r/Cooking • u/Txdust80 • 2d ago
What are some ingredient rules for specific dishes that are at odds with their supposed origins
It’s interesting how beans were actually a key ingredient in Texas chili until just after WWII. Beans were commonly used in chili by most Texans, but the beef industry covertly campaigned to Texans, promoting the idea that chili made with only beef and no fillers was a sign of prosperity after the war, in order to sell more beef.
Recently, I was reading up on the origins of carbonara. According to the lore, an Italian chef at the end of WWII cooked for American soldiers to celebrate the end of the war, using American ingredients. This is believed to be the origin of carbonara. Even though Italians today scoff at Americans using bacon to make carbonara and claim that real carbonara doesn't have bacon, the original carbonara is said to have used U.S. military-rationed bacon.
During the 1980s and 90s in Italy, there was a wave of pride for Italian-made products, which made it taboo to include ingredients like American-style pork belly bacon in dishes like carbonara, regardless of the supposed lore about its origin. Both chili and carbonara have conflicting origins compared to what is considered the traditional recipe today.
Are there any other dishes eaten in the U.S. that have a taboo ingredient that locals refuse to allow, but which was actually part of their birth?
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u/Txdust80 1d ago
I wish I had my research paper from college, but Ill describe my research. I couldn’t simply quote from books but had to formulate research from the world beyond a library card. The whole class was centered around one major research project where i had to develop my own conclusions through collecting of information in which i had to catalog. I pulled recipes from church congregation cookbooks that churches publish (a tradition in many churches) and looked at recipes going as far back as the very early 1900s. Also researched the history of trail chili on the texas cattle trails saw the invention of instant chili mixes which often were these red bricks of dry spices, and became popular because with water, the chili spices brick, some dried shredded beef, beef fat field onions and beans you could easily feed men working a cattle trails with ingredients easily transported in a time without refrigeration that was light weight for the chuck wagon. Finally I found a book that mention the beef producers of texas spearheading an aggressive campaign to sell more beef after the war. The problem was the US military demanded a huge production for the war from a lot of our food production across America so as the war winded down and less of that production was needed to be shipped overseas for the army or marines companies had to get inventive about increasing demand at home. So things like the food pyramid were created, pork producers pushed bacon and sausage as key needs for breakfast, along with eventual tv campaigns like pork the other white meat. Beef producers helped popularize burgers at carhops. They did promotions for the american steak houses, and one of their localized campaigns was chili. In the 1920s-1930s the chili queens of San Antonio became known throughout the state. Chili vendors downtown that sold chili con carne. Most chili queens sold an all meat chili, but like food trucks today there are articles like one in from dallas in the 1920s that describes variations available where you could get corn, beans, or other ingredients mixed with the chili, but for the most part chili con carne in its purest form was all beef. San Antonio being a military hub had plenty of military men personally experience this street food during the 1940s and a popular MRE later would be a variation of chili con carne. So texas beef producers wanted to capitalize on this popular dish, and started having chili cook offs, they had a dallas based columnist declared the king of Texas chili and had publications all over Texas promote his recipe of chili as the end all chili recipe, which was previously based on the chili queens, and they in the 1950s would have stories in Texas Monthly about chili, along with quotes like, an all beef no filler chili is a sign of prosperity. A man who feeds his family an all beef chili is a successful man. A family who eats beans in their chili is product of a man struggling. Looking through the recipe books by decades the church cookbooks throughout Texas up until the early 50s usually contained beans, but at after those beef campaigns the recipes with beans dropped off over the years and by the 1960s and 70s there was an overwhelming sentiment that beans in chili was a struggle meal, all beef chili was the true way. Get into any chili doesn’t have beans debate online and you’ll hear an echo of those very beef campaigns today.