Explain competition chili to me

[Shalmanese]

I was googling for chili recipes and stumbled across the Terlingua International Chili Championship Winner Recipes. These recipes seem to be from a completely different world of cooking than the one I'm used to. They rely on canned broths & bouillon cubes, store bought spice mixes and onion & garlic powders. I can't help but think they would taste better with a great home made stock, real onions & garlic and chiles which you toast, grind and blend yourself.

Is there something I'm missing about competition chili?

[Dakki]

I should know better than to post this, but...

Chili -does- belong to a different world of cooking to the stuff we (usually) talk about on eGullet. Like casserole, the dish itself resists overrefinement. (I think Heston Blumenthal made a mess of it in that sense with his perfect chili. We made his recipe once, going to great trouble to procure the Indian chiles he used. The dish was good, but it was not chili). Then, there's an ugly strain of reverse elitism that pervades popular culture in the USA. Chili has been embraced by righteous Real Americans as their native cuisine and any attempt to to tart it up with duck broth, freshly ground exotic spices and Kobe beef or whatever will produce hoots of derision from the crowd as an attempt to turn their patriotic, gun toting, Confederate flag flying dish into liberal heathen ethnic frenchified haute cuisine *spits*.

For the record I like pouring it into a bag of Fritos and my brother was local champion for a couple of years.

[Tri2Cook]

Why are the recipes so pedestrian?

Because the judges are?

Actually I'm somewhat serious. I'm not saying there are no judges that would appreciate stepping outside of the pedestrian box but there are usually a whole lot of judges at those things and most of them already have their mind made up as to what constitutes a winning chili... which is whatever constituted a winning chili last year and the year before and so on. Most of the top competitors have done enough of them to know that and know what that winning chili ideal tends to be. I'm betting there's not a lot of potential reward for not giving them what they're looking for in the interest of giving them something technically better.

[Dakki]

I forgot to add: Those recipes are probably not the precise ones used in the actual competition. Competitive chili is, well, competitive, and people guard their "secrets" with as much care as champion BBQ cooks guard theirs.

[andiesenji]

In years gone by, I have attended a number of chili cook-offs, challenges, championships and chuckwagon cattle calls. I participated in a few, never won anything important but had a lot of fun.

The contestants ranged from the truly serious chili junkies, who guard their recipes like the gold that used to be in Ft. Knox, to the casual cook who spends more time drinking and telling jokes than cooking.

The contest rules vary so widely that one needs to keep a file if planning to go on "the circuit" because nobody enters just one contest.

They are almost as rabid as the barbecue cook-off fanatics, but don't spend as much on equipment or ingredients.

I attended one chili even - helping a friend - at a rural fairgrounds which had scheduled BOTH a chili event on one side of the grounds and a barbecue event on the other.

Unfortunately, the hastily erected chain-link fences did little to stop the excursion of attendees from straying into the other half of the fairground - figuring they had paid for admittance to the fairground so shouldn't have to pay a second time for the other event.

There were some lively arguments.

There were a few casualties!

The local police had to call in the staties to help with the crowds.

A good time was had by almost all.

[southwell]

Don't forget there is a distinction between Texas chili (that often resembles the recipes you describe) and New Mexican chile, that often doesn't

Edited August 26, 2011 by southwell (log)

[andiesenji]

Don't forget there is a distinction between Texas chili (that often resembles the recipes you describe) and New Mexican chile, which doesn't

Ah yes, the meat, no beans vs. the meat and beans, possibly other vegetables, and the other regional chili favorites: Cincinnati "firehouse" chili, Detroit chili (with spaghetti), Springfield, IL chili, Memphis chili, Oklahoma chili, Colorado chili (not Chile Colorado), Wyoming sheepherder chili and Cowboy chili of Wyoming. Plus many others.

Texas has multiple entries, including some WITH beans in certain towns or counties.

Chili cooked in Mexican homes in the Texas border towns was mostly beans with a very small amount of meat for flavor.

The Chili Appreciation Society International (CASI) and the International Chili Society (ICS) sometimes have competing events.

The wild and wonderful world of chili can take one down a never ending road because there are so many recipes it would take a lifetime to try them all.

