Chilli con carne, literally ‘chilli with meat’, originated in northern Mexico and the southern United States, specifically Texas, and I think it would be fair to say that it holds a much more significant place in American culture than it does here in Australia. The diversity of different types and recipes now available, some specific to particular dates like ‘game day’, and including vegetarian versions, different meats and chilli types is quite astounding. The variety is such that it gets referred to simply by the generic form ‘chilli’,. which makes some sense to me considering the vegetarian variants.
