chili

[prettygoodword]

chili or chile or chilli (CHIL-ee) - n., the spicy fruit of several cultivars of capsicum peppers (genus Capsicum); powered chile pepper used as a spicing; a stew made with chile peppers and (usually) some combination of ground meat, beans, and tomatoes.


My regionalism is showing: I want to insist very strongly that properly chile is the pepper and spice, chili is the stew (more fully, chili con carne), and chilli is an affectation -- even though I know the last is a common spelling outside the States and the second is commonly used for the pepper the Southwestern states. Shibboleths can be powerful. (Don't get me started on luminaria versus farolito, not enough room in this post.) First domesticated in central and southern Mexico at least 6000 years ago, possibly longer. All three English words are from Spanish chile, from Nahuatl chīlli.

---L.

Comments

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

That is interesting re: shibboleths--in CA, if insistence occurs in English, "chile" is the pepper and spice, whereas "chili" is the stew with beans and sometimes meat.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

Okay, argh argh argh. That's what I meant to say, but tangled myself up in incomplete edits and hasty posting. Post revised to reflect this.

Around here, there are many people insist that chili is the stew with meat and sometimes beans.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Heh, no worries.

Indeed--though I find that the beans are necessary for blocking a bit of the spice, since I can't add cheese or crema. Hats off to Fabian Garcia for his work, anyway.