Recipes /
Chili - Hot or Cold
Chili can be hot, and chili can be mild. It's really up to the one doing the seasoning. Spicy dishes that contain beef have been used as a way of using rancid meat by masking the flavour with spice, or so it has been reported. Spices, however, cannot make up for a bad recipe. A good recipe will stand on its own, for quality ingredients combined in tasteful ways always require a minimum of spice. But neither does the hot chili or cayenne take away flavour from a flavourful dish. So make it hot, or make it cold. Not lukewarm.
I remember something I witnessed while living in the Toronto area, on Paisley Boulevard in Mississauga. I was riding the bus home of an evening, and a man in the back of the bus wearing a cowboy hat was smoking a cigarette. The bus driver put his foot down, insisting that the man observe the rule of the city buses and put out the cigarette. There was not a little resentment as the man complied, and after a short time a bus stop was reached where the man with the cowboy hat got off. He began to run, the bus going on its way behind him and signalling for the next left turn. Cutting across the four-lane was the cowboy, who had removed his hat and was whooping audibly in a mock rejoicing at having attained freedom into the open air while he also cut suddenly to the right so as to cross the boulevard without observing the traffic lights and continued whooping loudly and waving his hat the whole time. I saw clearly as the bus followed in its turning the corner onto the same boulevard which was also four lanes, the cowboy hit by a speeding automobile. He was struck from the side as he ran across the street, body careening off the car's windshield and tumbling like a rag doll over the hood of the car, landing on the road where he lay still conscious as the bus passed by with me still on it, continuing on its way up the boulevard called Paisley. It all seemed to happen very fast, but the image of those few minutes has remained in my mind to this day.
Requires a large pot.
