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TEXAS CHILI BOWL
The History of the
TEXAS CHILI COOK-OFFS
Trail Cooks or Chili Queens?
When you buy our Texas chili bowls,
you're not just buying a unique
and useful Texas souvenir—you're buying into a part of distinctive American history. Let us tell you more!
Up front and straightforward, the story of where chili got its start is hard to determine. The truth is clouded by the many tails and stories told. The only thing for sure is Chili is not of Mexican origin but is an American creation.
Story #1 – In the beginning, around the mid-1800s the Texas trail cooks found themselves facing a group of hungry cowboys after a long day of cattle drives or riding the range. They became down right inventive using whatever ingredients they found. What was generally on hand was beef, buffalo, venison or even rattlesnake for the meat and Chiles, wild garlic, onion, and herbs used to spice it up.
At this point it was also found that they could pound the dried meat, fat, Chile peppers and salt into a brick. This made the main ingredients nonperishable and easily transported on the cattle drives. The “Chili Brick” was put in water to soak while the cowboys where out tending the cattle. By dinnertime the cook had brewed his concoction over the campfire, added garlic and cumin for a scrumptious bowl of “Texas Red” or Texas Chili “Stew”.
Story # 2 - It is said that Texas Chili was invented by the "Chili Queens" in San Antonio about 1880. These “Chili Queens” were of Mexican ancestry. Many a Texas chili recipe was sold from colorful chili wagons from the San Antonio city military plaza. The recipes usually were made with dried chilies and beef. This ritual was continued into the early 1940’s
What was the outcome? – The “Texas Stew” or bowl of “Texas Red” became popular and spread to chili parlors. Texas Chili Parlors first opened in trail towns and then all over the west. Now everyone could enjoy a good bowl of Texas Chili, even the James brothers.
CHILI FACT #1:
The story is that Frank and Jesse James wouldn't rob a bank in McKinney Texas because their favorite chili parlor was located there.
By the depression years, chili parlors sprang up all over the country, even in Beverly Hills in the early 1960s at Chasen's Restaurant. Actors, actresses, celebrities and non-celebrities craved the Texas Chili concoction.
CHILI FACT #2:
Elizabeth Taylor loved chili so much that she had her favorite Texas chili recipe shipped to her while she was filming Cleopatra in Rome.
So, by 1967, the World was ready for the first Chili Cook-off in Terlingua Texas.
Terlingua - Cook Off Capital
Terlingua is located in southwestern Brewster
County in west Texas along the Rio Grande river.
It was first populated as a mercury mining town,
and was out in the middle of nowhere.
The very first Chili Cook-Off came about due to
an article by humorist H. Allen Smith published
in the New York Times. "Nobody Knows
More About Chili Than I Do," Allen boosted. The
article included a Texas Chili Recipe that contained beans.
Well, this brought a response from Wick Fowler, a Dallas newspaperman whose hobby was cooking chili. He made it very clear that if you knew beans about chili, you knew chili didn't have beans.
There just had to be a showdown between these two "Texas Chili Recipe" experts. So one was arranged at Terlingua in 1967. The champion of this contest would answer the question of whether beans belong in chili or not. However, the competition ended in a tie, thus the argument remains till this very day.
Without a clear winner, this showdown was still a marvelous success and earned Terlingua the distinction of the "Chili Cook-Off Capital of the World". Actually, as a result of a tie, there are two annual Championship Chili Cook-Offs on the first Saturday in November. Terlingua hosts two competitions - the International Chili Championship, and the Original Terlingua International Chili Cook-Off. No matter which group a cook or team chooses to compete, they must earn enough points in other competitions to participate.
The fact that "ALL" know about Terlingua and the Champion Chili Cook-Offs stands as testimony that the first competition was a serious hit. Chili societies sprang up to organize future cook-offs. Two of the best known are the "Chili Appreciation Society International" or CASI and the International Chili Society or ICS.
Chili Cook Off
What makes a bowl of Texas chili a bowl of "Texas Red"?
Well, the answer is obviously still in fierce debate. Beans or no beans, that is the question (sounds like Shakespeare). One thing for sure is that every Texas Chili Recipe contains a wide range of hot peppers (jalapeno or habanero) and/or cayenne pepper. The resulting concoction may burn as it goes down, make you breakout in a sweat and cause your stomach to cower in pain. Other ingredients are meat (ground beef, sausage, beef steak, brisket, or ground turkey) combined with chili powder, garlic, cumin, oregano and peppers from sweet bell peppers to blazing habaneros, much depending on where you are from. Whatever the discussion, Texans love Texas chili.
Many Chili Cook-offs in Texas disallow the use of ground meat opting for chopped meats but the argument about beans is never ending. To top it off other ingredients are also in dispute - onions or not, tomatoes or tomato sauce and thicker or thinner and how to achieve thicker, by adding flour or masa harina?
Then, at the opposite end of the spectrum, is the chili loved by Cincinnati transplant Texans. Cincinnati-style chili, is popular in chili parlors in Cincinnati, Ohio. This is not the usual chili; in fact it is so different that some folks just cannot adjust.
The Cincinnati-style chili was created by a Greek immigrant in the 1920s. He made a "chili" with boiled ground beef, chili powder, and Middle Eastern spices such as cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, cumin, mace, coriander, etc., and then served the mixture over spaghetti with numerous topping selections.
3 Way = Chili over spaghetti topped with ample amounts of shredded cheese
4 Way = Chili over spaghetti topped with diced onions or red beans and mounds of cheese
5 Way =Chili over spaghetd topped with diced onions and red beans and mounds of cheese
Oyster crackers are served in a separate container on the side.
The rest of America's chili preferences fall somewhere between those of Cincinnati and Texas chili. Sometimes including beans, tomatoes, and ground meat (beef, pork, venison, or turkey). Whatever your choice, the Chili Appreciation Society International offers unmistakable truth in its motto: "The aroma of good chili should generate rapture akin to a lover's kiss."
Now that you know the history Texas chili, chili cook-offs, and Cincinnati chili, you'll know why our Texas souvenir bowl is more than just a bowl—it is a salute to this little but fascinating part of American history and culture.
You are invited to copy the Texas Chili recipes and the Chili Recipe "loved by Texans transplanted from Cincinnati Ohio" from our Texas Chili Recipes page.
The Texas Chili Bowl Company
Chili Peper Necklace Collection
All of our jewelry is custom made by Linda Drummond to the specifications of the customer. Linda will design an ensemble for your wedding party or any occasion.
See our TEXAS Chili Recipes page
More Than a Texas Souvenir
A Part of American History!
Copyright 2010 The Texas Chili Bowl Company: Texas Chili. All Rights Reserved.
