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Chili Cookoff
Viva Terlingua!
Prior to 1967, Terlingua, Texas, was an abandoned mercury-mining
town near the Mexican border, about as far from anything else
as it could get. But that year, humorist H. Allen Smith published
an article in the New York Times titled, "Nobody Knows
More About Chili Than I Do," which included his recipe
for chili with beans. A response came back from Wick Fowler,
a Dallas newspaperman whose hobby was cooking chili, that
if you knew beans about chili, you knew chili didn't have
beans.
A showdown between the two men was arranged in remote Terlingua
- the first chili cookoff ever - and the winner was to be
crowned the world chili champion. Though the contest ended
in a tie, the event was a wild success, and Terlingua was
deemed the "Chili Capitol of the World." Annual
cookoffs have been held there ever since.
In fact, as a result of a split between the original contest
organizers, each year on the first Saturday in November there
are two international chili championships in the town-the
Terlingua International Chili Championship, and the Original
Terlingua International Chili Cookoff.
After the Terlingua success, chili fever spread throughout
the country, and with it, chili societies formed to organize
other competitions. The Chili Appreciation Society International
and the International Chili Society are the best known.
Story © Sandra Day
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