Chili As Apparently Made In Chicago

Keep in mind the small amount of beef in this recipe the whole time we're making this.

Chili 1 pound ground beef 12 scallions or 1 large onion, chopped ½ of a (20-oz) can chopped tomatoes, or 2 chopped and peeled medium tomatoes 1 16-oz can beans, drained ¾ cup water Salt, chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, etc to taste Brown the beef in a large skillet with a lid. Drain the fat unless using very lean meat. Add the onions, tomatoes, beans, and water. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer for one hour. Add the seasonings about 5 or 10 minutes before you turn off the heat. (I've found that simmering dried spices for an hour cooks away all the flavor, which makes the house smell great but leaves the food bland.) Source: Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933, via The Internet Archive

Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933

Since I live in Texas, you'd think I wouldn't have to go up to Illinois and 90 years into the past for a chili recipe. But I was curious to see what might have appeared on tables where chili is a food and not a religion. Turns out that like every other pot of the stuff I've ever made, it starts with beef.

At the sight of the greasy pan, our household's local chapter of the Society for the Conservation of Beef Fat called an emergency meeting. The recipe never mentions draining the meat, but we all agreed that no one wants to greasy chili. I know that some chili purists will mechanically repeat the mantra "fat equals flavor", but this was a lot. Like, you could probably get a half-batch of pizzelles out of this.

Also, the recipe calls for "ground round steak" and we used 80% hamburger. Maybe period-correct meat wouldn't have turned our skillet into a grease pit. And so, we drained the meat and economically saved the drippings for another time.

History doesn't always repeat, but it often rhymes.

Speaking of economizing, Mrs. Mary Martensen's chili only uses a half-can of tomatoes, thus allowing us to save the rest for another day. Tomatoes are one of the cheapest vegetables on the canned food aisle, so you know times are tough when you're splitting them in half. 

Setting aside the can opener, our recipe economizes on time as well as grocery money. This is all the knife-work required for the entire recipe. I think I spent more time peeling the onion than cutting it.

And here is where you can really tell this recipe comes from hard times: this is everything we're using to stretch the beef. Keep in mind how puny the meat looked by itself in the pan. 

The onion slices were impossible to stir into the pan, so I laid them on top and hoped they'd mix in better after they softened in the steam.

Now in Texas, chili is a religion. Multi-generational feuds have been launched over a half-teaspoon of liquid smoke. People with pure hearts and true beliefs can argue for multiple days about whether garlic powder is a heretical shortcut (or if garlic should be permitted at all). But I think all of them would agree that noodles are sacrilege. And even those who permit noodles would agree that you don't boil them for an hour.

However, Mrs. Mary Martensen's chili isn't meant to win any cookoff prizes. It is for you, the housewife of 1933, whose grocery budget consists of a few pennies leftover from last week. Also, this recipe comes from Chicago in the 1930s. It was still an industrial town. No amount of noodle-free purism would hold up against a table full of people who just got home from a long shift. So, noodles it is.

Even after I decided to include the noodles, I thought I'd skip simmering them for an hour. But then I wondered if this would come out better than I thought. Perhaps the noodles absorb a lot of the chili flavors. Or, maybe they would dissolve and turn into an economical thickener. 

In the absence of a lid, we pressed foil on top of the pan as best we could. The chili barely fit in there, so we had to use a lot of pressure to keep it in place. Again, I have to give credit to Mrs. Mary Martensen and the home economics staff of The Chicago American. They made a single pound of beef nearly overflow the skillet.

As is customary with chili, I was going to make cornbread to go with it. Then I realized that the noodles made it redundant. Mrs. Mary Martensen really is looking out for her readers: she got meat, vegetables (if you count a half-can of tomatoes), and bread into a single, nearly-overflowing pot.

I did not stay in the house for the entire one-hour simmering time. When I returned from some errands, every room smelled like really, really good chili. Given the small amounts of seasonings, I was surprised. 

But when the time was close to over, I sampled a spoonful and immediately shook a lot of chili powder into the skillet. I'm going to charitably assume that this recipe's tiny doses of seasonings were meant as a starting point rather than the absolute final amount. Otherwise, anyone following this recipe would have eaten some very bland meat. 

On the positive side, I liked how the onion rings had turned into long noodles. It helped their flavor stand out more than if I'd chopped them. However, the actual noodles had turned to slime. As a result, our chili had become a slithery porridge that happened to have meat in it. You had to imagine your way past a lot of slippery, half-disintegrated noodles before you could like what you were eating.

But before I complain about the noodles too much, I have to note that I wasn't hungry again for hours. Like, some dinners have you drifting back to the kitchen before bed, but with this you're good until tomorrow. And that's worth a lot on a Depression-era grocery budget.

To give the recipe a better shake, I made it again without any noodles. I also tripled the seasonings and added some truly uncalled-for garlic. Omitting the pasta meant I economized on time since I didn't have to get out a strainer and a second pot. Also, the supermarket nearest me sells French bread for embarrassingly cheap, so we still economized on ingredients.

If you triple the seasonings and serve noodles on the side (if at all), this recipe is a pretty good way to make an easy meal-- even if it's not the most exciting. Even without the noodles, that single pound of beef went an astonishingly long way. And it was good enough that I was happy to have the leftovers. I wouldn't take this to a chili contest, but it's great for dinner at home.