“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
The book of Corinthians omitted one thing: What about eating? I didn’t eat as a child does. I liked the spicy stuff.
So there I was, entering Estella’s Cafe on Bridge Street, by myself, at around age 11. For a long time, I failed to remember why I was there, alone. I recall now that I’d gone to the Kiva Theater with my parents, failed to get the movie plot, and wandered off, across the street to check out their burgers.
Remember that we’re referring to the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, in the days when parents warned their children to stay on their own side of the Gallinas. Crossing the bridge might have its consequences. But we already had crossed the Bridge, so I felt safe.
The smell of red chili/chile drew me to Estella’s, where the only language I heard was Spanish. I craved a burger with red chile/i but was afraid of being scoffed at because I had trouble rolling my r’s (still do) and didn’t want to negotiate the linguistics of attempting, in Spanish, “colorado.” So I said “chile verde” instead.
Estella, my waitress, apologized, saying the restaurant had just run out of green, and would I be OK with red? Of course! That’s what I wanted, but I still tried to seem disappointed.
A few minutes later, she showed up with green, which I didn’t want. Estella explained that she had managed to find the green stuff after all.
Just a few bites converted me. I’ve loved the stuff ever since, and I still believe that there would be fewer wars if the negotiators were to agree first to sit down to a bowl of green chile/i stew. Then they can talk war.
I believe most people agree that the flavor of green and red chile/i, whether it comes from Anton Chico, Chimayó or Hatch, is superb (it helps if the locale has a “ch” combination in its name). It’s the spelling of the word that people disagree on.
So as we cover the spelling of chile/i, let’s agree to some terms:
- Anybody who pluralizes the word, as in “Would you like green chiles/chilies on your burger?” automatically gets disqualified from any opinion on this food.
- The best chile/i comes from New Mexico, the town of Hatch being the best known but not necessarily having the best-tasting.
- What we call “Christmas,” a mixture of red and green, can be spelled only one way: chile, with an e at the end.
- Heat and flavor aren’t synonymous; any participation in the annual chile/i-tasting competition in Las Vegas proves that. However, if the chili’s too mild, it gets disqualified.
- When a customer asks for really hot chile/i, the manager will invariably say, “The customers complain if it’s too hot.” And that’s why so much of the stuff has been milded down.
- Under no circumstances should we use the word “pepper” in the context of chile/i; that’s an entirely different product, something you sprinkle on food but never eat as a complete meal.
- Finally, the desire for hotter and hotter stuff, as in stove-hot and chili-hot, increases as we age.
Juan Ortega, who taught Spanish at Memorial Middle School and at Luna Community College, asked me how I’d spell the word. “Does it end with an i or an e?
I dodged the question and asked how he pronounces the word. He said “chileh,” but he spells it “chili.”
Sara Harris, a retired Spanish professor, said she spells it with an e at end and pronounces it accordingly, “unless I’m making chili con carne.”
Sam Vigil, a retired educator, opts for the i at the end, but pronounces it as if it ended in eh.
Unlike English, which has eight or nine different ways of rendering the combination “ough” (tough, though, thought, bough, through, etc.), Spanish is highly phonetic: What you see is what you get, so chili and chile must have slightly different pronunciations.
The issue isn’t restricted to the two sides of the Gallinas. Even the Los Angeles Times got into the spelling fray. The issue really heated up, and some of the comments were spicy. A column by Dierdre Edgar drew several comments.
A Judith Perles wrote the newspaper, regarding the difference between chili and chile: “Chili gives you an ulcer,” chile does not. Another writer added that the proper spelling is chile, unless “you tourist it up by adding cheese, lettuce and tomato.”
A few years ago, when we were conducting testing for the Census Bureau, my census partner, Diana Abeyta, and I stopped at a Raton restaurant called El Matador.
With a name like that, they must have great chile/i, we thought. When I asked for a green chile/i burger, the waitperson looked puzzled, asking what I meant.
“I would like a hamburger with diced green chile/i on top,” I explained. She said, tentatively, “Well, I guess I could put some green chiles on top,” and she did. But the fact that she pluralized the word indicated to us that she was about to get the chiles out of a can. And the way she responded told us she thought we must have been weird: Who in the world would dream of such a combination?
So, what’s the spelling solution? I believe that places that sell Tex-Mex combinations prefer to spell it chili. The others prefer the correct version: chile.
Of course, there’s a band that performed in Austin last Sunday; they’re called the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band apparently didn’t consult the stylebook.