I have a friend who has been preparing a different chili recipe almost every week for 29 years and at last count has tried over 1400. (Did not cook while on vacations or when laid up with a broken leg and later following knee surgery.)

He says he still has over a thousand yet to try and keeps adding more as he finds them.

[Shalmanese]

Chili has been embraced by righteous Real Americans as their native cuisine and any attempt to to tart it up with duck broth, freshly ground exotic spices and Kobe beef or whatever will produce hoots of derision from the crowd as an attempt to turn their patriotic, gun toting, Confederate flag flying dish into liberal heathen ethnic frenchified haute cuisine *spits*.

I'm not talking about altering the chili by using duck broth or kobe beef but enhancing the flavors already present. Freshly toasted and ground whole cumin seeds are going to taste measurably better than even the best pre-ground cumin and it's not exactly complicated. Similarly, a well prepared stock is going to have exactly the same flavor notes as a can of Swanson's, just better.

[Dakki]

24th ANNUAL ROBERT E. LEE MEMORIAL CHILI COOKOFF AND CHILD BEAUTY PAGEANT

Shalmanese: CHILI! Getcher chili right here!

Attendee: That smells mighty good. Say, I ain't seen you here last year. Where you from?

Shalmanese: (as he pours out a bowl) San Fran- *cough* *cough* Dallas.

Attendee: Dallas, huh? Lets see what BIG CITY chili tastes like! (accepts the bowl and tastes, looks surprised) My, that's good. I can really taste the spices.

Shalmanese: Ah, that's because I toasted and ground them right before putting them in the pot-

Attendee: (Defensively) What's wrong with spice mix from the K-Mart?

Shalmanese: Well, fresh ground just tastes better, you just said so yourself-

Attendee: HELP! I'M BEING OPPRESSED BY AN ELITIST!

I'm kidding, of course.

I suspect the recipes linked in your original post are a rough approximation of the actual competition chilis, which use the somewhat more skill- and labor- intensive fresh broth, toasted and freshly ground spices, and probably a "secret ingredient" or two to make them competition-worthy. That's pure speculation on my part so take it with as much salt as you want.

[Clark D]

I'll start by saying that I've done absolutely horrid and reasonablly well in chili cook offs. Some Casi, some ICS and some sanctioned by a local group of chili folks from Seattle.

I only do the ones that line up with our bbq competition schedule. When I make chili for comps I use all dried chiles and fresh whole spices that I toast and grind, as well as home made stock.

Here's the thing it either wins or gets basically last place. I took second place in the Oregon state chili cook off and the next weekend took last in Vancouver.

Basically what it boils down to is consistency in flavors, using all powdered and pre mixed stuff will come out the exact same every single time. If you want to win consistently this is the way to do it time after time, once you find the winning formula.

Fresh peppers and spices taste a little different every time and are far more flavorful, often adding that one thing that the judges can't place, they often don't go for that and are looking for their notion of what chili is and what it should taste like. If you want to win you're better off knowing! We're in it for fun so do what we like to it, you do have 90% of the pot to yourself after anyways!

Clark

[slkinsey]

I was googling for chili recipes and stumbled across the Terlingua International Chili Championship Winner Recipes. These recipes seem to be from a completely different world of cooking than the one I'm used to. They rely on canned broths & bouillon cubes, store bought spice mixes and onion & garlic powders. I can't help but think they would taste better with a great home made stock, real onions & garlic and chiles which you toast, grind and blend yourself.

Is there something I'm missing about competition chili?

One of the reasons is that there is the rule that the chili must be cooked entirely on-site, in the open and "from scratch." Chili powders (but not "chili mixes") are allowed.

This would generally militate against any complicated contributing preparation such as a homemade stock, because the stock would have to be produced on-site entirely from scratch. Bringing a container of homemade stock from home is against the rules. Similarly, it may simply be too much work to start with dry chilies, hydrate them, and then run them through a food mill all on-site to obtain a high quality chili paste in the amounts required for a competition such as this.

This seems like a rule that probably has some weird effects. For example, clearly you can use a pre-made stock so long as someone else has made it commercially, because canned stock and bouillon cubes are considered "ingredients." And while you would not be allowed to make a chili paste at home, you could probably bring a commercial ancho chili paste and use that.

