Chilli con carne, past and present, and there will be a future!

One of the great adventures from rys-vleis-en-aartappels that my Granny undertook from her enthusiastic delving into the Your Family magazine of the seventies, was the making of chilli con carne. I remember us being invited to dinner for the great tasting. It all seemed so exotic. A whole new culinary and gastronomic escapade. I cannot remember if it was the novelty of the dish or its flavour, but the family were delighted with it. It became one of Granny’s staples. Bron and I talked about it over coffee after gym last night and laughed at how it evolved of the years as Granny became more adventurous with her cooking, to a point where no Mexican would recognise it. I think that there was a time that raisins were added? The worst form was curry mince with a tin of baked beans added: I think this was her lazy Saturday night version. It goes to show how we as cooks can lose sight at times of what a dish ought to be as opposed to how we think we can improve it. We all do it. Sometimes a dish doesn’t need to be improved. It’s good in its original form.

Our menu tonight from our Ideas special issue journey had chilli con carne sketched upon it. With a colourful big hat dotting the i’s. The recipe is very clever. It includes colourful vegetables, including translucent onions, red kidney beans, yellow peppers, red and green chillies, and avocado coloured avocado! Son took the lead in preparation tonight and when I got home from gym he had all the ingredients prepped. The chillies had been cut in rings across with all the seeds inside. I tried to very gently suggest that others should be cut lengthways and de-pipped before chopping in order to ensure edibility, but still being a teenager, he HAD to say that he liked them they way he had already cut them. I could already seem myself with lines of earwax melting out of my ears from the chilli heat. But I was wrong. I must have bought the right kind of chillies because the meal was just hot enough that it could be identified as chilli con carne, but not so hot that it caused a conflagration of the mouth and throat.

We live in Durban, so we added a taste of Durban to our supper…rotis instead of nachos or taco shells. I bought the rotis at my favourite little spice shop in Davenport centre. It’s not as fancy and does not have as big a range as Gorima’s or other bigger Indian culinary shops, but the chap who runs it is passionate about his spices and always gives me great advice and translates the ingredients name from Tamil of Hindi into English. There is a copy of Indian Delights there just waiting for me to buy it. He told me a bit about its history, and I HAVE to have one. A dear friend of mine from work, Ayesha, also a food lover, is going to lend me her copy for now. It is a proud piece of South African Indian history that I may make a project of next year.

The mix of veg and mince is not weighed towards the meat entirely, which makes this a healthy meal for my very health conscious Son. He scored the meal at a wholesome 8. I can see it becoming one of his favourites. I just have to warn him about modifications!