And I respectfully disagree. I think the taste comes from the type and quality of the meat, the fat (I like suet or lard), and spice mixture.
My bad. I had two threads open at once and was reading a wiki article attached to the other and foolishly conflated the two threads. Obviously, multitasking isn’t my strong suit. I have since read the whatscooking article on chili. You know what? I still don’t buy the idea that meat cooked with peppers and spices had to wait until a Texan thought of it. As for being upset about it, you must be thinking of someone else. This is, at most, an idle discussion of where a stew had its origin.
I hear you Scumpup. Like I said earlier it seems to me it is more appropriate to consider it a Southwestern dish that is distinct in some ways from Mexican or Native American cuisine. Texans get the bragging rights because it seems they did a pretty good job marketing it. And they are good at bragging. Maybe it started there, maybe it didn’t. My issue is more about the question of beans in the chili as opposed to being served on the side. I still prefer chili w/o them and I do mean well seasoned, slow-cooked, rich with meat chili. For me the beans are just a distraction.
So, what’s a good Texas chili recipe? Mine’s out of The Joy of Cooking: equal parts hamburger and beans, with canned tomatoes, etc. Lead a Yankee into the light.
I kinda like this one. But look around the site…all sorts of heresies have won over the years. 
Beans cost 10 cents per pound.
Ground beef costs a dollar and change per pound.
If you cook chili right, you should not be able to tell what the filler is by taste. The part of your mouth that can tell animal protein from legume protein should be on fire…
I think this can easily be resolved by checking the rules of the international chili society. http://www.chilicookoff.com/Event/Event_Rules.asp
You can disagree all you want but it’s a bit like saying you are playing baseball but requiring the players to hit the ball into a soccer net to have it counted as a home run.
Soooo…WITHOUT for the ICS-sanctioned Traditional Red and Chili Verde, and WITH for PEOPLE’S CHOICE chili?
ETA:
If seeing a couple of BANNED posters upthread hadn’t clued me in that this is a zombie thread, the quote above surely would have.