I'm not quite sure why they would use garlic powder and onion powder, except that I would point out that these have a distinctive flavor that is actually what you really want to use in certain dishes and styles of cuisine. I think you probably make the best point with respect to things like toasting cumin seeds. Except, how are they going to grind them on-site?

[Clark D]

To make the stock on site we used ground meat, works in a pinch and much quicker. Grinding chiles and peppers is easy for us since we have poer (Like I say we only do the events that line up with bbq comps and they have power.....

Clark

[andiesenji]

We used a molcajete to "grind" toasted cumin seeds, caraway seeds ("secret" ingredient), dried chiles and roasted fresh chiles, a grater for orange peel (before the advent of miccroplanes) but we could have easily used an electric spice grinder. We were in a big motorhome with a generator that powered a couple of electric open kettles and a large electric frying pan.

My friend had a sponsor that provided canned ingredients - Trappey's - that complied with the rules and we used a commercial soup "base" that was allowed. Much better than boullion cubes and a lot less salt.

Most of the contestants were in motorhomes or trailers with self-contained power and some had portable generators.

I recall one group from a local realty company that had a big diesel generator on its own trailer and they had lights strung around their area, a TV and a stereo as well as several electric appliances.

They won a big prize with their buffalo chili and a lesser prize with their turkey chili.

However the grand prize at that competition went to an elderly couple and their family who had a minimal set up and cooked their chili over a wood fire in a portable fire pit. There was always a crowd around their setup and I was too busy to spend much time gawking so I don't know how they worked.

I think I gained ten pounds that weekend.

[JimS]

Freshly toasted and ground whole cumin seeds are going to taste measurably better than even the best pre-ground cumin and it's not exactly complicated. Similarly, a well prepared stock is going to have exactly the same flavor notes as a can of Swanson's, just better.

I don't agree. Freshly toasted and ground whole cumin seeds and homemade stock are going to taste different than using the packaged alternatives. Not necessarily better. Remember, this is chili. Subtle doesn't win contests.

[Tri2Cook]

Attendee: (Defensively) What's wrong with spice mix from the K-Mart?

As a person of southeast U.S. origin and upbringing I feel I should inform you that the correct pronunciation is "K-Mark". Just in the interest of accuracy of course.

I've never done a chili competition, I based my thoughts on other types of cooking competitions I've seen. For example, the annual blueberry muffin competition where I live involves a core group of ladies who always enter and one of which always wins. They know what the judges want and they give it to them. No experimenting, no "this would be better", just "here's the recipe I used last year, give me my ribbon". I would like to argue against that method but the bottom line is that they win. Hard to argue with success.

[andiesenji]

I've never done a chili competition, I based my thoughts on other types of cooking competitions I've seen. For example, the annual blueberry muffin competition where I live involves a core group of ladies who always enter and one of which always wins. They know what the judges want and they give it to them. No experimenting, no "this would be better", just "here's the recipe I used last year, give me my ribbon". I would like to argue against that method but the bottom line is that they win. Hard to argue with success.

That's sad. My grandma and my aunts were always in the running for prizes for their canned goods at the county fair but there were times there was a "dark horse" winner who did something a bit different and better, in the opinion of the judges.

My aunt Hattie Anne used to always win the blue ribbon for her green tomato pie in the category that allowed for pies with unusual ingredients.

Any cooking competition is essentially a SUBJECTIVE judging experience - I have judged a few. Some judges have a predisposition to certain flavors or a particular ingredient and it is difficult for them to be objective with these factors.

In any event, chili competitions are great fun to visit and as long as one is blessed with good digestion and an industrial-sized container of antacids, it can be something you never forget.

(Probably without the antacids you won't forget it either.)

[brucesw]

I was googling for chili recipes and stumbled across the Terlingua International Chili Championship Winner Recipes. These recipes seem to be from a completely different world of cooking than the one I'm used to. They rely on canned broths & bouillon cubes, store bought spice mixes and onion & garlic powders. I can't help but think they would taste better with a great home made stock, real onions & garlic and chiles which you toast, grind and blend yourself.

