Chile Con Carne (Lbs hamburger steak can red)

This is a church-supper shortcut chili, and as printed it has a serious gap: the beef is never cooked. The instructions boil the rice and the onions, then say to mix everything together and serve.

• The uncooked beefGround beef carries surface bacteria — including E. coli O157:H7 — throughout the mixture rather than on the outside, which is why it must reach 160F all the way through. Nothing in this recipe browns, simmers or otherwise heats the 1½ lb of hamburger, and the residual heat of hot rice and onions will not do it. Use a current chili recipe instead.
• What the original assumesContributors to community books often wrote for neighbours who already knew a dish, and a step for cooking the meat may simply have been taken for granted. Whatever the intent, no such step is written down.
• Missing quantitiesNo amount is given for the rice, the onions or the red pepper, and "1 can" of kidney beans in this period was often a No. 2 tin, about 20 oz, larger than the 15 oz can standard now.
• "Red pepper"In American books of this era red pepper means cayenne, not paprika and not a sweet bell pepper. Chili powder as a blended commercial product existed but was far from universal in home kitchens.
• Rice in a double boilerBoiling rice over water rather than direct heat was standard advice for avoiding scorch on a wood or coal range with uneven heat. It produces a soft, separate grain and takes considerably longer than a covered saucepan.
• Hamburger steakThe term meant plain ground beef, often shaped into patties, and at the time it was likely to be coarser and fattier than modern packaged ground chuck.