Page 47 of Sex On A Plate

CHILI VEAL

TIME: It’s a fried fucking sandwich. This one will take a minute or two.

What you’ll need from the cupboard: A large skillet, a rolling pin, a cutting board, a mixing bowl, 3 plates, a saucepan, a pair of tongs, and a spatula.

What you’ll need from the pantry: Pork loin or boneless chops. Saran Wrap. Saltine crackers. Salt. Pepper. Paprika. Chili powder. Garlic powder. Flour. 2 eggs. Vegetable oil. Tabasco (or Cholula, or Louisiana) A good hearty hamburger bun, not some cheap shitty fucker. Not here. Save those for when you have company. Here, you need a good bun. A big fucker, too. Chili Veal’s are a man’s sandwich (Jessica loves them, too). Sliced American cheese. Hormel Chili without beans (no substitutes).

* * *

So, there’s a decent little story behind this one. My father grew up in Leon, Kansas. A small town of 150 people, Leon offered little for the few who lived there. Granted, it was the 1950s and people didn’t need much, but it offered little, nevertheless.

El Dorado, Kansas was 12 miles of 2-lane narrow blacktop away. My mother lived there. At the time, she wasn’t my mother. She was my father’s crush. My Pops was only 16 at the time, and he didn’t have a car. All he had was a pair of Chuck Taylor sneakers. So, he ran the 12 miles to El Dorado along that narrow road each time he wanted to see her.

12 miles there, and 12 miles home. He was a cross country runner, so it wasn’t a big deal for him.

Well, in the town of El Dorado, there were 2 things he loved. My mother, and a veal sandwich. El Dorado was a small town, too, so the sandwich and my mother weren’t far apart. All he had to do was stop in at a little diner called Ball’s Lunch for the sandwich. The local Bail Bondsman, DA Ball, owned the joint.

It was there that he sold a sandwich called the “Chili Veal.”

Funny thing about the Chili Veal. It wasn’t veal at all. It was pork. Most didn’t realize it. Hell, maybe they didn’t care. If you ever asked DA, he’d tell you straight up. It was fried pork loin. That was the only ingredient that he’d tell you about, though. The rest was a mystery.

Anyway. My father loved it. On his way to my mother’s he’d always get one. Then, on the way home, he’d get another. Built like me (tall and lean) he could eat like a horse without worry of gaining wight (unlike me).

After high school, he joined the Marine Corps, married my mother, and moved to San Diego. He said he loved Southern California, but he missed that veal sandwich.

When I grew up in that area 30 years later, I went to DA Ball’s restaurant 3-4 times a week and ate that same sandwich. When I was 45, I’d pick them up and take them to my father on the weekend (as with many of the male characters in my books, we did the Sunday dinner thing for most of my life).

Well, DA Ball has since died. The sandwich, however, lives on.

I never got the recipe from DA. He wouldn’t give it up. This tastes just like his creation, though. As close as I can get, anyway.

Okay, here we go.

Dump a large can of Hormel Chili in your saucepan. Turn to low heat. Don’t add anything. Just the shittiest chili known to man.

Put 1/2” of oil in the skillet and put it on the burner you intend to use.

Beat the 2 eggs in the mixing bowl.

Crush the crackers and put them on a plate. It’s okay if there are a few bigger pieces. In fact, there needs to be a few. Just a few.

Put about 1/2 a cup of flour on a plate. Add a teaspoon of salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder. Add another teaspoon of pepper. Mix well.

Trim all the fat from the pork.

Place the pork on the cutting board (somewhere close to the flour, eggs, and crackers).

Cover the pork with Saran Wrap and beat it like it owes you money (with the flat edge of the rolling pin, of course). Beat it to about a 1/2” thick. The thinner, the better. You don’t want it to be any thicker than a 1/2”, that’s for sure.

The end product will be between around 1 inch bigger all around than the bun.

Maybe more.

After you’ve beaten all the pork flat, toss the rolling pin in the sink and wash your nasty hands.

Turn the skillet to medium high.

Lay the flattened pork in the flour. Press it with the heel of your nasty hand. Flip it and press again. Dip it in egg wash. Lay it flat on the bed of crackers.