Wow. I’ve been getting a lot of email about the VeggieTale Roadkill. Tom and Anne both wrote back about what it takes to make real chili, and Angela even went so far as to send a vegetarian chili recipe with no end of spicy ingredients (jalapeno peppers, four garlic cloves, two tablespoons of chili powder, another of cayenne hot pepper sauce and so on).
Of course, it’s always a good idea to be cautious when making spicy chili. In some parts of the country (particularly in Texas), it’s not at all uncommon for small towns to be completely destroyed when some fool enters a chili competition with an entry that requires a number of alarms greater than the number of nearby fire companies.
And it’s not just the small towns that have this problem. Chicago had a big fire department in the 1860 but by 1871 the city fathers had become complacent. The cow takes all the blame, but most historians overlook the fact that there was also a chili cookoff that weekend.