A job centre is a building designed around one emotional promise: you will wait. You arrive, you take a number from a machine that dispenses paper with the enthusiasm of a man whose number has never once been called — you get 47, the display reads 3, and somewhere behind you a man in a hi-vis vest asks whether you’re here for your appointment or “just looking,” in a tone that suggests the two are not the same thing. The waiting area has a seating capacity of forty and a magazine stand last seen in the wild under a different government.
The institution is older than it looks. The first employment exchange opened in 1910, under the Employment Exchanges Act 1909 — a government-run answer to the problem of people who wanted work and employers who wanted workers, which is to say, a problem that has never once gone away. In 1996 the Employment Act quietly renamed the unemployed “Jobseekers,” which is the sort of thing a government does when it wants a queue to feel like a career choice. By 2002 the whole lot had rebranded as Jobcentre Plus, the “Plus” being the bit that is still being added, like a loading screen that has been running since 2003.
A proper pot of chilli has a great deal in common with a job centre. You arrive hungry, you leave fed, and at no point does anyone ask you to write down your long-term career aspirations. It is also, crucially, a dish that works on a first-come, first-served basis — and unlike the machine in the lobby, it actually calls your number.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil (or sunflower oil, for the budget-conscious)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 500g beef mince — for the vegetarian version: 300g finely chopped button mushrooms plus an extra tin of kidney beans, and vegetable stock below
- 2 tsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tin (400g) chopped tomatoes
- 2 tins (400g each) kidney beans, drained
- 300ml beef stock (vegetable for the veggie version)
- 2 tbsp tomato purée
- 1 splash of dark stout, optional — the job centre doesn’t have a bar, but this does
- Mashed potato to serve, plus soured cream if you can be bothered to look for it
Method
- Heat the oil in a big, heavy pot — the kind you use for things you intend to finish — and fry the onion and garlic over a medium heat until soft and just starting to catch colour. Gently. This is not a disciplinary interview, and the onion has done nothing wrong.
- Tip in the beef mince and brown it properly, breaking it up as it goes. Brown it until it looks like it has been to the interview and passed. Nobody is checking references, but it will show in the photo.
- Add the chilli powder, cumin, smoked paprika and the sugar, and stir for a minute until the whole building smells like it has decided to become a restaurant. The sugar is the small kindness that makes you forgive the rest of the system.
- Pour in the chopped tomatoes, the kidney beans and the stock, and stir through the tomato purée. The kidney beans are the permanent residents — they have been here longer than anyone, they have never once been asked to leave, and they know everyone’s story.
- Bring to the barest of simmers and leave it for 30 minutes, lid on for most of it. This part works on a first-come, first-served basis, which is the only queue system in Britain that actually works. If it dries out, add a splash of stock. Nobody is docking your points.
- Taste, then add salt, black pepper and the splash of stout if you’re feeling generous with yourself. Serve with a big dollop of mashed potato, which is the only form in this entire process that is worth filling in.
The chilli keeps happily for three or four days in the fridge and tastes better on day two, which is the only renewal in British bureaucracy that actually improves the service. If you find you have made too much — and you will — do not call it a failure. Call it an extension.
