The Innocents and Saturday's Cincinnati ICS Chili Cook Off

I am currently enjoying the final remnants from my BaconCamp 2011 entry "Holy Hog's Hell" chili recipe. Also looking forward to getting home and having a nice bowl of last night's Miso Based Garlicky Heirloom Tomato, Carrot, and Eggplant Soup. Still, I have yet to report on this past Saturday's cooking competition.

Down in Cincinnati the International Chili Society was holding their Ohio Regional Qualifier for the World Chili Championship Cookoff. A ragtag outfit called the Innocents thought they had the chops to compete. One out of Logan Square in Chicago, one out of a northern pocket of Columbus called Clintonville, and a Camrade from Pittsburgh, PA. This was their baptism by fire into competitive cooking.

• To make a clean differentiation; competitive cooking can be divided into cookoffs (where the meal is prepared on site) and not. The two are worlds apart, neither one more nor less strenuous, just
• different

It all began with some competitor research and their taste. Looking to the recipes of winners past, nothing seemed too extraordinary. A key theme was the choice of meat; tri-tip or sirloin beef. Upon speaking to the chairman of the comp, it sounded as though there was a general guideline of red chili to follow, but nothing too restrictive.

The Chicagoan had plenty of access to dried chilis and specialty Mexican goods, and the Clintonvillain had been long accustomed to incorporating them in his chili through the learning ground that is the homesick texan's chili instructions. They took a path of darkness and shadow. The palette was to be a deep, deep twister of a stock; the meat would have a chew to it to complement the complexities of toasted peppers. 

The Innocents also got themselves a kindly sponsor; Jeff Davis, el Presidente and Chief Roast Master of Cafe Brioso, graciously donated a pound of coffee to the cause. And a good cause it was. Cincinnati, referred to me recently as a chili capital, an envoy from the dark and twisted world of the Guajillo.

They got their gear and prepared the spices, and left early that second Saturday of September. They arrived hurried as the directions were to the house of the chairman, but they quickly regained their place and got to the Cincinnati Fire Museum. (PS. Cool place if you're in Cincy; they have a fireman pole you can slide down!)

Before I get into the chili and the competition, the Fire Fest itself was a ton of fun. The Cincinnati Fire Museum, and the ICS Chair for the event Bill 'Gumby" Donovan put together a great show. There was a motorcycle memorial ride and procession of silnce. A First Responders exhibit was going on the whole time with a ton of exhibits being put on by Firemen with a bunch of Police there as well. We may have been absorbed in the cookoff, but I would definitely encourage anyone in Cincy to go to Fire Fest next year. It was on 9/10, and respectfully had an observance in memory of 9/11, but also celebrated the men and women who are there to protect us every day; the real Homeland Front Line.

Registration was until 9:30, but they couldn't get started prepping until noon. Once 13:00 rolled around the Innocents got their fire going.

First up, brown the meat, deglaze with Negra Modelo lager, repeat; it had to be done in batches since there quite a few pounds of it and only the base of a 6 quart dutch oven. Dice onions and carmelize, add to pot. Dice tomatoes and jalapenos and serranos, add to pot. Add chili powder (constituted of mulatto, ancho, chipotle, & guajillo peppers toasted, cocoa powder, etc) paste (made by combining the powder with a bit of chicken broth). Add beer. From here we kept it simple. Added some pilocillo. Soon enough there was a good deal of chili gurgling under pot and it was watch and taste time.

Chili was going good, but the Innocents were having a bit of a communication break down. Most of the approach was devised by the Chicagoan, and the Clintonvillain had not too much direct input in the way of engineering the recipe. Partly by design (he knew the idea was good to begin with, and knew his weakness was in overpowering or noisying up a stock), and partially out of sheer ignorance and fear (he didn't exactly know how it was supposed to come together, or what some of the components would do), he had sat back more than was comfortable for the Chicagoan.

They both knew it, and there was a tension in the tent. I would not have been insurmountable had it come to a head sooner. At first there was just a general frustration. But by the half way mark, neither knew where the other cook was at, or where the chili was going.

The chili was doing well, but it wasn't leaping out of the pot or smacking you in the face. It tasted great and had a depth of flavor that hung on every bite.

But the fire in the belly just wasn't with it. At the behest of the Clintonvillain, they added more of the piloncillo sugar. They added a french press' worth of crazy strong and good coffee. They added more cumin and coriander. They had attacked from every direction, or so they thought.

As they walked up the stair with their sample cup, it was with heads held askew. Their competition research hadn't really turned up any interesting ends, and they didn't really know what to expect both in the way of what others' would bring or how the judges would react.

