When I ran out of commercially blended chili powder , I still had the basic ingredients, so I hunted for a recipe of proportions to mix. Instead, I got irrevocably sidetracked by wikipedia’s article on Cincinnati chili, a…
...Mediterranean-spiced meat sauce used as a topping for spaghetti (a "two-way") or hot dogs ("coneys"), both dishes developed by Macedonian immigrant restaurateurs in the 1920s. Ingredients include ground beef, stock, tomato paste, cinnamon, other Mediterranean spices and sometimes chocolate in a soup-like consistency. Other toppings include cheese, onions, and beans; specific combinations of toppings are known as "ways". The name "Cincinnati chili" is often confusing to those unfamiliar with it, who expect the dish to be similar to chili con carne; as a result, it is common for those encountering it for the first time to conclude it is a poor example of chili.
While served in many local restaurants, it is most often associated with the over 250 "chili parlors", restaurants specializing in Cincinnati chili, found throughout greater Cincinnati with franchise locations throughout Ohio and in Kentucky, Indiana, and Florida. The dish is the area's best-known regional food...
The first thing any culture is likely to adopt (and adapt) from first contact with another culture is food. Even from so-called ‘enemies’. Even if/when the adopting culture looks down its nose at the country or culture the food comes from.
In the U.S., we’ve been very speedy to embrace working-people’s cooking brought by new citizens, encountered via military service, or discovered in our backyard: hamburger (Hamburg, Germany), tacos, felafel, milanesa — South-American for chicken fried steak/ Wienerschnitzel from Vienna, Austria, of course —spring rolls, dolma,pizza, bœuf bourguignonne and every other kind of stew and casserole that started their history as peasant dishes.
These days, tourists play a big role in bringing new eating experiences home. For those who travel as a political act, making friends with foreign food is part of making friends with people around the world.
A hitch does sometimes occur in food-as-positive-politics, when our drive for healthier diets —or to break megacorporate strangleholds on food supply, agriculture, and the poisoning of land and water— sometimes backfires. Poor populations where new foods come from may verge toward starvation from unaffordable price hikes of the staples they’ve always generated and relied on that we make ingredients in our adoptive “cuisine” (e.g., quinoa, seafood, etc).
“...we know there’s fish out there, but where god only knows...” — cue Billy Joel (with anonymous violinist Itzhak Pearlman) — 1989 Downeaster Alexa :
Me, I can’t travel anymore, not for decades. So, I notice that more immigrants to the US means more kinds of food. A simple benefit, but basic. It’s a treasure, the cooking they bring to share with us, and if we’re careful and thoughtful with it, we’ll all do our part in solving hunger, here and beyond. Thanks, newcomers! As Mr Rogers would say, welcome to the neighborhood. Immigrant chili, for a metaphorical and actual nourished world.
So, what’s cookin’, friends, what’s to kibitz today, what’s playin’ on our kitchen table raydee-oh?
First kibitznik in the door please do the
HANG COMMUNITY LINKS HERE comment.
Thank you! ;-)