An article earlier this summer hinted that the defining factor in the development of Texas chili is chili powder, but the ingredient that makes chili a Tex-Mex dish is cumin, a spice imported from the Old World. Chili con carne is the crowning achievement of San Antonio cuisine.
Most historians date its origin to 1880, with the rise of the “chili queens” that sold the dish to the public in outdoor stands. But that date is an function of the name chili con carne existing in published sources. A stew of meat and chili peppers had been around long before that. So how do you define chili con carne in order to find its origin? An article at Smithsonian gives some of the conflicting origin stories, including one that goes back as far as an uprising in 1813. It was another in the long line of wars fought…The post The Bloody San Antonio Origins of Chili Con Carne appeared first on FeedBox.