I asked him. I spelled it. Nothing at all. The secret of making superior chili lies in the genius of the cook. Nothing should ever be measured.
Experimentation is the thing.
Those blessed Canary Islanders in San Antonio wouldn't have known a measuring spoon from an electric carving knife. Spanish cookbooks never issue peremptory orders, for that would not be polite. My daughter follows my haphazard methods and turns out chili that is the sensation of her set. She says she passes my recipe along to her chili-loving friends, and converts the ignorant to it, and all hands proclaim it to be the best of all possible chilis. That's what she tells me.