There is a Mexican relative to the chili con queso: They put chihuahua
cheese straight onto the griddle and flip it around, scrambled egg style,
with chorizo, then serve it in a dish. The remaining skin that is
inevitably left on the griddle when the melted cheese is removed is then
fried crisp and served as well, like a giant cheese chip.

How good does that sound?

Don't ask me what it's technical name is - I saw it on Rick Bayless's show
on Chicago PBS

Peg
"ASmith1946" > wrote in message
...
> 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