Chili con carne

• 1. Introduction

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  In 1977 the 65th Texas Legislature passed House Concurrent Resolution Number 18, and chili con carne became the official dish of the state of Texas. The dish is a spicy stew built from chili peppers, meat, tomatoes and often beans. Texas may claim it, but its roots run south of the border, and its story crosses centuries, languages and kitchens. Cooks still argue fiercely over what belongs in the bowl. This documentary follows the stew from the Aztec capital to Spanish cattle country, from the chili queens of San Antonio to the shelves of grocery stores. Along the way it asks who first wrote the name down, who carried the dish across the United States, and why a single bean can start a fight.

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• 2. Dried Beef Origins

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  In 1529 the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún described stews seasoned with chili peppers being eaten in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that stood where Mexico City stands today. Beef arrived later. The Spanish introduced cattle to Mexico, and beef became the main meat in the dish.

  Through the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, most beef eaten in Mexico was dried and salted. This was especially true for the rancheros, the cowboys of the cattle country. The dried meat went by two names, tasajo and cecina.

  Cooks used tasajo in many dishes. One was a stew in red chili sauce called carne con chile, which simply means meat with chili. It was easy and cheap to make, so it turned up on tables across much of Mexico. Several foreign travelers in the 19th century happened to write down what they were served.

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• 3. Travelers' Tables

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  In 1826 the English naval officer and explorer George Francis Lyon joined a party of rancheros near Pánuco, in northern Veracruz. He watched them kill a cow and cut the flesh into tasajo. Two men sliced the meat into long ropes, another rubbed in salt, and the strips hung over poles to dry in the sun. Lyon admired their skill. When the work ended, he breakfasted with them on dry meat in chili sauce and hot tortillas. A second course of cow's blood stewed with sweet herbs followed, after a glass of white brandy distilled at the ranch.

  In 1831 the French colonist Mathieu de Fossey was served tasajo cooked in chili in Jáltipan, a village near Coatzacoalcos in southern Veracruz. He called it "a completely Indian meal," with beans and tortillas alongside. He was less fond of the meat itself, which he said kept an unpleasant smell and taste even when dried carefully in thin strips.

  The Scottish noblewoman Frances Erskine Inglis described a dish called embarrado in her 1843 book Life in Mexico. She met it in 1840 at a rodeo and a cattle branding celebration in the village of Santiago, in the state of Hidalgo. Her hosts had also cooked meat under stones, which she found smoky and horrible. She described embarrado, a favorite mix of meat and chili, as "very like mud, as the name imports," and admitted she had not yet made up her mind to endure it.

  In 1849 the American traveler Theodore Taylor Johnson ate in San Blas, in Nayarit, a dinner of jerked beef stewed with onions and plenty of cayenne pepper. The locals called it "carne con chile colorado." Beans came alongside, and dessert was chocolate and tortillas. None of these four writers used the name that would later become famous in English.

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• 4. From Camp to Texas

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  A book from 1857 about the Mexican-American War is the first place the Spanish phrase chile con carne is recorded. Chile comes from the Nahuatl word chīlli, and con carne is Spanish for with meat. A recipe from the 1850s describes dried beef, suet, dried chili peppers and salt pounded together and formed into bricks. The bricks were left to dry, then boiled in pots at an army encampment in Monterrey, in what is now Nuevo León.

  The stew also became common in northern Mexico and southern Texas. Unlike some other Texas foods, such as barbecued brisket, chili largely began with working-class Tejana and Mexican women. In San Antonio, the "chili queens" became famous for selling cheap, chili-flavored beef stew in casual "chili joints."

  The San Antonio Chili Stand, in operation at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, gave many Americans their first taste of the dish. San Antonio itself was a tourist destination, and visitors helped Texas-style chili con carne spread through the South and West of the United States.

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• 5. Chili Parlors

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  Before World War II, hundreds of small, family-run chili parlors served customers across Texas and the states where Texans had settled. Nearly every one claimed some kind of secret recipe. Commercial chili powder, first manufactured in Texas in the late 19th century, made it easier for the business to travel.

  By 1904 parlors were opening outside Texas. Charles Taylor, after working at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, opened one in Carlinville, Illinois, serving Mexican Chili. In Tennessee, Varallo's opened as a chili parlor in 1907 and is now the state's oldest restaurant. It competed with Nashville parlors that had opened in the 1890s. In the 1920s and 1930s, diner-style chili parlor chains began opening in the Midwest.

  Cincinnati chili is a substantially different dish, developed by Macedonian and Greek immigrants from their own culinary traditions. Dozens of restaurants in the Cincinnati area still offer it. Its history can be traced to at least 1922, when the original Empress Chili location opened.

  In St. Louis, a chili parlor dating to 1904 called O.T. Hodge kept operating until the late 2000s. It was known for the slinger, which piled two cheeseburger patties, hash browns and two eggs under a blanket of chili. No O.T. Hodge-branded locations remain.

