Omaha Exploration

As the weather cools down, many of us get a hankering for a warm, perhaps spicy bowl of chili paired with a sweet, icy cinnamon roll. This seemingly unusual combination surprised celebrity chef Alton Brown when he visited Omaha a few years back. To many of us, though, it may be the best pairing since the folks at Reese’s began encasing peanut butter in chocolate. But as it turns out, it isn’t just a Nebraska thing!

The tradition appears to trace back to the National School Lunch Program of 1946, which helped schools cut costs through federal funding. States had discretion over which foods they purchased, as long as they followed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s requirements—milk, two servings of fruits or vegetables, a grain, and meat or a protein alternative.

Schools often requested specific foods, which the USDA delivered in bulk. This created a challenge for the lunch ladies (and men) tasked with making the supplies last while filling the bottomless pits of hundreds of hungry children each day.

It didn’t take long for some ingenious cafeteria worker to serve up a bowl of chili loaded with ground beef, kidney beans, and other proteins alongside a cinnamon roll, which fulfilled the grain requirement. Add some produce and milk, and boom—lunch was served! Students, of course, loved it. No doubt one of those kids did what kids do best and experimented by dipping the roll into the steamy bowl of chili. Others followed his or her lead—at least here in the Midwest.

After those students grew up and became parents, they passed their craving for the sweet-and-savory combo onto their children. Midwestern restaurants like Runza took notice and started offering a chili and cinnamon roll meal in 2007. They weren’t the only ones—Boulder Tap House in Ames, Iowa took it a step further, serving a chili burger topped with a cinnamon roll bun. No doubt there are countless other spots across the United States doing something similar.

So there you have it—the origin of a Midwest classic: chili and cinnamon rolls. While Alton Brown took the unusual approach of pouring his chili over the top of the cinnamon roll, most of us Midwesterners either dunk it or eat them separately.

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