Skyline Chili is a perfect food and I will not tolerate any slander about it. We can agree that Cincinnati chili infused as a sauce with cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and God knows what else bears little resemblance to the stews studded with beans or hunks of beef that other regions of this great country might recognize as chili. . But that doesn’t justify the torrent of bile that Cincinnati chili receives from those unaccustomed to its pleasures. (Deadspin notoriously, he called it “the worst regional food in America or anywhere” and “an abominable garbage sauce.” ) But for those of us who grew up in the Greater Cincinnati area, this stuff is breast milk — Mom’s cookies, even; It’s a Cincinnati thing, look it up – and it’s the pride of the Queen City, alongside Graeter’s ice cream, goetta and LaRosa’s pizza. I say “Greater Cincinnati Area” because I’m technically from across the Ohio River in Northern Kentucky, but in my defense, so is the Cincinnati Airport, and you can discuss that with them. I’ll be here eating my Skyline Chili for Three (I’ll explain) with an oyster cracker and a hot sauce chaser.
Where does Cincinnati chili come from?
The story of Cincinnati-style chili is – like many of the best things in American culture – an immigrant story. According to the food historian Dann Woellertthe magnificently complete book of The Authentic History of Cincinnati Chili (he is also the author of Goetta of Cincinnati, Cincinnati Candy, Historic Cincinnati RestaurantsAnd Cincinnati wine: an effervescent history so yes, the man knows his local traditions) In 1920, brothers Tom and John Kiradjieff immigrated from Hroupisa, Macedonia (now part of northern Greece) to Cincinnati, where their older brother Argie had established himself as grocer two years ago. The city center in which the brothers settled had become an enclave for Macedonian men who had immigrated during the pre-World War I unrest. When the young brothers opened a shop under the name Empress Chili Parlor in a corner of the Empress Burlesk Theater building in 1922, they had a built-in audience hungry for the flavors of home. American diners were already familiar with Coney Island hot dogs topped with chili, but the Kiradjieff brothers put their own spin on it, adapting a spicy Mediterranean stew with cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon, and adding chili powder with other spices they had grown. with. According to Woellert, it was unlike anything the majority Germanic population had ever tasted, and a local obsession was born.
Is there chocolate in Cincinnati chili?
When you grew up in the Greater Cincinnati area like me, where coneys and three-ways (I promise to explain soon) were on regular rotation in the school cafeteria, and chili-centric restaurants are ” salons” and you don’t know why. they would be called anything else, it is passed down as fact that Cincinnati chili is based on Greek dishes like moussaka and pastichio. Many food writers have espoused this theory, and there are plenty of Greek-Americans in the local chili business, but Woellert rejects this theory. His argument is that the components of the dish that make this comparison—for example, the cheese that covers any respectable Cincinnati chili concoction—arrived much later, and the only elements that chili itself shares with pastichio are the cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. According to his research, the original menu consisted of plain chili dogs and chili spaghetti (a familiar American dish at the time), along with all other adaptations – such as chili served over the pasta rather than mixed, and the aforementioned cloud of cheddar – came at the request of Empress customers. Chili, Woellert asserts, is an Americanized Slavic-Mediterranean stew, adapted to local tastes, not moussaka or a descendant of pastichio. (I don’t know, fight me at the Cincinnati airport. The loser treats us both to lunch at Gold Star Chili in the food court.)
And while we’re busy busting myths, even though many “copied” online recipes include chocolate or cocoa powder, when Cincinnati Investigator Reporter Kathrine Nero asked local chili parlor owners about the contents of their proprietary spice blends, and none of them agreed to include it. This revelation goes against everything I was taught growing up, and my reality is now crumbling like so many oyster cookies – another crucial part of my threesome ideal, and I promise you, We are almost there.
You understand, but where does Skyline Chile come from?
Before long, Empress was no longer the only chili game in town. According to Dixie Chili Website, in 1928, a Greek immigrant named Nicholas Sarakatsannis stopped by Empress Chili looking for work and the owner (presumably one of the Kiradjieff brothers) told him to put on an apron. Over the next few months, Sarakatsannis perfected his own chili recipe, found a space on the Kentucky River side of Newport to avoid competing, and set up shop there as Dixie Chili. In 1940, the James Beard America’s Classics Award, winner Chili from Camp Washington firmly planted its feet near the stockyards that gave the city its nickname “Porkopolis.” A few years later, Nicholas Lambrinides left Kastoria, Greece to seek his fortune in America, opening the doors to his first Chile skyline restaurant atop Price Hill on Cincinnati’s West Side in 1949. In 1964, Jordanian brothers Dave, Charlie, Frank and Basheer Daoud pooled their money to buy the Hamburger Heaven restaurant on the city’s East Side and , in 1965, they changed the name to reflect their obsession with their remarkable dish: Gold Star Chili. These places – and a myriad of others like Nice chili (1964), Chili Time (1969), and more – remain open to this day (unfortunately, beloved newcomer OTR Chile closed in April 2022just before his second birthday).