  Chili John's in Green Bay, Wisconsin, was founded in 1913. Like Cincinnati chili, its version is most commonly served over spaghetti with oyster crackers, though the recipe has more chili powder and fat. The original proprietor's son opened a second location in Burbank, California, in 1946. The Green Bay location closed in 2020, but the Burbank restaurant remains open.

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• 6. The Bean Quarrel

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  In 1999 the Chili Appreciation Society International, an organization that mainly operates in Texas, made its position official. Cooks in its competitions were forbidden to put beans in their chili, and they could not marinate their meats either. Some aficionados go further and insist the word chili belongs only to the basic dish, with no beans and no tomatoes.

  Beans are a staple of Tex-Mex cuisine, and they have been linked to chili since the early 20th century. Most people accept that the earliest chilis had none. Defenders of beans reply that chili with beans has a long enough history to count as authentic. Cooks commonly use small red or pink beans, and also black beans, black-eyed peas, kidney beans, pinto beans, great northern beans or navy beans.

  The grocery shelf reflects the split. Most commercially prepared canned chili comes in two varieties, with or without beans. Bush Brothers and Company and Eden Organic also sell precooked beans without meat, labeled "chili beans," which shoppers are meant to add to their own recipes.

  Wick Fowler, a north Texas newspaperman, invented "Two-Alarm Chili" and later marketed it as a kit of spices. He insisted on tomato sauce, one 15-ounce can for every three pounds of meat, which is 425 grams for 1.36 kilograms. He also believed chili should never be eaten freshly cooked, but refrigerated overnight to seal in the flavor. The Los Angeles newspaper columnist Matt Weinstock once remarked that Fowler's chili "was reputed to open eighteen sinus cavities unknown to the medical profession."

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• 7. Cans and Bricks

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  Near Corsicana, Texas, the rancher Lyman Davis developed Wolf Brand Chili in 1895. He owned a meat market and was a particular fan of Texas-style chili. In the 1880s, with an experienced range cook as his partner, he had begun making heavily spiced chili from chunks of lean beef and rendered beef suet. He sold it by the pot to local cafés.

  In 1921 Davis began canning his product and named it for his pet wolf, Kaiser Bill. Will Rogers was a devoted customer who always took a case along when he traveled and performed in other regions of the world. The country singer Ernest Tubb was such a fan that one Texas hotel kept Wolf Brand in stock for his visits.

  Willie Gebhardt, originally of New Braunfels, Texas, and later of San Antonio, produced the first canned chili in 1908. Both the Gebhardt and Wolf brands are now owned by ConAgra Foods, Inc. Another major maker, Hormel, sells chili under its own name and under other brands such as Stagg. Its line includes turkey and vegetarian varieties.

  Before home refrigerators were widespread, Wolf Brand was originally sold as "brick chili." Makers pressed out nearly all the moisture, leaving a solid block roughly the size and shape of half a brick. Brick chili was common in small towns and rural areas of the American Southwest for the first three-quarters of the 20th century. Canned chili has largely replaced it, but XLNT Foods and Dolores Canning in Southern California still distribute it to supermarkets.

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• 8. Beyond the Bowl

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  Chile verde, which means green chile, is a New Mexican stew or sauce made from chunks of pork slow-cooked in chicken broth, garlic, green tomatillos and roasted green chile. Cooks adjust the heat with Hatch chile, poblano, jalapeño, serrano and occasionally habanero.

  Vegetarian chili goes by several names, including chili sin carne, chili non carne and chili sans carne. It drops the meat or swaps in textured vegetable protein, tofu, quinoa or potatoes. These versions nearly always include beans, and variants may add corn, squash, sautéed mushrooms, pearl onions, shallots or beets.

  Cactus chili is a relatively rare Southwestern variation containing chili peppers, beef, tomatoes and pinto beans, plus sliced cactus pieces. It is traditionally cooked in a slow cooker and served with salted crackers. It has still gained prominence as a menu item at restaurant chains such as Showmars. White chili, made with chicken or turkey, broth, white beans and green chili peppers, looks light in color. Cooks often top it with a white cheese such as Monterey Jack, or with sour cream.

  Common garnishes for the classic dish include grated cheese, diced onions and sour cream. Saltine crackers, tortilla chips, corn chips, cornbread, rolled tortillas and pork tamales often come alongside. Chili can also be ladled over rice or pasta. In parts of the Midwest, particularly Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas, chili is commonly served with cinnamon rolls, a tradition found in school cafeterias, home kitchens and some restaurants.

  Cooks who skip individual seasonings can prepare a mix ahead of time from chili powder, salt, cumin, onion powder and cayenne pepper. Packaged taco seasoning works too.

  Chili is also an ingredient in other dishes. A chili dog is a hot dog topped with chili, usually without beans, and a chili burger does the same for a hamburger. Chili cheese fries, also called Coney Island fries, add chili and cheese to french fries. Chili mac, made with macaroni or another pasta, is a standard dish in the U.S. military and one of the varieties of Meal, Ready-to-Eat. At midwestern festivals and county fairs, a small bag of Fritos with a cup of chili poured over it is called a walking taco. In the southwestern United States, the same dish is popular as a Frito pie, often topped with grated cheese, onions, jalapeños or sour cream.

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