Why San Antonio is more famous for the carnage at the Alamo than it is for the life-affirming chili queens is beyond our food-loving imaginations. The now-legendary chili queens were Mexican cooks of the female gender who poured into the plazas of San Antonio, setting clay pots on open fires and selling their wares while they bantered with each other and with the hungry visitor.  They became famous and word spread throughout Texas.  Fame brought imitation, of course, and soon those bowls of red were to be found all over Texas and began their migration north. 

Chili powder was developed by a German immigrant, William Gebhart, in New Braunfels, Texas, in 1898. He produced the first canned chili and the name Gebhart , still around today, is firmly etched in the mind of all chili lovers. Chili con carne is the epitome of Tex-Mex cooking incorporating the best of both worlds. 

Any Texan worth his chili will tell you that Texas chili never had tomatoes, that the red color came from chiles. And Ron Duckworth tells us that "in Texas putting beans in chili replaced horse thievery as the number one hanging offense."   Lacking tomatoes to bind and thicken the sauce, what gave it the structure? Science teaches us that chiles act as a thickener much the same way as tomato paste does. This was an ancient Mexican cooking technique, and that meat-loving Texan appropriated elements of the Mexican method of making sauces to join with the much loved beef. 

Whatever legends we embrace or overturn, there's no disputing the love of chili that exists in Texas. Terlingua is the home of the first chili cook-off and recipes are guarded in strictest secrecy. Chili made its way across the country, changing as it went, and though no Texan would add beans (they don't reheat well) they became a popular ingredient as chili traveled. Chili also lost its fire and grew milder. Whatever your choice, San Antonio wins the debate to our minds.

Like all other foods in Texas, chili moves with the times.  According to Terry, "Chile is a good example of nouveau Texas cooking. We now have turkey chile, vegetarian chile, chile with white beans, etc., but it's still based on chiles - and we've even discovered new combinations of chiles to use in chili to create completely different tastes.

Since chiles are a product of Mexico, we've asked our Mexican correspondent, Wayne Lundberg, to add to this.  He writes, "Mexicans learned horsemanship and cattle from the Spanish. I imagine a Mexican wife in an adobe house, her hubby working the maize, chiles, herbs, squash, beans and potatoes. I see the eldest daughter beg for a pot of the locally brewed chili to take to the plaza and sell to the hungry cowboys. And the rest is history."

"Texas chili never caught on in Mexico. The closest you can come to it is birria, born in Guadalajara and still treasured as their unique contribution to Mexican cooking. Whenever I go to Guadalajara I take the early flight to get into the city in time to get a cab to the rastro (slaughterhouse) and get a seat at one of the many birria stands just outside of the place. A dish of birria with freshly made tortillas and coffee laced with a bit of rum is the cat's meow. "