Chili

Chili is a dish consisting of meat (usually beef, finely cubed or coarsely ground) cooked in fat and then slowly simmered with red chilies (hot-spicy Capsicum peppers, fresh or dried, or both), a liquid such as water or meat stock, and seasonings such as cumin, garlic, oregano, salt, and sometimes other spices. Its consistency is halfway between a thick soup and a stew. Although other ingredients (onions and tomatoes, for example) can be added, chili’s primary constituent is meat. Chili as we know it today originated in the American Southwest, most likely in the region that became the state of Texas. Before the arrival of Europeans in the Western Hemisphere, similar dishes of meats stewed with peppers and herbs were no doubt prepared by Native Americans in those areas where peppers grew wild. Historians seeking the more modern roots of the specific dish called “chili” trace its origin to several possible sources: Mexicans in northern Mexico and in the territory that became Texas, chuck wagon cooks on cattle drives, prospectors from the Southwest en route to the California gold rush, military field kitchens in the West, the kitchens of Texas prisons, immigrants from other countries who substituted local American ingredients in their own traditional recipes for highly spiced meat stews, and even a Spanish nun to whom the recipe for a chili-like dish was supposedly revealed in a vision. Whatever its origin, historians agree that chili began as a peasant dish prepared by poor people using cheap, inferior cuts of meat cooked together with other inexpensive, readily available ingredients, primarily peppers and onions. They also agree that chili in its many forms today is an American, not Mexican dish—although chili is associated closely with the Mexican population in Texas, and dishes similar to chili can be found in Mexico, particularly in the north.