The types of meat and other ingredients used vary based on geographic and personal tastes. Recipes provoke disputes among aficionados, some of whom insist that the word chili applies only to the basic dish, without beans and tomatoes.
Chili con carne is a common dish for cook-offs , and may be used as a side , garnish , or ingredient in other dishes, such as soups or salsas. The use of beef as the primary meat originated when the Spanish introduced cattle to Mexico.
Carne con chile was very common throughout much of Mexico, as it was an easy and cheap meal. I then joined a party of Rancheros who had assembled to kill a cow and cut her flesh into tasajo, βan operation which they performed with extraordinary skill and dispatch, separating the sinews from the flesh with anatomical precision. Two men devoted themselves to cutting the meat into long strings or ropes, which they threw to another who rubbed them well with salt: after this, no other process remained but to hang the beef in festoons over long poles to dry in the sun.
I breakfasted with the Rancheros, when their work was done, on dry meat with chili sauce and piping hot tortillas served up in rapid succession. Our second course was a dish of cow's blood stewed with sweet herbs: and having prefaced our meal by a glass of white brandy distilled in the Rancho, we all ate heartily.
They call tasajo the meat that is dried in the sun after being salted and cut into long, thin strips to prevent putrefaction, which would be more active than the absorptive force of the sun, if one tried to dry it in thicker pieces, and despite this caution, it always retains an unpleasant smell and taste.
