Chili at the heart of it.
I love chili. There is just something about this dish. It is neither old Mexico nor wholly Texas. It is something else it is the pot that all Tex-Mex sprang from. It is a dish claimed on one hand to come to us the Madonna herself in visions… and on the other hand a bowl served by Queens…

For over fifty years the Chili Queens served bowls of chili, tamales and coffee to any and all.

Edward King, author of the 1874 Scribner’s magazine travel story “Glimpses of Texas.” Entering one of these hovels, you will find a long, rough table with wooden benches about it; a single candlestick dimly sending its light into the dark recesses of the unceiled [sic] roof, a hard-earth floor on which the fowls are busy bestowing themselves to sleep; a few dishes arranged on the table and glasses and coffee-cups beside them. The fat, tawny Mexican materfamilias will place before you various savory compounds, swimming in fiery pepper which biteth [sic] like a serpent; and the tortilla, a smoking hot cake, thin as a shaving, and about as eatable, is the substitute for bread.
Sounds like he was not a fan of chili!
I’ve made chili as long as I have cooked. My first encounter with chili was in high school some fifty years ago. You could get a paper cup of chili (very much like can of Hormel chili with beans) and a bag of Frito chip for .25$ That was my lunch for many a day.
could have been this one:

Recipes are passed down and protected. Mine is pretty simple, if I’m cooking in the house I make pretty good chili… But if I have the time and I want to show someone what good is… I make it outside over an open fire.
Inside Chile recipe:
suet
Ground beef brown in the suet (don’t stir the ground beef till its just a mealy mess leave it Chunky)
yellow onion mince fine add to meat
Chili powder the three I like and use are Pendreys Top Hat, Mexene, and Penzeys Chili con Carne seasoning… I use what I got and sometimes I got all three. I start with a quarter cup and then add another tablespoon toward the end
Beer whatever kind I’m drinking at the time. Cover the meat mixture up and simmer uncovered (never put the cover on your chili pot)
Pinto beans drained and rinsed add along with the tablespoon of chili powder add a splash of beer if you have to
To thicken if needed sprinkle with all little masa flour mix in
I serve mine with warm flour tortillas and that’s it.
If anybody is got an interest I will post my D*mn fine outside chili recipe next
Love like there no tomorrow everyone