Cowboy dishing up chili at noonday dinner. Cattle ranch near Marfa, Texas.
Many argue that chili was invented in Mexico during the 1840s, as a
replacement for pemmican; others place its origin in Tijuana, Baja
California, or Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
The Mexican origin theory holds that it was created as a complimentary dish
served at cantinas, especially to please outsiders, who wanted something
spicy and "Mexican" to eat, but also free or cheap. It was made with
leftovers from the meals prepared in the cantina and served for free to
drinking customers.
The Americanized recipe consisted of dried beef, suet, dried chili peppers
(usually chilipiquenes), and salt, which were pounded together and left to
dry into bricks, which could then be boiled in pots on the trail. An
alternative, and more widely-accepted theory, holds that chili con carne was
born in Ensenada, Mexico in the 1880s as a way of stretching available meat
in the kitchens of poor Tejanos.
American
origin defenders argue:
"San Antonio Chili Stand" was in operation at the 1893 Columbian Exposition
in Chicago, which helped spread a taste for chili to other parts of the
country. San Antonio was a significant tourist destination and helped
Texas-style chili con carne spread throughout the South and West.
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