"Dan Abel" > wrote in message
...
> In article >, "Scott Jensen" >
> wrote:
>
>> I have recently discovered I have a mild allergy to tomatoes. :-(
>>
>> Is there such a thing as tomato-less chili??? If so, recipes or URLs to
>> them please!
>
>
> As I have read and others here have posted, "authentic" chili doesn't have
> any tomatoes in it, or beans. The red color comes from dried, ground red
> chilis. Also, most people who make "authentic" chili don't use hamburger
> either. I happen to like non-authentic chili made with hamburger,
> tomatoes and beans.
>
>
> I understand that there is a restaurant in the Southwest of the US that
> serves many different types of chili, made with different ingredients.
> They don't have anything on the menu that is called simply "chili". When
> customers say they just want a bowl of regular old chili, they are told
> that the restaurant doesn't have that. If the customer insists, then they
> bring them a bowl of chili. No meat, no spices, just green chilis in a
> bowl. I'd love to see the customer's face when they get served that!
>

Chili has its origins as a dish of poor people, cowboys, and the like making
do with what they had. The notion that there is one "authentic" way to make
it is terminally silly and is just something the chili-heads have come up
with so they can act smart telling people that tomatoes or beans or whatever
is not "authentic." Do they really expect any semi-intelligent person to
believe that in the whole history of the southwest, no grandma or chuck
wagon cook ever made a meat stew flavored with chilis and put beans and/or
tomatoes in it?

Peter Aitken