I had thought to write a short and simple overview for this node; you know the kind of thing, a translation of the name and a discussion of the origins of the dish and the variations that exist. But it turns out that people get passionate about chili con carne (or just chili), and every aspect of its existence, save one, is fraught with controversy. The one thing that is clear is that chili con carne is Spanish for "chili with meat", but beyond that all is disputed.
You'd think, given the Spanish name, that this dish would be of Mexican origin, but apparently many Mexicans take great umbrage at the very suggestion. They claim, and many agree, that chili con carne as we know it today - a melange of diced or ground beef and chiles and/or chili powder - originated in Texas. In 1826 J.C. Clopper, an American visiting San Antonio, wrote that poor families bought as much meat as they could afford - very little - and made it into a kind of stew or hash with as many peppers as pieces of meat; sounds like a basic chili. On the other hand, in 1890 army captain and anthropologist John G. Bour visited San Antonio and northern Mexican villages to study food eating habits and folklore, and noted that villagers used red, white, green, sweet and bitter capiscum, and found them so essential to the cuisine that "No Mexican dish of meat or vegetables is deemed complete without it, and its supremacy as a table adjunct is conceded by both garlic and tomatoes, which also bob up serenely in nearly every effort of the culinary art." This too sounds a lot like the chili con carne we know today, though apparently the dish was influenced by Texans who had emigrated from the Canary Islands; they introduced the practice of adding oregano, ground cumin, and chopped garlic to the dish.
Let's say it's a very early Tex-Mex dish, then. Texans commonly refer to chili con carne as "a bowl of red", and Will Rogers apparently called it "a bowl of blessedness". Texans consider the inclusion of beans as an adulteration, though this is requisite in other places, where chili may be dubbed "chili con carne with beans". (The chili con carne of my childhood always contained red kidney beans.) Then there's brick chili, frozen into the shape of a block, which appeared late in the 19th century; it is thick but can be thinned after thawing by the addition of a liquid. There's chili-mac, that is, macaroni topped with chili; chili-rice; chili dogs; chili size (chili over a hamburger patty); chili or Frito pie, a baked casserole made with a layer of corn chips (Fritos), then a layer of chili, all topped with a layer of shredded cheese. (Now there's a heart attack on a plate.) And Cincinnati apparently has their own style of chili which contains Mediterranean spices like cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, ginger, mace, coriander, turmeric, and mustard. Cincinnati chili is served in five different ways, and you order by way: "one way" = plain chili; "two way" = chili with spaghetti; "three way" = two way plus grated cheddar cheese; "four way" = three way plus chopped onions; and "five way" = four way on a foundation of beans. Whew! That's a lot of kinds of chili.
Here on everything we have a lot of kinds of chili too. There's a couple of tasty looking recipes at chili (including Lometa's five alarm chili), plus venison chili, Hermetic's Chili Recipe, Black Bean and Corn Chili, Three bean chili, salsa chili, Textured Vegetable Protein Chili and Czeano's Vegetarian Chili Of Doom for the vegetarians in the crowd, and persimmon chili for the adventurous. Surely there's one here for you too. Git cookin'!
http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/Bayou/8888/soups.html
http://www.lone-star.net/mall/literature/chili.htm
http://users.tm.net/montague/CA1.htm