Texas Style Chili

Making chili, making friends at cook-offs

Sharon Haynes began competing for best chili when the Durham challenge began in 2002, when she lived in Charlotte and worked for Duke Energy. After she retired to Texas, she still brought her chili back to North Carolina. Bob Haynes has competed in four Bull City Chili Challenges. The couple has cooked competitively since 1977, throughout Texas as well as Louisiana, New Mexico, California and the Old North State. They've won their share of first place trophies and also-rans, Bob Haynes said, with the most notable being his third place win at Terlingua International Chili Championship in Terlingua, Tex. in 1980. The Bull City Chili Challenge will judge pots of chili in four divisions: Chili Appreciation Society International Texas Style, Freestyle, Restaurant and Junior. The Piedmont Pepper Pod, which puts on the annual Durham event, is the North Carolina Chapter of CASI. Durham is the furthest east a cook-off is held. It was held in August the first few years, but it was way too hot, said Adrienne Grant of the Piedmont Pepper Pod. She got into chili competitions with her late father in the 1990s.

Texas Style Chili | Jan's Sushi Bar

When Ray Liota’s character enters the Federal witness protection program and is relocated far from his home (one presumes NYC), he laments that he asked for spaghetti with marinara sauce at a restaurant and received egg noodles with ketchup.

I can relate, for the first time I ordered chili in Ohio, I received tomato soup with ground beef and beans in it.  I suppose I shouldn’t have been too terribly surprised; I honestly thought I’d gone beyond surprised when connecting through the airport at Cincinnati and saw that these nutty Ohioans eat their version of chili on a bed of spaghetti.

To each their own.

Texans take our chili – like our barbecue – very, very seriously.   So much so that we not only invented the chili cookoff , we have a different set of rules for “eatin’” chili as opposed to “competition” chili.  And since chili originated in San Antonio , it is also the official dish of the state of Texas.

I think I can safely say that while you may call that stuff that sits on top of a plate of spaghetti “chili,” in all likelihood?  It ain’t.

I’ve been cooking chili for over 30 years and nothing (well, very little) excites me more than that first truly cool, crisp day of fall, for it heralds chili cookin’ weather.  My recipe has evolved a great deal over the years and I never make it quite the same way twice, but what follows is the basis of my chili.  Made to the letter, it will produce a fine pot of the stuff but it lends itself well to experimentation and variation.  It is also not very spicy hot (at least by a Texan’s standards) but very flavorful and satisfying.

A few comments before we move on to the actual recipe:

Those of you who subscribe to the old adage “people who eat chili with beans don’t know beans about chili” can bite me.  I grew up eating chili with beans, probably because it made it go farther and in a blue collar household with four kids that was important.  I like my chili with beans – preferably kidney beans but pinto beans are fine, too.  Just no “white” beans such as navy or Great Northern.  Of course, if you are adamant about the whole thing, don’t put them in; I sure don’t give a hoot. Regular ground beef does not make chili – it makes chili-flavored sauce.