I trust that if you’re planning food for Sunday’s football showdown, your menu’s set and relies mostly on go-to favorites. Maybe chili’s part of that menu; if so, it’s a likely a favorite standby. I firmly agree that that’s the way it should be. You don’t want this big event ruined by an untested recipe. That said, there’s a relatively small pocket surrounding Cincinnati, Ohio where chili is either Skyline or Gold Star, and hugely popular. It’s also not at all what you’d expect. The way it’s ordered and the way it’s served are the first tip-off that if you’ve never experienced it, you’re in for something new.
Cincinnati chili is not what the rest of the world defines as chili, as various as that is. It’s a meat sauce based on a Greek recipe that’s served over spaghetti. The story goes that Nicholas Lambrinides, an immigrant from Kastoria, Greece, wasn’t finding what was likely makaronia me kima to be a popular menu item, until someone suggested making it seem more recognizable by recasting it as chili. The original Skyline brand was launched in 1949 and grew into a chain of chili parlors across the local area.
My first visit to the iconic Skyline at Clifton and Ludlow, just down the hill from the university, was, as is common, a late-night weekend outing with a group of other students during my first term. Water from the steam table had condensed on the plate glass, dripping down all the windows in the place. Swarthy men with prodigious hair on their arms and white aprons tied around their waists dished it up fast, as if they’d been doing it their whole lives – which was probably the case. When it came to placing my order, I wasn’t just out of my element. I disgraced myself by ordering only one cheese coney, branding myself as outside the recognized order of the cognoscenti.
Cincinnati chili is served two ways – either as cheese coneys or over spaghetti forked out of large crocks and topped at minimum with finely shredded cheddar. For the coneys, the dogs and buns are only about 4” long, with yellow ballpark mustard slapped on efficiently with something like a chopstick, chopped onions piled on, and topped with a mound of fluffy shredded yellow cheese. This is managed several at a time, assembly-style, on long, narrow trays balanced down the length of one arm, then slid onto small oval dishes and slung onto the counter next to the requisite hot sauce.
A three-way is chili, spaghetti and cheese dished out edge-to-edge on the same small oval plates, the cheese piled high. A four-way is chili, spaghetti, cheese and chopped onions; and a fiveway is chili, spaghetti, cheese, onions and beans. They come with a monkey dish of oyster crackers, and you’d better douse your plate with hot sauce or your neighbor might casy a sidelong glance your way labeling you a lightweight. The oyster crackers are just something you come to accept, then to expect. It can’t be explained any other way.
What makes Cincinnati chili unique is the flavor. It’s now accepted as a given that unsweetened bakers chocolate is in the mix, although the recipe is as closely guarded by the family as is Heinz 57, KFC and the monks that produce Chartreuse. It’s generally assumed to include chili powder, cumin, coriander, cinnamon and allspice, with maybe a dash of clove or not. Frankly, there aren’t any recipes I’ve tested that are authentic, but chocolate adds the unmistakable depth of flavor – just as it does in the mole negro of Oxaca, Mexico. Vinegar and Worcestershire is where most recipes go south. Even America’s Test Kitchen’s recipe was a miss. Despite what’s widely claimed, the version at Hard Times Cafés around DC aren’t anywhere close either.
The only way to get Skyline outside the Cincinnati area is to order it online, either in cans (definitely authentic) or as spice packets (promising, but I can’t vouch for them.) Even without the authentic atmosphere of a chili parlor, it’s at minimum a once-in-your-life experience best shared with a group of friends watching a game with some cold beer. It’s imperative that you do not add the onions, beans or anything foreign to the chili and that you top it with clouds of finely grated cheddar, individual dishes of oyster crackers and a bottle of hot sauce within reach. If you’ve a mind to doctor anything, just make a separate batch of what you already know!
These days, both Skyline and Gold Star are franchised for miles outside the city, in boxy buildings which feature drive-through windows. Believe it or not, minivan moms will reach into their bag and hand a cheese coney to a child in the backseat as the shredded cheese falls all over the car. That’s how dedicated even moms are to Cincinnati chili.
