15 November Tuesday

I’ve written about a number of foods on this blog, all of which brought joy, but which ones bring comfort? Why is a grilled cheese with tomato soup more comforting than a tomato salad? Or is it? Perhaps those who grew up eating raw tomato salads find them more comforting than a grilled cheese, who knows? Almost all Asian dishes I’ve made have been what I’d call comforting, even though most of them don’t have cheese or yeast bread or other American-type things we consider comforting. Ginger, garlic, chili paste, sesame oil, are comforting.

Thanksgiving is but a week away, and I do not consider the meal to be comfort food. Indeed, quite the opposite. Even though we may enjoy the meal, and revel in the seconds maybe thirds, it violates one of the cardinal notions of comfort food- it is easy to put together. Thanksgiving is a labor of love, it is one of the very menus enshrined, sacred. It is the closest thing we have to a prescribed ritual meal in our culture.

For lunch and dinner today, and probably tomorrow, Chili con carne, or as it is commonly called, Chili. Now Chili is a controversial dish, as there are versions in Texas, New Mexico and all over the Southwest, and there are many variants in the Southeast and Northeast. All of them vie for supremacy, the chili cook offs, the beans or no beans nonsense. Do you pile it on a piece of cornbread? Do you like oyster crackers, Saltines, tortilla chips? Do you serve it on spaghetti? On a hot dog? Do you put additional raw onion, cilantro, sour cream on top? I mean, it’s not nonsense to those that are passionate. I am not afraid to embrace my Ohio roots. I like a little ketchup with hash browns and scrambled eggs. What really, I mean for the love of pete, is wrong with iceberg lettuce? Nothing, it’s delicious. So, what then of a ground beef chili with green peppers, onions, tomatoes, black beans or any beans, a few spices, saltine crackers and cheddar cheese?

Another of mom’s cooking tips-

Take the onions, garlic, and tomatoes and blend them to a liquid then pour over the beef as it is cooking. It makes for a very thick but not rich sauce, it brings everything together. I have cooked it this way since I was in college.

Speaking of which, I once made a huge pot of this chili in my dorm kitchen in London. Several of my friends had never had what they call Chili con carne, so we pooled our resources and put one together. It was a cold and rainy Saturday, I was feeling nostalgic for home, we were eating and drinking and laughing. By the end of the afternoon, a few of use had eaten so much chili we had to lay down on the hard kitchen floor and moan and wail for about forty five minutes. I have never overeaten so much before or since.

Not even tonight, when the cold, late autumn air pierces every energy inefficient crevice of the apartment, and it is filled with the scent of meat and spices rich and rare, the crackle of chips as they rain into the bowl, the steaming hot stew, soup, whatever it is. More like a stew, then the shower of golden sharp cheddar. All is well. Perhaps even a old comedy on the tv set.

Why can’t things be like they was? Well, funny, things change and they don’t. The things we loved we still love. The smell of green peppers cooking in the pot is the same as it was when generations before cooked them. Food is comfort food, cook and eat well.