Texana
Chili Relations
In the ghost town of Terlingua, rival factions duke it out over who has the best chili cookoff
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These complaints struck Tolbert as being so pissant that he organized his own cookoff in Terlingua the next year. After a series of legal maneuverings and dirty tricks that thoroughly divided the two groups into the cooks versus the Tobert faction, two cookoffs were held on the same day in 1983. Tolbert then petitioned for trademark status for the term Chili Appreciation Society International.
By the time the trademark was issued in February 1984, however, Tolbert had died. The ensuing rivalry became more heated and contentious by the year, culminating in a 1988 lawsuit filed by the cooks’ group, now known as CASI Inc., against the Tolbert faction over the use of the phrase “Chili Appreciation Society International.”
U.S. federal district court judge Lucius Bunton urged both sides to settle their differences out of court, but after the two parties were unable to compromise, Bunton ruled that the Tolberts had no right to the federal trademark and instead awarded it to CASI Inc. Still, the good judge, cognizant of the fire storm into which he was walking, would not touch the issue of which organization had the right to claim itself as the “official” Terlingua cookoff. “The parties should see this as an issue of good sense and decency and not look to the courts,” Bunton said. “This has not been an easy case for the court, but . . . better chili today than hot tamale.” Aggravating that no-decision were legal expenses that cost both sides more than $40,000 apiece.
In the four years since the suit was filed, perhaps the most damaging blow to the Tolbert camp was Wolf Brand Chili taking its sponsorship and its $10,000 and going over to SASI, which had purchased its own permanent site.
So which Terlingua chili cookoff was better?
Well, the Tolbert crowd out behind Arturo White’s store was funkier, wilder, and more laid-back all at once, appealing largely to traditionalists who maintain a connection to the cookoff’s origins. For example, Hallie Stillwell, who was one of three judges at the first cookoff in 1967, prefers attending the Behind the Store cookoff, where performers such as Gary P. Nunn, whose compositions defined the Texas progressive country music movement in the seventies, perform in the evening. “We stay up all night Behind the Store,” explained one Tolbert supporter. “At CASI, they all go to bed by midnight, like they have something to do the next morning.”
The CASI cookoff, on the other hand, boasted a considerably larger site, which accommodated three times the Behind the Store crowd and four times the number of cooks. Showmanship, a staple of all cookoffs, was considerably more elaborate here: One cooking crew erected a miniature golf course; another did a synchronized clogging routine in drag; still another conducted audience participation games, like the toilet plunger toss. And there was even a Warnock among the judges, Kirby’s uncle, Barton Warnock, known as the naturalist of Big Bend.
The CASI cookoff’s judging area and stage were far more spacious than those of Behind the Store but lacked a certain aesthetic appeal—it would be more appropriate in an industrial park. The Tolbert-sanctioned cookoff’s sotol-roofed pavilion, the adobe walls of the compound, the rusted heaps of cars and trucks strewn among the boulders and creosote brush, and the backdrop of the Chisos Mountains of the Big Bend gave the Behind the Store celebration a distinctive Western atmosphere.
Behind the Store’s happy misfit ambience was a sharp contrast to the CASI brigade’s, whose Winnebagos, Bluebirds, and Allegros, neatly arranged in rows with flags and banners flying, recalled an upscale version of Woodstock.
Despite the emphasis on cooking, hedonism was more than tolerated at the CASI cookoff: One team offered free shots of tequila for one and all, and three young ladies roamed the premises, willing to oblige a pack of camera- and videocam-toting men yelling, “Show us your tits.” But whether due to the new morality or the evolution of the cookoffs, the high jinks all seemed tamer than what goes on in a topless bar.
After I finished judging (FYI: Lukewarm chili, championship grade or not, is still lukewarm chili), I met some of the CASI directors, sampled the deli platter in the VIP lounge (no chili in sight), then drove back to Behind the Store to fetch Kirby, who was three sheets to the wind and angling for a snapshot of an alleged winner of the wet T-shirt contest, who was exposing her breasts to an approving crowd.
“See? Isn’t this more fun?” Kirby asked. Well, I reckoned, the breast exposure was certainly a little more spontaneous.
I eventually cajoled Kirby into the car, where we rifled through each other’s official judge’s goody bags while heading back to Fort Stockton. We agreed that there must be plenty of good times to be had in chili—otherwise the cookoff phenomenon wouldn’t have grown to the point that all sorts of towns and organizations all over the country host chili cookoffs as charity fundraisers (there’s even a Lone Star Vegetarian Chili Cookoff).
As the sun dipped behind the mountains in the review mirror, I realized that the concept of One Terlingua in chilidom is a pipe dream, at least for the immediate future. And maybe it’s better that way. At least chiliheads can choose what kind of wild, rugged individualist they prefer to be—for the weekend.
The Tolbert faction might be more steeped in history, but its determination to eschew rigid rules and structure at all costs increases the likelihood that it will gradually fade away with the memory of the original generation of chiliheads. Clearly, the future is with CASI, which raises more than $5 million a year for charity and has emerged as the official cookoff sanctioning body, with some four hundred cookoffs a year.
That’s okay, I finally concluded. After all, as H. Allen Smith wrote long ago, “The chief ingredients of all chili are fiery envy, scalding jealousy, scorching contempt, and sizzling scorn.” In other words, if it wasn’t worth fussing over, it wouldn’t be chili. And that, podnuh, just wouldn’t be any fun at all.
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