Chili Con Carne

chili con carne known in Texas, its home territory, as just ‘chili’, is a Spanish-American term which means chilli with meat. It first appeared, with a slightly different spelling, in a book by S. Compton Smith entitled Chile con Carne, or The Camp and the Field (1857). Mariani (1994), in explaining this, comments that the term came into more common usage only at the end of the century, and has now come to be applied to a wide spectrum of recipes. Thus, he writes: ‘In New Mexico one may find lamb or mutton used instead of beef, while Cincinnati chili and many other northern versions contain red kidney beans, a variant that Texas purists would consider tantamount to a criminal act.’