Is there something I'm missing about competition chili?

One of the reasons is that there is the rule that the chili must be cooked entirely on-site, in the open and "from scratch." Chili powders (but not "chili mixes") are allowed.

This would generally militate against any complicated contributing preparation such as a homemade stock, because the stock would have to be produced on-site entirely from scratch. Bringing a container of homemade stock from home is against the rules. Similarly, it may simply be too much work to start with dry chilies, hydrate them, and then run them through a food mill all on-site to obtain a high quality chili paste in the amounts required for a competition such as this.

This seems like a rule that probably has some weird effects. For example, clearly you can use a pre-made stock so long as someone else has made it commercially, because canned stock and bouillon cubes are considered "ingredients." And while you would not be allowed to make a chili paste at home, you could probably bring a commercial ancho chili paste and use that.

I'm not quite sure why they would use garlic powder and onion powder, except that I would point out that these have a distinctive flavor that is actually what you really want to use in certain dishes and styles of cuisine. I think you probably make the best point with respect to things like toasting cumin seeds. Except, how are they going to grind them on-site?

Isn't there also an appointed start time and a definitive cut-off time when your offering has to be in to the judging tent? You can't just light your fires 6 hours ahead of time to make your stock.

I've never participated or even been to one of these events but what you say here, and the observations by Clark D, exactly jibe with what I've read and what I've been told by an acquaintance who does compete, though he says he goes for the camaraderie and has never won. He also says he learns things from other cooks, some of whom are quite accomplished, and not just how to open the spice packs from Pendery's.

I agree also with the observation that the recipes published are probably for mass consumption and may not exactly reflect what was actually done. In line with that several winners have gone on to issue 'chili kits' with all the necessary ingredients - Wick Fowler, Carroll Shelby, Cindy Reed Williams(Cin Chili - the only person to ever win CASI twice, I think).

[Norm Matthews]

I was googling for chili recipes and stumbled across the Terlingua International Chili Championship Winner Recipes. These recipes seem to be from a completely different world of cooking than the one I'm used to. They rely on canned broths & bouillon cubes, store bought spice mixes and onion & garlic powders. I can't help but think they would taste better with a great home made stock, real onions & garlic and chiles which you toast, grind and blend yourself.

Is there something I'm missing about competition chili?

One of the reasons is that there is the rule that the chili must be cooked entirely on-site, in the open and "from scratch." Chili powders (but not "chili mixes") are allowed.

This would generally militate against any complicated contributing preparation such as a homemade stock, because the stock would have to be produced on-site entirely from scratch. Bringing a container of homemade stock from home is against the rules. Similarly, it may simply be too much work to start with dry chilies, hydrate them, and then run them through a food mill all on-site to obtain a high quality chili paste in the amounts required for a competition such as this.

This seems like a rule that probably has some weird effects. For example, clearly you can use a pre-made stock so long as someone else has made it commercially, because canned stock and bouillon cubes are considered "ingredients." And while you would not be allowed to make a chili paste at home, you could probably bring a commercial ancho chili paste and use that.

I'm not quite sure why they would use garlic powder and onion powder, except that I would point out that these have a distinctive flavor that is actually what you really want to use in certain dishes and styles of cuisine. I think you probably make the best point with respect to things like toasting cumin seeds. Except, how are they going to grind them on-site?

Allowing only commercially produced stock may be driven by local and state health laws which prohibit "home" made ingredients in any food served at a public event. I know from personal experience as a former restaurant owner that is the case here in Kansas in any event. By home, I mean anything produced outside of the event itself that isn't made under the supervision and regulations of local health dept. and Dept. of Agriculture guidelines.

[Gregg]

My wife's office has a chili cook off every fall. There are usually 12 to 15 entries covering a surprisingly wide variety of chili styles. Invariably the winner used Swanson beef stock, Bush's canned chili beans, probably a couple packets of chili seasoning mix, usually hamburger instead of some more highfaluting cut of beef and a couple onions that may or may not have been tossed in the pan with the burger. Acceptable toppings include grated store brand mild cheddar cheese, chopped yellow onions and for the really adventurous some Tabasco sauce. No other style or higher end version has ever won. The office is a group of doctors so they tend to be reasonably well educated and several are definitely appreciative of good food so its not as simple as calling out the redneck vote. Everyone at the party votes for their top 3 favorites and the winner is the one with the most votes. That simple. I've always thought that was kind of funny and in a weird way kind of a slice of Americana.

