What makes chili... chili? (onion, meat, cooking, sauce)
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Sweet sweet E (Elston), darlin you know that cornbread "ain't" sweet!
(You know I luvs ya!)
I make southern style corn bread now....but I grew up eating New England style corn bread......which is made with yellow coarse ground corn meal and has about a quarter of a cup of sugar; it also has a higher ratio of regular flour....so the texture is softer and lighter and it is sweet. I didn't appreciate southern style until I got down here and wanted to make corn bread dressing. That is when I got to know the beauty of Martha White's self rising corn bread mix.
In old New England...they made a Journey or "Johnny" cake....which I think was more like southern corn bread.
I believe the origin is a mixture of European and new world traditions. Wait...beyond the cow comes to america meets chilie pepper tradition.
I also think chile con carne originated for the cattle raising and Missions of South Central Texas. But I think the real origins come with the indigious peoples and the world-wide tradition of stewing cattle inards. My grand mother had a recipe from her grandmother called Cowboy Son of a B. It was the cow's heart, kidneys, and liver diced and stewed. She had two versions, one that added flour to make a brown gravy and one with chili powder.
I believe this is the true origin of chile con Carne in south Central Texas. If all you had was beef organs and pot and fire and some chilies for seasoning...
My great-grand mother used to say that when they butchered beef, they would sell off the quarters and loin..and keep the inards, hocks, head, and belly for their consuption.
There was a Hieracy of feeding on the haciendas and Missions of South central texas ...The land owner and Mission staff ate "high on the hog" so to speak, the ranch hands a lttile lower, and the indigenous people made due with the tough parts.
Chile con carne de res[beef meat] is just an adaptation a little "higher on the hog"... menudo is a variation of chili con carne. Make with beef tripe and chilies.
Here in southcentral Texas we can still find bovine parts in owr supermarkets...Like tripe, Intestines, organ meats, glands, utters, heads
Every weekend in SCTX we love our Barbacoa. roasted beef head meat...served in a warm flour or corn tortilla chased down with a Ice cold "Big red" soda pop...
I think that the chili version of meat came from trying to cover up the taint of meat turning bad in the days before refrigeration.
people have been eating chile con carne way before refrigeration was common in Homes. Most homes didint not have refrgeration until the 1950s...
chile con carne was sold on Main Plaza by the chili queens in 1890's. Made in home way prior to that. chilie con carne was created to flavor and cook tough cuts of meat.
tripe, Kidneys, shanks and oxtail require long moist cooking methods.
The kinds of cuts of beef used today would never be used to cook chilie con carne.
Not saying that everyone let meat spoil, but yes, some people held onto fresh meat until it was near spoiling. If you look at 19th century cookbooks, the seasonings for meat were often different than what you see now-a-days. More cloves and cinnamon, which would cover the taste of meat about to turn, or spoil. In those days, people didn't view food spoilage the way that we do today. They ate lots of foods that would make me gag, mostly because they were hungry. Think of the foods the the early colonists ate on the boats coming over or the pioneers on the wagon trails.
While some meat could be preserved (smoking, drying, salted) beef is not a good candidate for preserving by these methods. (Pork is good ~ ham, sausages, salt pork, bacon) Other than some jerky or dried beef, most of beef is eaten fresh. In the heat of the Southwest and Texas, meat can turn quickly. Not saying they ate spoiled meat, but covering up meat that tasted a little off was not uncommon. Chilis would be more available than cloves or other spices to season meat.
My $.02 as someone that has researched 19th century foods and cooking.
And my meaning was that people knew how to handle meat before refrigeration. People just didnt let meat hang around till it spoiled...then add chiles.
I don't know about the west...but the "hanging of meat to ripen" especially game birds and animals was a common practice and considered to be an element of food preparation. I heard my father repeat that hanging a pheasant until it dropped of its own weight was the way to go with it. The hanging birds were still feathered .
"For several years after I began hunting, I recoiled at the idea of hanging game birds. The idea of hanging shot pheasants or partridges undrawn and in the feathers for days and days just did not seem terribly hygienic or sane to me. Old texts wax rhapsodic about the sublime flavor of “high” game, which usually means pheasants and usually means birds that have hung for more than a week. This, I decided, was madness.
I was wrong". Hanging Game Birds - How to Hang a Pheasant | Hunter Angler Gardener Cook
There maybe more to the idea that highly seasoned meats like chili was to mask the "Off taste".
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