There are some subjects you can research from a safe distance.
Texas chili is apparently not one of them.
When I started working on the history of chili for Way Out West, I thought the beans-or-no-beans question would be a fun little sidebar. I quickly discovered that asking Texans whether beans belong in chili is less a culinary question than an invitation to choose sides.
Historically, it's more interesting than either camp would have you believe. The chili con carne sold by San Antonio's Chili Queens was built around meat and chile peppers, but beans certainly existed alongside chili and eventually found their way into plenty of bowls. The strict definition of Texas chili as a beanless "bowl of red" became part of a tradition that people take very seriously.
Then the research took an unexpected turn.
I went to Tolbert's Chili Parlor to film a reel about the debate and wound up having lunch with Kathleen Tolbert, daughter of Frank X. Tolbert—the Dallas newspaperman who quite literally wrote A Bowl of Red and helped start the original Terlingua chili cook-off.
Kathleen gave me a copy of her father's book. And then invited me to come judge chili at Terlingua in November.
So after innocently deciding to investigate whether beans belong in chili, I may now be heading to one of the places where putting beans in the pot is grounds for disqualification.
Research has its consequences.
Thanks for making this kind of work possible. I can't wait to share more of these little discoveries as I uncover them. —☆