A cook-off is a

cooking Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric stoves, to baking in vario ...

competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, ind ...

where the contestants each prepare dishes for judging either by a select group of judges or by the general public. Cook-offs are very popular among competitors (such as restaurants) with very similar dishes, such as chili, and serves as a way to decide which recipe is the best for that particular dish.

Chili cook-off

A chili cook-off is a social event, similar to a

barbecue Barbecue or barbeque (informally BBQ in the UK, US, and Canada, barbie in Australia and braai in South Africa) is a term used with significant regional and national variations to describe various cooking methods that use live fire and smoke ...

, in which competitors prepare their own particular recipe for

chili con carne Chili con carne (also spelled chilli con carne or chile con carne and shortened to chili or chilli; ), meaning " chili with meat", is a spicy stew containing chili peppers (sometimes in the form of chili powder), meat (usually beef), tomatoes ...

and submit it for taste testing. A cook-off may be an informal gathering with the simple goal of sharing recipes and enjoying food, or it may be a large-scale event with an official panel of judges and substantial prizes for winners. The Chili Appreciation Society International (CASI) sanctions over 550 cook-offs annually that raise over $1,000,000 for charity. Corporate CASI, which has the function of sanctioning all of these cook-offs, doing the necessary work to tabulate cookoff results, and putting on the annual Terlingua International Chili Championship, has an annual income of approximately $250,000. Out of this annual income around $60,000 goes to charity. The CASI is a

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of ...

corporation. The International Chili Society (ICS) organizes chili cook-offs as

fundraiser Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gathe ...

s. Its annual cook-offs are on a grand scale, with regional qualifying events that attract tens of thousands of participants and a "World Championship" cook-off held in October. The ICS has raised millions of dollars for charity while still awarding hundreds of thousands of dollars to winners. As early as 1970, many communities have hosted non-ICS cook-offs, leading to a competing "World Championship" cook-off in

Terlingua Terlingua ( ) is a mining district and census-designated place (CDP) in southwestern Brewster County, Texas, United States. It is located near the Rio Grande and the villages of Lajitas and Study Butte, Texas, as well as the Mexican state o ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. The UK Chilli Cook-off Association organises chilli cook-offs as throughout the UK as fundraisers, culminating in the UK grand final at the Upton Cheyney Chili Festival near Bath, UK – Winners qualify for the

World Food Championships The World Food Championships (WFC) is an international cooking competition hosting its 9th annual event in Dallas, Texas at Fair Park from 05–09 November 2021. The competition puts chefs and home cooks on a level playing field, all competing for ...

Chili Cookoff Many chili cook-offs were either canceled or moved to virtual events because of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, which began in 2020.

Notable chili cook-offs

* '' Chilympiad'' in

San Marcos, Texas San Marcos ( ) is a city and the county seat of Hays County, Texas, United States. The city's limits extend into Caldwell and Guadalupe Counties, as well. San Marcos is within the Austin–Round Rock metropolitan area and on the Interstate 35 ...

(1970–2002) *

Lone Star Chili Cook-off The Texas Chili Cook-off (formerly "Lone Star Chili Cook-off") is an annual chili cook-off held during May in New York City. The event is organized and run by the 'New York Texas Exes', local alumni chapter of the University of Texas at Austin. ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Ribfest

A ribfest is a cook-off typically for

pork ribs Pork ribs are a cut of pork popular in Western and Asian cuisines. The ribcage of a domestic pig, meat and bones together, is cut into usable pieces, prepared by smoking, grilling, or baking – usually with a sauce, often barbecue – and the ...

Notable ribfests

Canada's Largest Ribfest Canada's Largest Ribfest is the name of an annual ribfest food festival held in Spencer Smith Park by the lake shore in Burlington, Ontario. The Burlington Lakeshore Rotary Club organizes the four-day-long Ribfest to raise money for charity duri ...

– Burlington,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook-off The Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook-off is an annual rib cook-off in Sparks, Nevada. The competition involves St. Louis-style pork ribs. The event is held at Victorian Square in Sparks and has taken place annually over the Labor Day weekend si ...

– Sparks,

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

London Ribfest The London Ribfest is a festival held annually in London, Canada on the weekend of Civic Holiday Civic is something related to a city or municipality. It also can refer to multiple other things: General *Civics, the science of comparative gov ...

–

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

Toronto Ribfest Toronto Ribfest is an annual ribfest held in Centennial Park in Etobicoke, Toronto, Ontario, Canada during the Canada Day weekend. Overview The Toronto Ribfest is run by the Etobicoke Rotary Club. The festival is not for profit, volunteer run ...

–

Etobicoke Etobicoke (, ) is an administrative district of, and one of six municipalities amalgamated into, the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the city's west-end, Etobicoke was first settled by Europeans in the 1790s, and the municipalit ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

* Canada's largest Halal Barbeque and Fast Food Truck Festival,

References

External links

Chili Appreciation Society International
a national/international cook-off organizer and promoter of chili for charity
Piedmont Pepper Pod
the North Carolina subgroup of CASI
International Chili Society
a major cook-off organizer
Munich, Germany's long-running chili cook-off

Lone Star Chili Cook-off
Texas style Chili Cook-off in New York City
American Seafood Cook-off
{dead link, date=August 2017 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes

The Food Experiments
a NYC-based cookoff series

held each February on this remote Island in the Upper Midwest
The UK Chilli Cook-off Association
Food and drink festivals Cooking competitions

Chili cook-off

Notable chili cook-offs

Ribfest

Notable ribfests

See also

References

External links