Last weekend me, Cesar and my girlfriend tried out a new recipe. A traditional take on chili con carne. Chili con carne has a certain standard in the mind of the people as to what it should contain:
Beans
It should have the color red and brown
It is often prepared with ground beef / minced meat
As I was listening to one of my favourite food podcasts. My paradigm shifted on chili as I learned that beans shouldn't be in there and it should contain meat that can be stewed for longer periods of time, in this case I used a piece of rib from the cow. It should contain spices like; marjoram, oregano, cumin and coriander and one can make the flavours more complex by adding coffee and dark chocolate (75% or higher).
Hot hot hot..
Then, the most important about the chili... the chilies. Chilies come in all sorts of size and flavours and don't need to be necessarily spicy. They can be fruity, smoky, bitter and sweet. My suggestion is to create a rounded palette of all sorts of taste profiles so that the chili con carne becomes "colourful and bright".
What you (hopefully) end up with is a dark almost black sauce with tender meat and a complex spicy flavour that is sweet, sour, bitter and hearty on so many levels.
Cultural mass
How did the chili con carne into the transition where it is today. Much like the pizza it was exported and introduced to the mass market. One thing is clear in the adoption of a recipe by the mass market. Authentic ingredients and the cultural heritage of the recipe makes place for something of lesser quality. Different types of chilies make place for chili powder or just plain chilies, various meat types like venison, lamb and hare make way for ground or minced beef. However one cannot overlook the economic value that it has provided to families around the world than solely looking at the artistic or culinary expression.
Mole
One of the indications of its history came to me when a friend, who lived in Mexico, pointed out that it looks a lot like Mexican Mole. Mole is likewise a heavy black sauce with chilies, chocolate, coffee, garlic and cumin. Where mole takes a different route is the addition of dried fruits and nuts.
Many foodistorians (see what I did there?) have researched the mole and chili con carne relationship. Oddly enough they claim that chili con carne is not a relative of mole. Mexicans like to think that as well as they do not claim chili con carne
"“detestable food passing itself off as Mexican, sold in the U.S. from Texas to New York.” Diccionario de Mejicanismos, in 1959
Got it, an American product. If you think of it, chili con carne is quite an ''exotic'' recipe for the American cuisine, its heavy use of spices and striking ingredients like chocolate and coffee.
W.C. Jameson dedicated a whole book to the dish called; Chili From the Southwest: Fixin's, Flavors, and Folklore (2005). In this book his proposes eleven mind boggling theories regarding the history of chili.
Feeling blue
One of weirder theories is about "The Lady In Blue". A Spanish nun who was on a mission to evangelize the savages of the modern world. She was quite active in the American Southwest, practicing her profession on Indians.
Except she never left Spain. The nun had the ability to go in daylong trances and travel the world in spirit. On her spiritual journey she also taught, for unknown reasons, about chili con carne Now, that is a spicy dream.
Texas
A more down to earth approach to history is by the Texan Historian Robb Walsh. He proposes that the dish has its origins in San Antonio's Canary Islander population. By order of the Spanish King, the Canary Islander were sent to San Antonio, Texas to defend against a French Expansion into the state. The Isleños, as they were called, were promised a golden future and would be promoted to minor Spanish Nobles. Walsh explains further, a total of 56 Canaries came to San Antonio and immediately became an important factor in the cities politics and business.
The Canaries were also important in the Texan cuisine, by laying the foundation for Chili Con Carne. They cooked a Moroccan but more specifically Berber inspired dish with cumin, garlic, wild onions and meat.
San Antonio was in awe of this marvelous creation and everybody took note. Soon enough everybody was serving it in house and later on the streets.
Tourism
The first official literal mention of chili is in 1882's, Gould’s Guide to San Antonio. Gould describes San Antonio by it's plazas. On the plazas were large food stalls where everything was served that he describes so vividly.
“Those who delight in the Mexican luxuries of tamales, chili con came, and enchiladas, can find them here cooked in the open air in the rear of the tables and served by the lineal descendants of the ancient Aztecs.”
Gould’s Guide to San Antonio.
Texasmonthly has done intensive work to find it's true origins and one of their findings was through newspaper.com. They found an article about a unknown visitor of San Antonio. He describes the following scene.
“Speaking of hot things, at San Antonio they have a dish called chili con carne. It is of Mexican origin, and is composed of beef, peas, gravy and red pepper. It is awful seductive looking, and gives a fellow the idea that he has a soft thing on hash. They always have enough to go around, for no stranger, no matter how terrific a durned fool he is, ever calls for a second dish. He almost always calls for a big cistern full of water, and you can’t put the water in him fast enough with a steam engine hose.”
Unknown visitor
Breakthrough
One of the breakthroughs for chili, was the development of interstate rail travel. Thus linking San Antonio to other states. Outsiders came in and out and tasted the Tex Mex cuisine and spread the word. Another factor was a veteran of the Texas Rangers and Confederate Army named Captain William G. Tobin. He saw a capitalistic opportunity in the dish and started to can it. He insisted that there shouldn't be beef in there but goat meat. Perhaps to increase his profits or that's the way he ate it in San Antonio.
He struck a deal with the U.S. Army and Navy to sell the canned chili to them and soon enough opened his own chili con carne factory. Mass market chili was born and soon enough it was exported nation wide and later worldwide.
To be or not to be
Chili has reached every corner of the world that William G. Tobin dreamed of. Favored by many food lovers but the questions remains. Do you add beans or not? A true Texan will insist you, that the beans are the devil and have no place in this stew. Is the Texan right or not, we don't know since there isn't any official bean statement found in the record books. Therefore we apply the same rule as always, do as you please.
As with life we ask ourselves.. "to bean or not to bean".