In the beginning there was no chili, only the darkness created by a void of chili.
The beginning lasted 18 years. I liked soup, I liked stew, I liked most of the things that go into chili (e.g. ground beef, chicken, spices, tomato, etc.), but for whatever reason I never tried chili.
That all changed in January 1998 at a mess hall at Denison University, a liberal arts college in Granville, Ohio. If Oberlin College could have its liberated women with hairy armpits then Denison could have a freshman with a devil-may-care attitude who didn't mind throwing caution to the wind by making his first bowl of chili dining hall chili.
Admittedly, I wouldn't have tried it on my own--not in a college dining hall anyway--but I figured if it was good enough for my roommate, the same person who already had turned me on to ramen noodles and sushi, then it was good enough for me.
"You eat that stuff?" I remember asking him.
"Yeah. It's good," he said.
And as I took that first bite I remember thinking, "It is good! This is how God felt after creating the heavens and the earth, the night and the day.
"Chili is good."
My first real chili experience? A Super Bowl XX party at a neighbor’s house. I never realized one could make chili. I had only eaten the kind my mom would buy at the store, either from cans, or as my mom claims, some kind of frozen brick of chili she would warm up in a skillet. I also thought chili had to include hot dogs, because my mom would slice them into the chili to serve over toast. I remember being surprised to find a crock-pot full of real, honest to goodness chili at the Kriesky’s Super Bowl party. It was delicious.
ReplyDeleteTo this day, I associate 1985s “Super Bowl Shuffle” not with football, but with my first taste of homemade chili.