For the record, at home I like to use my own stock, dried beans, toasted spices, a little Green & Black's 90%, ground chuck. The peppers, including a couple habaneros, and onions get roasted first. Guajillos and anchos get ground into a paste and added to good quality tomato paste then into the pot. Then I add a 12 pack of Tecate' (with a little going into the chili as needed) and let it cook. I think its great, but it would probably only crack the top 1/2 at the cook off.

[Paul Kierstead]

Everyone at the party votes for their top 3 favorites and the winner is the one with the most votes. That simple. I've always thought that was kind of funny and in a weird way kind of a slice of Americana.

That kind of voting system can result in a winner which no one voted as their #1 favorite. Kind of how the third place guy can win a nomination at a political convention. This would be particularly true if the non-pedestrian entrants are well off the beaten path causing a love/hate dichotomy. Weighting the vote more heavily towards to the #1 favorites can help make the voting less favour the safe, inoffensive choice.

[Gregg]

That kind of voting system can result in a winner which no one voted as their #1 favorite. Kind of how the third place guy can win a nomination at a political convention. This would be particularly true if the non-pedestrian entrants are well off the beaten path causing a love/hate dichotomy. Weighting the vote more heavily towards to the #1 favorites can help make the voting less favour the safe, inoffensive choice.

That is true, but the other side of the coin is that there are enough entries and enough people voting (usually 200 or so) that there is reasonable confidence that the true crowd favorites rise to the top. In any competition that is informal, not officially judged, not all the voters are even going to try every entry which would also skew the results. As a purely practical rather that purely statistical matter, a chili that gets 200 third place votes (but no 1st or 2nds) appeals to a wider variety of people than one that gets 20 first place votes (and no 2nd or 3rds). I'm not a restauranteur by any means, but lessons from other businesses tell me that if I can get 100% of diners to vote me in their top 20% I'm probably going to have an easier time making it than a competitor who has 10% vote them at the very top. (Of course I don't live in a major metro area so will concede that it may not matter so much if you have a potential customer pool of several million people.) I'd be interested to hear from the pros to know if that thinking is flawed or not.

Regarding the OP, the comments regarding competition rules certainly explain the limitations on chili recipes. It does seem like there should be a way to extend the prep/cook time at competitions to allow for more creativity. Why not a 24 hour window instead of 6? As far as I know the teams all start off with fresh meat. If they used bone in cuts they would have time to roast bones, prepare stock, make chili paste, etc. all still within the same guidelines, just a longer timeline. Maybe its just too hard to keep the judges sober for that long.

Edited September 30, 2011 by Gregg (log)

[Norm Matthews]

Even in (large) barbecue contests (and I suppose in chili contests too) with trained judges, all of them don't taste all of the entries. They use a rating system and two tier judging most of the time. And it isn't the judges who have to stay sober, it is the health dept. people that have to certify that all the entries are fit to eat. A 24 hour window is a little long for the conditions in which chili contests are held. It would mean that the meat would not get cooked right away too.

edit, going back to the original post, there is absolutely no reason why a home cook can't take a prize winning recipe from a contest and change all the canned, bottled and pre mixed ingredients and convert them to a completely home made version. Professional BBQ competitors seldom make their prize winning recipes the same way that they do when cooking for their family at home and it makes sense to me that neither would chili cooks.

Edited September 30, 2011 by Norm Matthews (log)

[larryroohr]

Years ago I had friends that would enter the Colorado Springs chili cookoff every year. They consistently won the "peoples choice" competition. They would make a special batch of chili for the judges, and their motto was "they might not like ours, but they aren't going to taste any one elses afterwards". They would load up a batch with enough habenero's to kill a horse, and just watch the judges wretching wih evil pleasure.

And their chili for the people was incredibly good, all I remember was the time and energy they'd spend cubing and flouring and browning their pork and garlic to get it right. Great fun, which is what it was all about.