Then they went around trying everyone else's chili. Wow. The Innocents had no idea what they were up against. Not in terms of quality competitors, though to be sure there was a good sample. Rather, in terms of the standard they were going to be judged against.

After judging was over, and neither name nor number had been called, the Innocents went back up the stairs of the old firehouse to see their ballots and check out the feedback, and then to try the other competitors' chili. In this case, shock is a word I would use to describe dropping a pen on your thumb. In this case, it was not shock but something of an entire other order of magnitude akin to a fire truck being dropped on your chest.

The Pittsburgher played a key role this whole time. He was not just the moral support, but rather the backbone of morale. Where the Clintonvillain wanted to hole up in his head, he pulled them back to the phenomenal world.

Now up front the competitor chili was not bad. Upon trying the winning chili, it was very good. She had a recipe and nailed it to the wall like any champ. Upon trying the other chilis on the finalists' table, they were good. They had the same recipe as the winning chili, but were off balance a note here or there, or wandered off on a less successful tangent. Upon trying a quarter of the other chilis from the two preliminary tables, they also had the same recipe as the winning chili; they just happened to be off a few more notes or were entirely off key.

Nonetheless, each chili was an orange-ish red, with kibbles of coarsely ground beef of no distinct pedigree aside from marginally better than ground chuck. Each was overpowered with cumin and the distinct tang of either red hot or tabasco with a heaving dose of salt in many, unincorporated fat in others, and a bit much bite of vinegar to most.

 And then there was the Innocents' chili. They had taken that alien baby up those stairs and left it for the wolves and judges to sample with lean-trimmed 3/4" cubed sirloin, sufficient but relatively underwhelming aromatics like cumin, little salt, some rendered beef and bacon fat, and a 1/2 tablespoon of vinegar but zero hot sauce. It was a beautiful pot. A bit too sweet, and it could have used some salt but not the kind of take-cover-an-ice-storm-is-coming coating required. Overall it was a beautiful, dark, meaty brew with a flavor dark and twisty and intense that swirled around the tongue and down the palette, and a body that wrapped the mouth in bath of feel.

On the ride home and over the course of the next day the following was determined. Discouraged and disappointed were not accurate in terms of words to portray how the Innocents felt. They knew that the comp would be formulaic to some extent. They knew they had brought a chili recipe from completely out of left field. Trying a few of the samples, then theirs, they knew why they had missed the mark. they could easily identify the mark after the fact. They knew if they wanted to hit it, they could come back and hit it hard after a few experiments. But it would have to wait until next year, and at an investment they weren't quite prepared to shoulder.

Participating, collaborating and getting the three together for an awesome weekend transcended anything the judges had to say. Perhaps a better name might be The Innocent's Belligerence, either for the team or the chili recipe. 

 

While prepping, a camerwoman came up to the Clintonvillain. She asked "what is the secret to chili?" He drew back to some third hand advice that also applies to the secret of sushi; he said after a pause, "Love." Aside from time, which none can manipulate, the thing you are responsible for is putting love into every ounce. The Innocents came in dead last, scoring precisely zero points.

Side-note: The Clintonvillain, as in me, also participated in a jalapeno eating contest (in which he got his ass handed to him when he tried to eat two peppers at once, resulting in a flood of saliva into his mouth with a half cup of half chewed jalapeno bits he couldn't yet swallow but had not room to chew).

The only other male competitor was a some kind of (pro-am?) competitive eater and executive chef. He was also the only judge that was able to give coherent advice. He spoke to it needing a defining characteristic. (I infer) [B]ecause of that, some of the techniques we used came off as gimmicky. I think his ballot was the one that simply read "the chili did not live."

On my second taste, the introduction of the coffee came off flat this time; where we were concerned with bitterness, we didn't account for a lack of acidity. Where we added too much sugar ("too sweet" was a a common critique), we simply didn't get it right; where the flavor profile was truncated (as in "too bland"), we should have pursued not just depth of flavor but the frontal palette of some straight chunks of cayenne to fire up the tip of the tongue and some flavors that hit hard and strong on the opposite end of the spectrum and shoot through to the eyes to balance the whole.

In all it was a success. Our team doesn't think that the return on investment really covers our costs (even winning first prize in Red wouldn't have netted us a dime) right now. If we can secure some more sponsors, maybe that will change. What we did win, though, was an awesome three days. Am I ready for the next competitive cooking event? More than ever. I'm just hungrier and more Innocently Belligerent.