How to order Cincinnati chili with confidence?
Each chili parlor may vary in its spice blend and presentation—a bay leaf here, cumin there—but they share a lingua franca in the form of (finally!) the “lane” system. It began as shorthand slang for chili parlor servers, and is coded as such:
One Way: Just a bowl of chili. Order it like that if you want, but you’re missing something. And no one talks about “one way”.
Bidirectional: Chili and spaghetti. Which is fine, but unless you avoid dairy or are allergic to joy, that’s not what you’re here for. Again, “bidirectional” isn’t really a thing; call it chili spaghetti.
Three ways: This is where things go well. It’s chili spaghetti, topped with a nimbus of soft, shredded cheddar. It’s perfectly fine to stop here. It is a golden glory.
Four paths: This can be done in two ways, adding onions or beans to determine how the rest of the day will go for you.
Five ways: All bets are off. You get both onions and beans and bless your heart.
Let’s move on to the gingerbread stuff:
Coney: This will give you a chili dog on a bun, may include mustard, and unless asked, will be topped with onions. According to salon nomenclature, this might be called a “plain coney.”
Cheese cone: This chili dog has a halo of cheese, you’re in luck.
Chili sandwich: This is pretty much what it sounds like, but it’s a more generous serving of chili.
Chili-cheese sandwich: You understood.
Alligator or lizard: The details vary, but it usually means there’s a spear of dill pickle next to the dog on this bun.
How to eat Cincinnati chili without people being mean to you?
A word of warning if you eat chili spaghetti in public: I once saw my mother get skinned by a fellow Skyline customer, not for ordering wrong, but for twirling her spaghetti with a fork rather than cutting them into bites with a knife. There’s local pride, and then there’s just being a jerk. (I challenged him to a fight at the Cincinnati airport but I guess he got lost crossing the river.)
Why are people so bad about Cincinnati chili in general?
Again, this is not to excuse this man’s behavior towards my mother – a woman of Italian descent who didn’t move to the area until her early 30s so of course she flipped – but when the regional specialty that is dear to you is regularly slandered, you are a little on the defensive. Anthony Bourdain called the Cincinnati pepper a “mutant hybrid.” A Tennessee Titans fan made headlines with a “Cincinnati chili sucks” sign during a recent NFL playoff game against the Bengals (who WON, thank you very much). New York Mets play-by-play commentator Gary Cohen’s comment about “disgusting chili sauce” trending on Twitterand even Cincinnati Investigator Editor-in-chief Dan Horn got involved, coming up with a column in which he declared:I hate Cincinnati chili.”
I try not to take it personally, but I do. An ugly baby is still someone’s child.
The above Dead thread article in particular, it got under my skin. The sports news site isn’t exactly known for its subtle stances, but the writer went all out on his animosity toward the Cincinnati Chili, calling it “abominable garbage sauce” and “sludge.” horrible diarrhea. He even said that Skyline Chile had perverted what should have been “an ethnic curiosity born of immigrant DIY” into “a huge, monolithic private equity enterprise that generates interest in its undeniably odious product.” » A person’s “Z in bad taste.” “next level atrocity” is the thing another person (me) serves at their wedding to celebrate their origin. Even Fran Lebowitz, a world-class curmudgeon, is checked in as a fan.
Can you get Skyline Chili even if you’re not in Cincinnati?
At home in Brooklyn, surrounded by glorious foodstuffs, I always get canned Skyline Chili (although I was delighted when my dad also sent me Dixie, Empress, and Gold Star) and keep it for myself; other people may not like it or understand it, and I can’t stand to see a single drop wasted. And when I go back to Cincinnati – rare these days, but it happens – I fly to that airport, then hit the nearest Skyline Chili. I play with the iconic blue straw at my table while waiting for my trio to arrive, filled with cheese and smelling as nostalgic as the perfume my mother wore. After the last bite of spaghetti, I’ll open the package of oyster crackers that came with me and crush them into the last traces of chili on the plate. Some people mix these crackers with oysters at first, others dab them individually in hot sauce to cleanse the palate between bites. It’s not for me to judge. That’s the great thing about Cincinnati chili: you can enjoy it your way.
