Frogleg muttered....


> I searched and experimented for years for the "genuine" delicious
> chile con queso recipe served by a New Mexico restaurant only to find
> (friend of the owner's family) it was Velveeta-based. So much for
> hidalgo heritage. :-)
>

Since chile con queso was far less Mexican than it was an American (50s?)
interpretation of TexMex food, the original "popular" recipe for the
appetizer and party dip was a clever blend of Velveeta and Rotel brand
canned tomatoes with green chiles.

The closest Mexican dish must have been the Northern Mexican favorite
"queso flameado", sort of a oven melted rarebit with browned crumbled
chorizo atop. Even tortilla chips used in the "dip" fashion seem to have
been unknown in Mexico, where the corn tortilla, torn in to quarters at
middle class tables, served as spoon/dork/shovel, the predecessor of the
schoolkids' spork.

My memory of pre-modern Philly cheesesteaks, 1964-65, vaguely recalls a
white Italian cheese of no great flavor, but then Cheesewhiz's introduction
cannot have occured much if any before 1960 (although it's popularity
climbed rapidly).

The New Orleans roast beef poor boy remains to me a better samitch, and the
"debris" model even better, a classic.

TMO