Ruddell wrote:
> A short discussion with a friend left us without an answer and rather
> dumbfounded/shocked about chili. Where/when did the term 'con carne' first
> get dropped.

According to The Oxford Companion To Food by Alan Davidson "It first
appeared, with a slightly different spelling, in a book by S. Compton
Smith entitled Chile con Carne, or The Camp and the Field (1857).