Chili con carne

Before there was a Tex-Mex restaurant, there was a chili stand. From about 1870 to 1930, the women known as the Chili Queens cooked and served in San Antonio's open-air plazas, Military Plaza chief among them, and their spicy beef stew is where this whole cuisine starts. A proper bowl is all about the meat and the red chile, rich enough to need nothing on the side but crackers or a tortilla. It also turns up again further down this list as the backbone of Frito pie, so it pays to know the original first.