If you’ve read about chili, you have come to the conclusion that no one dares put beans in chili in Texas. If you believe the reports, Texas cowboys refuse to eat anything but Texas beef and hot peppers stewed together to make a bowl of red. Even the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond in neighboring Oklahoma, perpetuates this claim as she makes chili without beans for her ranching family.
As a Texas native, I’m here to tell you that I grew up eating beans in every pot of chili my grandmother cooked, from those my dad concocted at his grocery store or whenever I was served a bowlful in restaurants across the state. As here in Georgia, everyone everywhere has his/her favorite chili recipe.
It’s true that the Original Terlingua International Championship Chili Cookoff, held the first Saturday in November, bans beans, pasta, rice or “other similar items.” And some diehards even ban tomatoes. But the history of chili is hard to trace.
Mary Claire Lagroue, writing for Allrecipes.com, says, “People in the Americas farmed chile peppers as far back as 10,000 years ago.” She credits Kelly Urig in his book New Mexico Chiles: History, Legend, and Lore for that information.
Dallas oil executive Everette Lee DeGolyer, a chili connoisseur who became a historian, suggests that chili became popular campfire food among cowboys on the cattle trail. A 49er’s journal describes making “chili bricks” which would fit in a saddle bag. Prior to a cattle drive, the men would combine a mixture of beef, fat and chile peppers. They shaped the concoction into blocks, which they dubbed “chili bricks.” Pinching off part of a block and dropping it into a pot of boiling water with a little cornmeal or flour would provide supper for the working hands.
Today, shoppers can purchase frozen chili bricks, chili in a can or frozen chili.
Over the years, Terlingua has produced a number of tales since Frank X.Tolbert, Texas journalist, historian and chili enthusiast, concocted the idea in 1967. Only two contestants, New Yorker humorist H. Allen Smith and Texas legend Wick Fowler showed up. Legend says that even with three judges, the contest ended in a draw. These days, thousands attend the annual event; and contestants have to win local cook-offs to qualify for a spot at a stove. Also, these days in honor of Fowler, who died from ALS, proceeds from the annual event go to the ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) Association of Texas.
While the “ghost town” of Terlingua in the Big Bend area is the center of these chili cook-offs, I’ve never eaten chili in any of its restaurants. But I enjoyed one of the best chicken fried steak dinners I’ve eaten at a diner there.
But my favorite chili stories center about the Chili Queens, a group of women who, from the 1860s to 1940s, sold bowls of spicy stew nightly around Military Plaza in San Antonio.Their conveyances are considered among the earliest “food trucks.”
Lisa Cericola, quoting from the International Chili Society, says, "The Queens, who were, for the most part, Mexican, made their chili at home and then loaded it onto colorful little chili wagons…They build mesquite fires on the square to keep the chili warm, lighted the wagons with colored lanterns, and squatted on the ground beside the cart, dishing out chili to customers who sat on wooden stools to eat the delightful and fiery stew."
Cookbook author, Melissa Guerra, an 8th generation Texan, adds, “Any food service person can tell you that stretching your ingredients improves your margin of profit, and adding beans to a pot of chili con carne would make perfect sense to an entrepreneurial chili queen.”
As far as I’m concerned, there is no one way only to cook chili. I prefer mine mild with beans. Some Texas friends and family do prefer theirs without beans. One of our son likes his spicy hot. The other prefers the Tex-Mex version. Our daughter likes white chili made with chicken and white beans. Tourists can find some version of chili almost anywhere in the United States and pretty much around the world. While none of us can agree on any one recipe, nor should we, many consider chili a comfort dish, especially on cold, blustery days.
2023