Why chili and sweet rolls? How this school lunch became a South Dakota food favorite
Makenzie HuberThis article is about one of 18 South Dakota food favorites. For the complete list, go here.
Chili and cinnamon or caramel rolls: Eat the sweet roll and chili separately, or combine the two distinct flavors by pouring chili over said sweet roll, using said roll as a spoon to eat chili, or submerging said roll inside the chili bowl.
It all started in grade school.
School lunch programs across the Midwest and Great Plains started serving chili alongside cinnamon rolls in the mid-1900s. It is unknown why the two meals were commonly paired together, but it was a hit. Children could eat their chili and their cinnamon roll separately — or they could mix them together for a new combination.
And so chili and cinnamon rolls was born.
According to grade school lunch announcements in local papers, the first place to regularly serve cinnamon rolls and chili for lunch was in 1954 in Greeley, Colorado, for the Greeley public schools. But a handful of states across the region have all claimed to start the trend.
It wasn't until the '60s that Iowa, Nebraska, Indiana, Idaho and Texas included lunch announcements in newspapers of chili and cinnamon rolls.
Runza, a Nebraska-based restaurant chain, serves chili and cinnamon rolls on its menu. The Argus Leader is not aware of any South Dakota restaurants that serve the combination on their menus.
The earliest reference to chili and cinnamon rolls was in the March 15, 1905 issue of the Fort Wayne Sentinel newspaper in Fort Wayne, Indiania. The paper announced lunch items for the next day: chili concarne, beans, liver salad with chili sauce, cinnamon rolls and cocoa. While this is the oldest reference, it wasn't a common lunch pairing according to the paper's records.
Even though South Dakota has never claimed to start the trend, its residents identify chili and cinnamon rolls as a childhood favorite. But one thing is for sure — while chili and cinnamon rolls is a popular Midwest dish, chili and caramel rolls are strictly reserved for South Dakota.
The earliest reference of the dish in South Dakota was in the Rapid City Journal on March 12, 1961 for Douglas School. For that Thursday's lunch menu it was chili, cinnamon rolls, carrot and celery sticks, apple and orange sauce, and milk.
Chili and caramel roll announcements in newspapers only appear in South Dakota and to some extent North Dakota. Although the combination is nowhere close to the popularity of cinnamon rolls and chili in the state, South Dakotans can claim caramel rolls and chili and distinctly their own.
Cierra Haffner Lindquist, who attended school in Kadoka, said she remembered eating caramel rolls with her chili as a child. She'll still eat the combination when it's presented to her.
"Ying and yang," Haffner Lindquist said. "Chili, done the right way, is mildly to moderately spicy. Caramel adds some sweet to the meal. Also, it was how the lunch ladies prepared our chili lunch."