Fightin’ Words

I have been in California 15 years, long enough to make me as flaming a liberal as you may ever want or not want to encounter.

But as they say, “You can take the boy outta Texas, but you can’t take the Texas outta the boy.”

You can imagine my horror, then, when I heard one of my colleagues advocating the inclusion of beans in chili.

I haven’t slept in the last 24 hours.

If ever there were an occasion to say this--and only such craziness could drive me to employ the fundamentalists’ mantra--this is it:

Chili-with-beans is an abomination.

Yes, we can all get along, as the expression goes, but there is a line to be drawn in all matters. And as Texans learn at birth, the less you know and the pettier the issue, often the more authoritative and louder you get about things.

So I admit that I am a novice cook. I can follow a recipe pretty well. In a rare moment, I have experimented--but never strayed far--with ingredients. And I have succeeded in fooling some of my friends into thinking I’m good in the kitchen (they don’t cook).

But what’s troubling me is that this chili-with-beans stuff comes from some smart people, with fine palates. We’re not even fighting over such nonsense as vegetarian chili (long ago laughed off the playing field); we’re not arguing about whether Chasen’s chili could ever stand up to anything out of Terlingua.

We are talking morality.

I imagine these bean advocates to be moral relativists. Always adding things. “Enhancing things.” They probably put salt in beer. Call ketchup “catsup.” They’re the type of nouveau chili-making bandwagon-jumpers who, in their ignorance, buy cowboy boots they have to break in. (Everybody knows that good boots feel great when you put them on and you can walk 100 miles the first day.) Or they’ll settle for a cowboy hat off the rack, without ever knowing you can choose from scads of creases in the crown and different brims, depending on whether you ride in a rodeo or with a real herd.

But I digress.

In Texas, a number of things are sacred. First, of course, is football. Beyond that, I think there’s a bit of leeway in the order of things, depending on who’s in the room. But one of those sacred cows is definitely chili.

Pure, unadulterated, chili. Spices, yes (to produce “Mouth of Hell” chili, for instance); beans, never.

Now I’m not going to argue about the chemistry and the blending of flavors in chili; I’ll leave that to the experts. What it comes down to is the all-purpose principle that every kid who ever grew up in Texas has lived with until he or she could drive or stay out late, out of momma or daddy’s eyesight:

We just don’t do that here.

And its corollary:

We don’t need any of that kind here.

And what we don’t need is chili enhanced with beans.

In the first place, why does chili need “enhancing”? Good chili stands--literally--on its own; any fool knows that. Good chili doesn’t need anything to help you remember it’s there: from the fire on your tongue to the cinder block in your belly and, well, beyond.

Here’s what good chili is all about: It is so fierce it will make you sit up and slap your grandma.

Good chili, on its own, without beans, will make you do crazy, unthinkable things. But one of those is definitely not putting beans in your next batch, dammit.

Perhaps this story will help sum up my position better:

On a trip home to Houston one June, I boarded the bus to transfer from the airport to the rent car office. (In Texas, natives say “rent” car and not “rental”--that’s one way to tell transplants, tourists and other foreigners.) I was the only passenger. In part to keep my mind off the cold (because in Houston all buildings and vehicles are refrigerated, not air-conditioned), but mainly because Texans are just friendly, I decided to strike up a conversation with the driver.

She was a tall, lanky young woman with surprisingly subdued hair and a definite kicked-back, casual approach to her job. I say this because she somehow managed to drive the bus with her left leg dangling up and down without-a-care-in-the-world over her right one, which deftly handled the accelerator and the brake. This was a first for me.

I told her I was from Houston, now living in California, when she offered that she had a brother in Santa Barbara.

Me, lapsing into drawl: “Santa Barbara’s beautiful. Have you been out to visit? You ought to; it’s great.”

She, in syllables as long as . . . Cadillacs: “No. I think I’ll just stay and read about it from here.”

Isn’t that beautiful? Much as she--no doubt--loved her brother, this woman did not need Santa Barbara. She had all she wanted, right there, in Houston.

It was a Texas-sized epiphany. She summed up for me a characteristic I couldn’t--until then--put my finger on: the simplicity of need.

Despite all the bragging about big things in Texas and everything you’ve heard about Neiman’s, there is a simplicity of wants and needs that pervades life in the Lone Star State.

My driver didn’t need Santa Barbara, just as we don’t need beans to enhance our chili.

We have all we need, right here.

Now about my colleague Russ, the bean advocate:

I don’t know what’s gotten into his head.

Russ is a good man. He knows a helluva lot more about food than I ever will. (He even told me how to avoid bitter eggplant.) He’s a fine, upstanding family man; lovely wife, beautiful daughter. He’s the type of neighbor who wouldn’t get worried if, after a week, you still hadn’t returned his power saw (if he had one). He’s the kind of guy you’d trust to watch your house when you went on vacation and who would actually water the plants every day, not just an hour before you pulled into the driveway. He even cut his journalistic teeth in Lubbock, covering religion--er, uh--high school football.

But the sad truth is--and I hate to get into name-calling--Russ is a backslider. He has, as my high school football coach would say, gone the other way.

If you’re from Texas, you know what that means. Perhaps Russ has had too much tequila--or not enough. Maybe he is just trying to get fancy, now that he lives in California and writes for a big fat paper. Or it could be that he just hasn’t been back to Texas enough--as I have, sometimes just to hold off another onslaught of Texas-souvenir gifts that arrive if I’m not there for Christmas. (I think I now have everything in the University of Texas student store.)

Anyway, we still love Russ. We’re trying to tolerate his culinary lifestyle. But when he serves chili with beans, we will not be at his table. The kids will be hurt, but just as with everything else, they’ll understand better when they grow up.

We’ll stand our ground, just as we hold a grudge from one football season to the next. We can wait for Russ. And when he decides to give up beans for the simpler life, we will stretch out our arms and say:

“Come home, Bubba, all is forgiven.”