There can be no good chili without great chili peppers in Florida cook-offs
More than 30 major annual chili cook-offs are staged each year in Florida. Most occur during the winter months. Chili-cooking contests can be as elaborate as a qualifying round to a major national cook-off or as laid back as a charity event. Either way, the three major regions of Florida -- north, central and south -- each have several cook-offs for chili enthusiasts.
Origins
According to Tabasco, the hot sauce maker, chili's history is in debate except for one thing: It's an American invention, not a crossover, as is widely believed, from Mexico. Ostensibly, chili started in the West on cattle drives. Tabasco maintains that in the 1800s the Texas cooks responsible for feeding cowhands used "whatever ingredients were on hand," including beef, venison, buffalo and even rattlesnake, as well as chili peppers, onion, wild garlic and herbs. "Cooks discovered they could make nonperishable trail food by pounding together dried beef, fat, chili peppers and salt," Tabasco states. Those "chili bricks" were submerged in water all day and "they could be boiled in water with garlic and cumin to make a hearty stew" at dinner.
North Florida
The northern section includes the panhandle, which borders Alabama to the west and Georgia to the east. Geography suggests that since north Florida is so close to the rest of the southeast --- where tailgating for college football games is king and that means chili --- that the region would boast the most visible chili cook-offs. There are only three: The "Do It at the Line" Super Chili Bowl Cookoff in Pensacola in the far northwest corner in Escambia County, usually held in February; The Gulf Coast Regional Chili Cookoff in March in the city of Eastpoint, centrally located in Franklin County; The "Make It Mild or Make It Wild" Chili cook-off in Jacksonville on the northeast side in Duval County is in April.
Central Florida
It is in this region that 22 of the 33 most publicized chili cook-offs take place. The main contest is the CASI Florida State Open Chili Championship Cookoff that takes place in Homossasa in October in Citrus County in the western central part of the state. This is the qualifier for the Terlingua International Chili Championship in Terlingua, Texas. CASI is an acronym for the "Chili Appreciation Society International." Other major events in the region are the Sunshine Regional Chili Cook-Off in Kissimmee in the central part of the state in Osceola County, usually held in January, and the Florida Sunshine Pod Cookoff in Englewood in the west-central part of Florida, held in Sarasota County in March.
South Florida
Eight chili contests are held in South Florida. The biggest three are the 99.9 Kiss Country Regional Chili Cookoff in Pembroke Pines in the southeastern county of Broward, held in January; the Chili in the Village Regional Cookoff, held in February in Pinecrest, which is in the most populated county in Florida --- Miami-Dade, in the extreme southeastern corner of the region; and the Florida Keys Regional Cookoff in Key Largo, in one of the farthest southwestern parts of Florida in Monroe County. It is usually held in February.
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