the largest Cincinnati chili parlor chains, while Empress had only two remaining locations, down from over a dozen during the chain's most successful period.
Besides Empress, Skyline, and Gold Star, there are also smaller chains such as Dixie Chili and Deli and numerous independents including the acclaimed Camp Washington Chili, probably the most well-known of the independents. Other independents include Pleasant Ridge Chili, Blue Ash Chili, Park Chili Parlor, Price Hill Chili, and the Blue Jay Restaurant, in all totalling more than 250 chili parlors. In addition to the chili parlors, some version of Cincinnati chili is commonly served at many local restaurants. Arnold's Bar & Grill, the oldest bar in the city, serves a vegetarian "Cincy Lentils" dish ordered in "ways".
I know, this is supposed to be about "what's for dinner," not culinary history. But I'm including it because I find the history of Cincinnati chili to be fascinating and, well, very distinctly
American. If it seems weird, it's because it's the product of our American melting pot. And, strange as it may seem, it features a unique and incredible symphony of flavors. Chili purists gonna hate...let 'em. In the meantime, Cincinnati chili is what's for dinner.
I don't have the pleasure of being able to go to a Cincinnati chili parlor. So when I have a hankering, I make it at home. And it's really very easy to get pretty close to "authentic" Cincinnati chili at home--although it does take a long time. It's worth it in the end. When I make Cincinnati chili (which isn't very often, because it's not exactly a beacon of good health), I use this recipe. I'll post the full recipe at the end. I do deviate from it in one way: The recipe calls for cooking the meat, refrigerating it overnight, and skimming the fat off. First of all, ain't nobody got time for that. Secondly, I use very lean ground beef, and it just doesn't produce enough fat to worry about. Thirdly, the thought of taking out the flavorful fat just doesn't sit right with me. So I'll be skipping that, but you can do whatever makes you happy.
Here are the ingredients, some of which (again) may seem a little bizarre:
Ground beef, onions, garlic, tomato sauce, apple cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, unsweetened chocolate (yes, chocolate!), chili powder, salt, cumin, cinnamon (yes, cinnamon!), cayenne, whole cloves (yes, whole cloves!), whole allspice berries (yes, whole allspice berries!), and a bay leaf. This odd list of ingredients is going to come together nicely, rest assured.
The cooking of the beef goes against everything you know about cooking beef. The point is to break up the ground beef as much as possible, breaking it down to the point where you barely even notice it anymore. To do that, you do not brown it. You cover it with water (or stock) and simmer it, constantly breaking it up. It seems weird and gross, but just go with it. It will take four cups of liquid.
Simmer the beef and keep breaking it apart for about 30 minutes. If you really want to follow the recipe's instruction to refrigerate and skim the fat, this is the point at which you do it. I'm just moving on.
This is really easy...just add everything else to the pan and mix it up. For the whole cloves and allspice berries, you might want to use a spice bag or something. Or you can do what I do and spend the last 20 minutes trying to pick them out. Because believe me, the very last thing you want to do is bite into a whole clove. Bring the mixture up to a boil and let it gently simmer, uncovered, for at least three hours, stirring occasionally. I told you it was going to take a while. But it will be worth it.
After it is done simmering, it should look something like this:
Taste for seasoning--you probably won't need to add anything (I never do), but you never know.
Now, to eat it. Cincinnati chili is most commonly eaten over spaghetti, but there is the matter of what to add to it. As described above, Cincinnati chili parlors developed the "way" system to make choosing chili options easier. Here is how Skyline Chili breaks it down:
3-Way
Steaming spaghetti covered with our secret recipe chili, topped with a mound of shredded cheddar cheese.
4-Way
A 3-Way with onions or beans.
5-Way
A 3-Way with onions and beans.
As for myself, I am not a fan of raw onions, so I eat it 4-way with kidney beans. I usually cook the beans in the spaghetti water in the last minute or two of cooking, which is why they're mixed in with the spaghetti. Also, by Cincinnati standards, I am probably
way too skimpy with my cheese. But hey, if I want to indulge in this, I need to make some sacrifices.
So there you have it: Cincinnati chili, and you don't have to travel to southwestern Ohio to enjoy it. As promised, here is the
full recipe:
Ingredients
2 pounds lean ground beef
1 quart water, or amount to cover
2 onions, finely chopped
1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons vinegar
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 (1 ounce) square unsweetened chocolate
1/4 cup chili powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
5 whole cloves
5 whole allspice berries
1 bay leaf
Directions
1. Place the ground beef in a large pan, cover with about 1 quart of cold water, and bring to a boil, stirring and breaking up the beef with a fork to a fine texture. Slowly boil until the meat is thoroughly cooked, about 30 minutes, then remove from heat and refrigerate in the pan overnight.
2. The next day, skim the solid fat from the top of the pan, and discard the fat. Place the beef mixture over medium heat, and stir in the onions, tomato sauce, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, chocolate, chili powder, salt, cumin, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, cloves, allspice berries, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to a simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 hours. Add water if necessary to prevent the chili from burning.
What's for dinner at your place tonight?