America’s best chili? Sez who?

Lists are, as I have mentioned here before, the big ticket item of the Internet age. I have read a little about why lists such as “The Best 100 Places Not To Live” and “The 50 Places Where You Wouldn’t Want To Be Caught Dead” are such popular Web fare. One reason is that lists are quick reads that capture your attention. As for other reasons, I hesitate to reveal them lest someday I might want to use them for a list.

Writers do not necessarily have to go out and hunt down material for their lists. That is both good and bad. It’s good in it saves time and money for the magazine. It’s bad because it saves time and money for the magazine. I mean the best way to write about a subject, if at all possible, is to get out and literally see it and touch it. It’s like one of my favorite Jimmy Buffett lines: “Don’t try to describe a KISS concert if you’ve never seen one … ”

This subject comes to mind thanks to a list with very misguided information published by Bon Appetit magazine denoting “America’s Best 10 Chili Places.”

Now I have never visited any of the 10 listed  places the writer suggests are America’s best because, as the writer rightly acknowledges, I like others feel my own chili is the best. The No. 1 chili spot might well deserve a place on the list. At least I have heard of it. Perhaps that is because I have heard colleagues of mine in Washington, D.C., mention Ben’s Chili Bowl before. I’ve never eaten there. The reason is that I have a rule semi-written in semi-stone that says not to seek out cuisine when visiting a good distance from home which you can find that is much better in your own back yard or on your own table.

I did eat some nachos at the restaurant-bar in my Kansas City hotel the night I arrived but only because I was hungry and nothing else on the menu looked good at the time. Why not nachos? Texas. That is where I’m from and where I live, son. Or as that Lone Star poet Ray Wylie Hubbard half-sings: “Screw you, we’re from Texas.”

My own home state is also why I am displeased with the “best chili” list. Only one Texas selection is listed, that being Tolbert’s Restaurant in Grapevine, Texas. I can’t say for certain whether Tolbert’s would be a good pick since I have never eaten there. The late journalist and chili aficionado Frank Tolbert was known for his contributions which made chili the “national food of Texas.” At least the magazine writer shows his appreciation for a bit of the Texas history of a “bowl of red.”

The fact is, chili is a Texas dish through and through although with its name en español, chili con carne or chili peppers with meat, it sounds exotically Latino much like Chop Suey sound Chinese. There is some dispute over the origin of chili. Some say it was the product of Canary Islanders who settled in San Antonio in the early 18th century. And despite the lore of the Mexican “chili queens” who hawked their bowls of the aromatic dish while dressed in brightly, colored dresses on the San Antonio streets of the 1880s, the cowboy connection to chili remains a popular theory or myth depending on who tells you the tale.

Legend has it that cowpokes from Texas on the great cattle drives of the late 19th century would eat chili served by their Mexican cooks who brought along some of their native spices and hot peppers. This meat for this chili allegedly came from leather-tough longhorn cattle, which after being spiced and peppered up while cooking for long periods of time, turned out to be pretty good.

Whatever the origins one might want to believe the starting point for chili pretty much always begins somewhere in the Lone Star State. That is why only one chili place in Texas — rated No. 9 out of 10 at that — is sort of a disgrace to the memory of the Texans who contributed to that spicy, gut-filling dish which can be eaten any day of the year but is really great on cold days such as we have experienced over the past winter in much of the U.S. Speaking of which, I had some chili, albeit on a hot dog, today at James Coney Island. JCI is a Houston chain of hotdog restaurants started in the mid-1920 when Tom and James Papadakis, Greek immigrants, made their way to Houston and began a dynasty from the $75 in their pockets. The brothers flipped a coin, according to company history, to decide which one’s name would grace the sign of the eatery. If you can’t guess which one called the right side then no chili for you!  The hotdog chili was good at the I-10 restaurant, just as I remembered it from a previous dine-in, and I saw quite a few folks who seemed to be very happy with just a bowl of the JCI red on the rainy, cold February day.

Was the chili as good as mine? No way, Jose.

Probably my favorite chili joint is the Texas Chili Parlor in Austin. I have eaten there, mostly for their chili burgers but also for their bowl of what I liken to Goldilocks sampling the famed bowls of porridge. The parlor, only a block or two from the State Capitol, features bowls of chili distinguished by their heat factor. There is from least hot to hot, hot, hot:  X, XX and XXX (X is too mild, XXX is too hot, but XX is just right!) I’ve always liked their burgers and their chili, but since most of my business over the years were in the vicinity of the Capitol it was a handy place with a cozy atmosphere. The place is festooned with all manners of crapola and judging by the pols or reporters you see who come in for a meal or cold one you see Texas isn’t as large as one would think the second largest state should be.

I would also recommend the chili at Jason’s Deli. The homegrown Beaumont chain has a heck of a deal offering half of one of their sandwiches and a bowl of soup. This includes gumbo and chili. My favorite is a “Half Muff Special,” which is a half muffaletta with a bowl of soup, chili or gumbo. Their seafood gumbo is very good but the chili is tasty as well.

Unfortunately, I cannot offer suggestions for Texas chili made at Texas restaurants other than the two I have offered. It is just too hard to improve on perfection and that is my own bowl of red. I just believe as a hardcore Texas chili-head that only one of the best 10 bowls of chili can be found in my home state has got to be hogwash. If you think I am being pig-headed, ethnocentric, melodramatic or any of those other multi-syllabic words then you are correct. No. 5 best in New York City. New York City?