Chili con carne

Chili con carne is a thick, spicy stew built on chili peppers and meat, often with beans and tomatoes. Its roots lie in Mexico, but it became a signature dish of Texas and of Tex-Mex cooking in the United States.

History

Colonial-era sources describe chili-seasoned stews in Mexico well before the dish took its modern form. In 1529 the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún wrote about stews seasoned with chili eaten in Tenochtitlan. Beef became the usual meat after the Spanish brought cattle to the region. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, rancheros often ate tasajo, dried salted beef simmered in a red chili sauce known as carne con chile.

Written references multiply in the nineteenth century. The Spanish phrase 'chile con carne' appears in a book from 1857 about the Mexican–American War, and an 1850s recipe describes dried beef, suet, dried chili and salt, pressed into bricks that could be boiled in an army camp in Monterrey. Travellers in Mexico between the 1820s and 1840s also left accounts of eating it.

In Texas the dish grew among working-class Tejana and Mexican women. The so-called chili queens of San Antonio sold their cheap stew from simple stalls. The San Antonio Chili Stand, at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, introduced many Americans to it, and San Antonio's tourist trade helped carry Texas-style chili across the South and West. Before World War II, family-run chili parlors were common in Texas and beyond, each claiming its own secret recipe.

Other styles diverged sharply. Cincinnati chili, developed by Macedonian and Greek immigrants, is served over spaghetti, and the place of beans and tomatoes remains a point of dispute among cooks.

Culture

Today chili is a staple of cook-offs, barbecues and family gatherings, often topped with grated cheese or salsa. In 1977 the Texas Legislature designated it the official dish of the state by concurrent resolution. Vegetarian versions, known as chili sin carne, replace the meat with textured vegetable protein, tofu or potatoes, and nearly always include beans. Regional variants include chile verde, a New Mexican stew of pork, green tomatillos and roasted green chile.

Trivia