KitchenScraps: The Scents of Oklahoma Rain by Matilda Butler

Post #23 – Women’s Memoirs, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett

By Matilda Butler

It’s almost noon when I look up from my math lesson. A glance out the window confirms what I had guessed—what I had smelled. Across the playing fields of Linwood Elementary School, I see the dark Oklahoma storm clouds racing toward us. The rain is coming, the rain is coming.

The first large raindrops splash on the windowsill. Miss Lightfoot dashes to close the classroom window, her thick low-heeled black shoes clomping on the wooden floor. I had smelled the rain coming—willing it to come. For me, rain means a special chili dinner.

Today, almost six decades later, I watch rain falling gently outside my study. Suddenly I smell chili, garlic, cumin, oregano, and onion in the air, although I haven’t even started dinner. If the years weren’t enough of a separation from these childhood scents, there is also distance, fifteen hundred miles. I now live in Silicon Valley where the land yields computer chips rather than Oklahoma City where the land yields oil from under the state capitol itself! Do I still have time today to start a batch of chili?

Rain, especially winter rain in my childhood, brought the likelihood that we would enjoy a spicy, fragrant chili either at El Charrito or at home. A meal out was a rare treat when I was growing up in the 50s. The rain-borne expectation of a restaurant meal was enchanting. Looking back, I realize that El Charrito was doubly unusual. First, it was housed in an Art Deco building in the Paseo District that eventually became an Oklahoma City landmark, an unlikely outside for a Mexican restaurant. Second, the owners had helped to invent Tex-Mex cuisine. Maria Cuellar Alvarado, born in Texas, and her husband Luis Alvarado, born in Mexico, brought together their favorite recipes and unique spices from both sides of the border to create distinctive dishes for the family restaurant they opened in the late 1930s, many years before there was much talk of Tex-Mex.

I fondly remember one evening in 1953 when my father asked the purpose of a sign-up sheet on a battered clipboard next to the cash register. Luis Alvarado told him, “When I left my small village in Mexico, I swore to all my friends that I would not return until I could come back with a fleet of Cadillacs. They laughed at me. Now, I’m taking some of my customers on an auto tour of Mexico. We will make many stops and eat wonderful food. But you can only sign up if you drive a Cadillac. I will enter my village at the head of a long procession of Cadillacs.” My father was intrigued and always willing to test the limits. He responded, “I have a good friend who would like to go, but he drives a Mercedes. Can he sign up?” “No,” said Alvarado, “only if he drives a Cadillac.” My father, a farm boy and villager himself, liked to tell that story over and over.

Meanwhile, my mother was perfecting her chili. The Depression made her forever economical in her grocery purchases, so a cheap chuck roast, coarsely ground by the butcher, was a favorite starting point for the chili recipe. When the beef was well rendered in the cast iron skillet, my mother began to add the tomatoes and seasoning. She always soaked and cooked her own pinto beans, which became the final ingredient. When I married in 1962, she gave me her chili recipe in a small set of recipe cards saying, “These will help you entertain well and cheaply.”

Later, Mother alternated her own recipe with Lady Bird Johnson’s Pedernales River Chili. Recently, I found the newspaper version of the recipe that she had carefully cut out and tucked into a cookbook. I treasure the pair as I now see how she changed Lady Bird’s ingredients to reflect her own tastes—less chili powder, basil instead of oregano, and on the back, a comment to add beans. Always the beans.

Now I’ve computerized all my recipes, adding a brief story to most. Printed copies, a fun Christmas present, are in the hands of my sons. Hopefully they will mean as much to them in the future as having Mother’s recipes mean to me now. Even though I’ve included her recipes with the others I’ve entered into the computer, I still love handling Mother’s handwritten recipe cards.

Fifteen years ago, in an unexpected twist, I became a vegan. Imagine a rare-beef-eating-Oklahoman becoming a vegan. At first I thought I’d have to give up a large number of my favorite childhood dishes. Over time, I’ve found great pleasure in veganizing those recipes, including Mother’s chili. Just as Mother once taught me, chili is again a convivial meal in our household. What can be more satisfying on a rainy day than filling the kitchen with the scents of chili, garlic, cumin, oregano, and onion?

“Matilda. … Matilda.”
My food reverie vanishes. “Yes, Miss Lightfoot?”
“Will you please pick up the papers and bring them to my desk? Then everyone is released for lunch. Please stay inside today. It’s raining.”

Chili tonight. Maria always treats me to a little scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Matilda’s Vegan Oklahoma Chili
Veganizing Mother’s recipe proved to be more difficult than expected. I finally decided to remember the way it tasted and work backwards. Be sure to refrigerate the chili for at least a day to give the spices time to permeate the dish and harmonize. The recipe makes a lot because it freezes well. Add freshly baked corn bread and you’ve set the table for a convivial meal.

Ingredients:
3 c large sized Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP), moistened
with 3 T soy sauce, 2 T liquid smoke, and boiling water to cover
2 large onions, chopped
3 T olive oil
3-5 garlic cloves, minced
1 T cumin
3 T chili powder
1 t chili flakes
2 heaping t dried oregano
2 T Masa Harina or corn flour
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 15-oz can tomato sauce
1 15-oz can Pizza Sauce (I like Muir Glen Organic)
1 14.5-oz can Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes or can of
fresh-style diced tomatoes (Again, I like Muir Glen)
4 cups cooked pinto beans & broth **
4 cups cooked black beans **
Salt, to taste
3 T unsweetened cocoa powder, optional
Chopped cilantro and finely chopped
sweet or red onion (optional toppings)

Prepare TVP and let it sit about 30 minutes, adding more boiling water if necessary to keep “meat” submerged.

Cook onions in olive oil in large soup pan. When wilted, add garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Add cumin, chili powder, chili flakes, and oregano. Stir well.

Add Masa Harina and stir.

Add spaghetti sauce, tomato sauce, pizza sauce, and canned tomatoes.

Add TVP and 8 cups of beans without their cooking broth. Stir well and let cook, adding bean broth as needed for consistency.

Cook for 15-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. This will reduce the amount of liquid and intensify the flavors. Add salt, if needed. If you like a dark, rich chili, add 3 T cocoa powder and stir until absorbed.

Serve with chopped cilantro and fresh chopped onion on top.

** Like my mother, I cook dried beans that have been soaked overnight. But you can substitute canned. If using canned, do not salt until you have tasted the chili as the beans are already salted.

Note: This story was originally published, without photographs, by Story Circle Network in their wonderful cookbook anthology: Kitchen Table Stories

To See Other: KitchenScraps, click here.

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Tagged as: Family Memories, Memoir Vignette, Treasured Family Recipe