To Bean or Not to Bean

I have no intention of entering the beans vs. no beans debate that rages in some chili circles. This blog is equally written for the fervent no beans purest as well as the anything goes cook who just wants to fill his belly.

But y'all need to know that Food Network celebrity and cookbook author Alton Brown entered the debate last August with the airing of "The Big Chili" episode. In the show's opening scene, guest chefs Grumpy Gus and his sidekick Rusty are riding across the pasture discussing the finer points of America's favorite bowl of red.


Which main chili ingredient(s) is/are missing from the photograph?

In the interest of brevity, 'Round the Chuckbox has cut the unimportant parts of Grumpy's dissertation on chili. The exchange went something like this:

Grumpy: What I'm talking about here, Rusty, is the fact that a good, honest bowl of chili don't need no mushrooms. Don't need no 'taters. Don't need no duck fat. Don't need no chocolate, no jujubes, no ... Why it sure don't need none of that tofu.

Rusty: It sure don't need no beans.

Grumpy: No, it don't need no beans.

Not that there's anything wrong with beans per se.
It's just, well, when a feller's putting his, his fork into something he expects what he's expecting. And if he don't get what he's expecting a feller's likely to get a little disoriented. (Transcript from Good Eats Fan Page.)

"The Big Chili" next airs on March 1, 2005 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Frankly, I don’t give a hoot. I eat my chili with or without beans.

And, no, I'm not a nutritional anthropologist. Yes, it's true that I took some interesting -- and sometimes weird -- classes from one at UC Davis.

Now on to more pressing issues.

Enjoy ...