Mastering the Semi‑Pornographic Lexicon of Cincinnati Chili
Mastering the Semi‑Pornographic Lexicon of Cincinnati Chili
Bourbon in Cincinnati
You don’t end up in this place because you’re thinking clearly. You don’t end up hunched over a plate of spaghetti covered in loose meat sauce and radioactive orange cheese piled three inches high because you just got out of church or knocked off from a day volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. You never step out of a yoga class and think to yourself, “you know what sounds really good right now? Skyline.”
No, to be sitting in this place, at the bar, breathing in the meaty steam-filled air, you need help; a Tenzing Norgay to your brain’s Edmund Hillary. Nowadays, it’s bourbon, usually with a friend. We start off with the good stuff, a nice Woodford or small batch something, and talk about work. We move to the Bulleit to talk about family. It’s a Jack Daniels and stories about college that usually precedes thinking that a run to the nearest chili parlor is a good idea.
This is a bourbon-evening kind of place.
Not being from Cincinnati, I didn’t grow up with the eponymous chili, which isn’t really chili at all. This isn’t the stuff that cowboys ladled from cast iron in the movies. It’s not thick and full of beans and big chunks of meat. It’s watery, the protein broken down into such microscopic morsels that it makes Sloppy Joe look like grandma’s pot roast. Locals love the stuff. It’s where families go after sporting events, where teenagers hang out. These parlors—they are always parlors, not restaurants—are as much a part of Cincinnati as the Reds and P&G. Everyone has a favorite. They are all local, but there are a couple of big chains—Skyline and Gold Star—that are differentiated because one uses cinnamon to flavor their meat and the other chocolate, but I can never remember which is which. And in the older neighborhoods, you can find some independents that are cherished as institutions.
I didn’t get it. Not for a long time. I didn’t understand the appeal, just like I didn’t understand that when people from Cincy ask you where you went to school, they mean high school, not college. This is the world’s largest small town and appreciating the chili comes over time, like making friends out of freshman-year roommates. It’s not instant. But eventually the dish, like the city itself, grew on me; or maybe I grew to be a part of it. I even mastered the art of ordering in the semi-pornographic lexicon of the parlors: three-way, four-way, five-way, inverted, hot. These words have different meanings in this pseudo-retro diner context of neon lights and paper hats.
And so the night ends, a slurred order of a three-way, a plastic bib tied around my neck, laughing with my friend and not really sure why. It will never be chili—not to me or others who aren’t from around here—but it can be damned good, especially after a few pops and a long evening. Just like the city itself, but I don’t really expect outsiders to understand.