Origins of Chile?

Question

Just out of curiosity, could someone tell me where chile originated. Is it simply a creation of Tex-Mex, or something else. Thanx!

Whoops. Perhaps I should be more specific, chile (may not have spelled it correctly), as in the dish with meat and beans.

Answer 1

CHILI is from Texas:

Chili con carne, often known simply as chili, is a spicy stew-like dish. The essential ingredients are chili peppers and meat. Variations, either geographic or by personal preference may include tomatoes, onions, beans, and other ingredients. The name "chili con carne" is a slight corruption of the Spanish chile con carne, which means "chile (peppers) with meat". Chili con carne is the official dish of the U.S. state of Texas.

Many argue that chili was invented in Mexico during the 1840s, as a replacement for pemmican; others place its origin in Tijuana, Baja California, or Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico.

The Mexican origin theory holds that it was created as a complimentary dish served at cantinas, especially to please outsiders, who wanted something spicy and "Mexican" to eat, but also free or cheap. It was made with leftovers from the meals prepared in the cantina and served for free to drinking customers.

But after further research, the true birthpace can be traced to Texas.

The Americanized recipe consisted of dried beef, suet, dried chile peppers (usually chilepiquenes), and salt, which were pounded together and left to dry into bricks, which could then be boiled in pots on the trail. An alternative, and more widely-accepted theory, holds that chile con carne was born in Ensenada, Mexico in the 1880s as a way of stretching available meat in the kitchens of poor Tejanos. However, this theory does not take in account Ensenada and Texas are very far from each other.

"San Antonio Chile Stand" was in operation at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which helped spread a taste for chile to other parts of the country. San Antonio was a significant tourist destination and helped Texas-style chile con carne spread throughout the South and West.

Answer 2

Chile peppers are a "new world" food that was found in the Americas.

Chili the meat (and sometimes bean) concoction is originally a Tex-Mex dish as someone mentiond. Actually, the traditional to have it with NO beans. It's sometimes called Red Eye Chili in Texas.

Answer 3

It may have been developed in 1618 by a 16 yr old Spanish nun named, Sister Mary of Agreda. She would go into trances, "with her body lifeless for days." When she woke up she would tell people that she had been preaching the good word to the Heathens in the New World. Missionaries & Indians thought that she was the mysterious & ghostly "La Dama de Azul"-lady in blue. She supposedly wrote down the recipe for chili after 1 of her trances or "visits". She got the recipe from the natives & when Father Alonso de Benarifes showed the natives a picture of her, they recognized her.

Or it was created by "Texan adventurers as a staple for hard times when traveling to & in the California gold fields." This would have been in the 1850's or so. Some say it was the food for the poor & in some places it was the Texas version of gruel or bread & water in the Texas prisons.

But nobody is truly sure. This is a great controversy among chili cooks, just like how to spell chili (chile) and how to make chil or what to put into iti.

Answer 4

In Okla. we call chili with no beans Texas chili. It started as a sort of stew, not only Tex-Mex, but all along the border areas. California chili is quite different, New Mex. is closer to Texas, but some regions used chunks of meat & some chopped it much finer. It was a way to feed more people with scraps of meat or even jerky, add some onions, tomatos, peppers or whatever spices were on hand, water & let it cook.

Answer 5

http://www.nps.gov/petr/historyculture/chile.htm