A Super Bowl of Chili - News

A Super Bowl of Chili

Tuesday, Jan 29, 2008 - 09:00 PM Updated: 09:20 PM

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By LEE BARNES

TIMES-DISPATCH FEATURES EDITOR

If you're serving food at your Super Bowl party, you really need to stick with the basic football food groups: hot dogs and/or hamburgers, chicken wings and chili.

We say chili. But it's got to be genuine, spicy chili.

Another newspaper in Virginia recently published a feature on "Super Bowl Chili" that included some recommended garnishes: sliced black olives, smoked almonds, sour cream, sprouts and raisins.

Sprouts and raisins?

Maybe you serve chili like that for the figure-skating finals, but not for the Super Bowl.

There are a lot of chili recipes out there, including dishes that look like spaghetti sauce, beef stew, hot spinach dip, noodle casserole, chunky catfood and worse. These alleged chilis pack all the punch of a Boy Scout's love letter.

There are rules for making a truly super Super Bowl chili:

NO BEANS. NONE.

No garnishes, except for maybe some thinly sliced fresh habanero peppers to get folks' undivided attention. If anyone wants to put sour cream on your chili, send them home with a cookie and a note to their mother.

Tomato sauce, but in moderation. Only Texans like chili with no tomato sauce.

Lots of chili powder. Why do you think it's called "chili" instead of "meat" or "tomato"?

If it doesn't have cumin, it isn't chili.

Our favorite chili is spicy, but it doesn't have to be hot. You can adjust the amount of cayenne pepper to your guests' threshold of pain.

If anyone complains about the lack of beans, drive them to Wendy's and shove them out the door.

We've also included a recipe for a spicy vegetarian chili, which is a contradiction in terms. We'll call it Spicy Bean Dish Thing.

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