It's the perfect combination: homemade chili & good music
A good bowl of chili is like a good song—it tells a story. And like writing a song, cooking chili is an exploration. Start with a lyric or an ingredient, a loose melody or improvised recipe and go to town.
Stir, simmer, step away. Come back and taste. Add touches of this and that, a pinch to give a note of cinnamon or cayenne. In a few hours you have a moveable feast that gathers friends and family just about anywhere. That familiarity of scent, of sound, comforts and entices us to go back for seconds, even thirds.
On a warm September evening, a hint of autumn in the light breeze as I prepare chili for my neighbor, it dawns on me—chili is the culinary equivalent to an American folk song. I toast garlic, corn, and Cubanelle peppers in olive oil, throwing in guesstimations of seasonings that straddle a flavor highway somewhere between Austin and Cincinnati. By the time I’m browning the beef I’m tapping my cowboy boots, humming “Streets of Laredo.”
I pour in a can of Hutton & Smith Rocktoberfest and a cup of double-strength coffee. The “soup of the devil,” a label reportedly coined by 18th Century Spanish priests, bubbles and turns a dark, fiery crimson. The boil gets me singing that old New Orleans standard, “St. James Infirmary Blues.”
Maybe it’s watching the harmonious fusion of varied ingredients, but I drift into random connections of the origins of these two songs, kin to one another in melodic and lyrical lineage traced to Irish ballad “The Unfortunate Rake” and British sea shanty “Spanish Ladies.” I add tomato sauce, turn down the heat, and let it blend.
My neighbor, Janice Myers, comes over for dinner.
“Mmmm. It smells so good,” she says. “I’ve been waiting for this all day.”
Janice, who has lived on the North Shore for 46 years, grew up just across the Georgia line and recalls her mother getting chili bricks from Charlie Powell Meats in St. Elmo in the 1970s. Marrying and starting her own family, chili bricks became the basis of her recipe, which includes pinto beans and hot dogs.
“When my son was little he loved hot dogs so I’d cut them up to mix in with the ground beef.”I ask Janice if she think's there’s a connection between chili and music.
“You know,” she says, pausing for that first sip of chili, “when I think about chili I always think about hungry cowboys out there riding the lonely range and sitting around a campfire eating bowls of chili. I picture them playing that instrument you play, the harmonica.”
Interestingly, Janice’s chili brick is a concept originated by chuck wagon cooks in the 1800s. Made from dried beef and seasonings, they were easily transported in saddle bags and easily prepared by adding water and heat, making them a staple on cattle drives.
Chattanooga’s own travelin’ outlaw balladeer, Roger Alan Wade, happens to be an affirmed chili devotee. He’s penned songs for the likes of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and George Jones, among others, and when I tell him my neighbor’s story he seizes on it immediately.
“Man, that’s just a wonderful image. She has a poet’s eye. I can tell you that,” Roger says. “I think probably the cornerstone of American music is basically a chili brick and a harmonica.”
There’s an intuitive nature to music and chili that needs no roadmap. It comes from the heart.“It always seems we end up making our music the same way my favorite chilies are made. I ain’t much on recipes,” Roger says. “I never let a recipe or formula get in the way of chili or music. You just wing it and dig on the results and see where the mistakes lead you. Hopefully that keeps it interesting. On both accounts, with the chili and the music.”
American songwriter Harlan Howard is credited for saying you only need three chords and the truth to play country music. Woody Guthrie reportedly threw in a fourth chord if he wanted to impress a lady. And all you really need to make a comforting pot of chili are three ingredients: ground beef, diced tomatoes, and beans. Spices kick in that special fourth chord.
“They go hand in hand like that, as far as chili and this kind of music that I wound up making,” Roger says. “It seems like they’re both best when they’re kept simple and honest. The fewer bells and whistles the better. Seems when something’s done right you don’t need smoke and mirrors. It’s got to stand up on its own.”
Roger has just returned from Los Angeles where he recorded more than two dozen tracks for his seventh studio album. Produced by Johnny Knoxville, his chili-lovin’ cousin and co-host of their “Big Ass Happy Family Jubilee” radio show on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country channel, the forthcoming album has a tentative title but let’s just say it’s simmering.
