You are suffering from a common malady: Google Localization. A quick trip down Search Engine Lane gives a couple of sources in the first few results: <a href="http://www.bulkfoods.com/spices.asp">Bulk Foods</a> will sell you fifty pounds of chili powder (or less if you like), and <a href="http://www.thespicehouse.com/spices/mild-medium-or-hot-chili-powder">The Spice House</a> offers it in various octane ratings, to suit your personal compression ratio.
But Mitch is correct: whatever the source, chili powder is a shortcut, not an ingredient. About.com's <a href="http://southernfood.about.com/od/seasoningrecipes/r/bl30420j.htm">Southern Cuisine</a> page gives a decent starting point, <i>viz.</i>:
None of that should be impossible to find in a French spice shop. Fresh, too. Use your imagination from there, especially as regards different types of peppers to add.
The real, original chili is a boring dish, the result of people trying to get something edible out of fresh-killed free-range beef (for which read: tough and flavored with foul-tasting resinous weeds the cows were eating.) Beef rolled in a little flour and browned, then stewed until it doesn't require metal implements to chop bits off. That's about it. Peppers are easily preserved by drying, so unlike other spices were at least available, and they will cut the taste of the ubiquitous bitterweed, which cows will eat with pleasure and which gives the meat a flavor that might remind you of an attempt to make ouzo and anisette, both gone horribly wrong, then mixed. Modern chili recipes result from the efforts of the late Frank X. Tolbert, reporter for the Dallas (Texas) Morning News, who encouraged elaboration because he liked hot stuff. Don't worry about "authenticity". Anything truly authentic can only be choked down if you're desperately hungry and need fuel.
You are suffering from a common malady: Google Localization. A quick trip down Search Engine Lane gives a couple of sources in the first few results: <a href="http://www.bulkfoods.com/spices.asp">Bulk Foods</a> will sell you fifty pounds of chili powder (or less if you like), and <a href="http://www.thespicehouse.com/spices/mild-medium-or-hot-chili-powder">The Spice House</a> offers it in various octane ratings, to suit your personal compression ratio.
But Mitch is correct: whatever the source, chili powder is a shortcut, not an ingredient. About.com's <a href="http://southernfood.about.com/od/seasoningrecipes/r/bl30420j.htm">Southern Cuisine</a> page gives a decent starting point, <i>viz.</i>:
* 1 teaspoon paprika
* 2 teaspoons ground cumin
* 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
* 1 teaspoon oregano
* 2 teaspoons garlic powder
None of that should be impossible to find in a French spice shop. Fresh, too. Use your imagination from there, especially as regards different types of peppers to add.
The real, original chili is a boring dish, the result of people trying to get something edible out of fresh-killed free-range beef (for which read: tough and flavored with foul-tasting resinous weeds the cows were eating.) Beef rolled in a little flour and browned, then stewed until it doesn't require metal implements to chop bits off. That's about it. Peppers are easily preserved by drying, so unlike other spices were at least available, and they will cut the taste of the ubiquitous bitterweed, which cows will eat with pleasure and which gives the meat a flavor that might remind you of an attempt to make ouzo and anisette, both gone horribly wrong, then mixed. Modern chili recipes result from the efforts of the late Frank X. Tolbert, reporter for the Dallas (Texas) Morning News, who encouraged elaboration because he liked hot stuff. Don't worry about "authenticity". Anything truly authentic can only be choked down if you're desperately hungry and need fuel.
Regards,
Ric