TMO wrote:

>
>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.
>


I've located chili con queso recipes in US cookbooks dating to the 1930s, and
indeed chili con queso was likely a Tex-Mex creation (as was chili con carne).
Early recipes do not use Velveeta, which was first manufactured in 1928. It was
common practice to use Velveeta in chili con queso recipes by the 1970s in New
Mexico. Velveeta was much cheaper than cheese; when heated and mixed with other
ingredients, the properties of Velveeta made a decent chip dip that was better
than ones made from real cheese.

As to chip dips, I blame Lipton's Soup for this phenomena. As far as I know,
their recipe combining dry onion soup mix with sour cream, along with the
multi-million dollar promotion blitz, was the impetus for the party dip craze
that began in the 1950s. (Out of curiosity, did Lipton promote this dip in the
UK or elsewhere as well?) During the 1950s, the chips of choice were potato
chips (or crisps if you prefer). Corn chips (for dipping as opposed to fritios,
which were/are too small for dipping) did not become popular in the US until
the late 1960s.

Andy Smith