“You know there’s a place for canned chili and canned music, I guess. I prefer homemade chili and homemade music,” Roger says. “Chili and music, they’re two things you don’t really have to be good at as far as making it to enjoy.” He does, however, add, “They’re two things, you see, that take a moment to learn and a lifetime to master.”
While his songwriting firmly roots him among master lyricists, cooking continues to elude Roger and he fully admits to being the world’s worst cook. Fortunately, he’s got a well-versed family to satisfy tuned-in chili cravings.
Among Roger’s favorite renditions are daughter Shandy’s “Never Ending Monterey Black Bean Crock-Pot Delight” and his brother and sister-in-law Richie and Shannon’s “Football Time in Tennessee Mystery Concoction,” which according to Roger, anybody walking by just throws something in when nobody’s looking, making it all the better.
“It’s a social dish and it’s not pompous in any way. Hell, everybody’s going to like it. It sort of enhances a good mood and cures a bad mood,” he says.
When chili’s on, what’s on Roger’s playlist? “I’ve been getting by so long on chili and music. The soundtrack pretty much remains the same,” he says. “Bob Dylan and The Band. Hank Williams and Lucinda Williams. Robert Johnson. My buddy Cecil Allen Moore. My grandson Roland Dixon. Willie Nelson and John Prine. Otis Redding and Guy Clark. Billy Joe Shaver and Emmylou (Harris). That and a good bowl of chili pretty much gets me through the day. And a good guitar.”
As with music, everyone has different tastes—and tolerance for temperature. I like the heat but tend to ride the breaks for a diverse audience, letting guests customize bowls from a selection of hot sauces.
Aaron “The Hoff” Hoffman, co-founder and maestro of Hoff & Pepper, Chattanooga’s award-winning hot sauce company says, “I, obviously, love condiments and I like my chili to be a great vehicle for adding on other flavors. Like salt, you can always add more heat, but you can’t remove it.”
It’s the extra notes, that fourth chord that opens up a versatility in each dish. “My personal favorite is the standard Hoff Sauce as it adds a great amount of spicy twang to chili, but if I’m wanting to add more smoky chipotle flavor with higher heat, I reach for Smoken Ghost. It really depends on what I’m craving,” he says. “In addition to Hoff Sauce, I’m a big fan of fresh sliced jalapeños or habaneros to add a crunchy snap to my bowl of red.”For Hoff, songs and chili have a natural correlation.
“Me and my wife, Michelle—aka Pepper—once threw a chili cook off at our home for twenty of our friends. We both love to collect vinyl and our friends brought their own as well, so we had a great time trying everyone’s chili and listening to everyone’s favorite albums,” he says.He also agrees with Roger’s assessment that a key to good chili and music is honesty. And you can’t get more honest than this tip from Hoff.
“The best way to make your chili stand apart is to make your own chili powder. Toasting and grinding your own spices is a game changer,” he says. “Also, making your own beef stock is so much better than store bought stocks.”
You can actually experience the Hoff’s signature recipe live in concert, so to speak. Basecamp Bar and Grill on Frazier Avenue features Hoff’s Award-Winning Chili on their menu.
So, what’s on Hoff’s chili-making playlist?
“I would have to say Pavement, Archers of Loaf, The Rolling Stones, The Cure, JEFF the Brotherhood, Built to Spill, Kurt Vile, and, no pun intended, Diarrhea Planet.”
If you take your chili playlist literally, musicians from Elvis Presley to Kid Rock have sung about eating chili. From Hank Williams singing, “You’ll be daffy I’ll be dilly / We’ll order up two bowls of chili settin’ the woods on fire”; and yes, to Roger Alan Wade singing, “Going to leave all my doors unlocked and going to keep my cabinets stocked up with chili. I’m a calypso hillbilly.”
“Chili and hillbilly music—folk music, whatever you want to call it—are pretty portable,” Roger says. “You don’t need much electricity. They’re self-sustaining. You just kinda grab the guitar and go or grab your bowl and get yourself some chili.”
Jason Tinney is the author of “Ripple Meets the Deep” and two collections of poetry and prose, “Louise Pairs and Other Waltzes” and “Bluebird”. As an actor, Jason recently starred in “Free To Go”, which premiered at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre in 2018.