Chili Con Carne Origins Finally Defined with Description

Here is another version: 1850 - Records were found by Everrette DeGolyer (1886-1956), a Dallas millionaire and a lover of chili, indicating that the first chili mix was concocted around 1850 by Texan adventurers and cowboys as a staple for hard times when traveling to and in the California gold fields and around Texas. Needing hot grub, the trail cooks came up with a sort of stew. They pounded dried beef, fat, pepper, salt, and the chile peppers together. This amounted to "brick chili" or "chili bricks" that could be boiled in pots along the trail. DeGolyer said that chili should be called "chili a la Americano" because the term chili is generic in Mexico and simply means a hot pepper. He believed that chili con carne began as the "pemmican of the Southwest."

It is said that some trail cooks planted pepper seeds, oregano, and onions in mesquite patches (to protect them from foraging cattle) to use on future trail drives. It is thought that the chile peppers used in the earliest dishes were probably chilipiqu’ns, which grow wild on bushes in Texas, particularly the southern part of the state.

There was another group of Texans known as "Lavanderas," or "Washerwoman," that followed around the 19th-century armies of Texas making a stew of goat meat or venison, wild marjoram and chile peppers.

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Very few Mexican dishes were in evidence when I was growing up in Ohio, No Tacos, No Burritos, etc,etc. However Chili was very well known. Every little Mom and Pop diner served Chili and each made it from scratch and a little bit different at each eatery. The quality of the Chili at each place was well known among those that patronized these small Mom and Pops.

My mother frequently made Chili at home. There is one version of Chili known as Cincinnati Chili that is unique by virtue of having Cinnamon as one of the ingredients.

Now on to another food subject. Are there any aficionados of SOS here?

OldTimer