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serves up a hot recipe from a company cafeteria
...[we] did not use very much Tabasco.
According to Linda Stradley at What's Cooking America*, chili is a distictively Texan dish whose origins might have been with local native American tribes. The essential proto-chili recipe was probably created by trail cooks working cattle drives. Today there are probably as many different recipes for a "bowl of red" as there are for barbecuing ribs, the other great American Southwest cooking sensation. The recipes for chili are classified into various heat ranges from mild to h-h-hot. These variations are then divided by the kind of meats used, whether or not beans are added (a heresy to many chili aficiondos), and other cultural additions. For many years my own personal favorite was one published in Consumer Reports ages ago. I like chili that is not too mild, not too hot, and the CU version is pretty mild though for many it is a good compromise. There are many recipe sites on the Internet that feature chili recipes such as cooks.com, Recipe Source , All Recipes, and RecipeLand among others. I haven't had the time to try very many so I can't recommend beyond the CU recipe noted above.
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