A pot of Mancini’s regular chili. I also made the wooden spoon from walnut, by the way. (Photo by Jess Mancini)

I once enjoyed chili cook-offs. I even participated in a couple the newspaper sponsored several decades ago.

That was then. This is now.

I stopped going to cook-offs and no one noticed, which is why I never told anyone who missed me why I quit. Trust me, it had nothing to do with the chili. I love chili. I make chili. I eat chili.

The reason was the players in the culinary competition were more serious than I was. Let me say avid competitors are serious when it comes to chili. You don’t tell jokes, like the one about the guy asking the waiter what the fly was doing in his chili.

I have to say I learned much from the competitors. I didn’t know what Cincinnati chili was.

I like my chili red and a little spicy. No white chili in the Mancini kitchen. (Photo by Jess Mancini)

Cincinnati chili over spaghetti was unusual from my perspective. Nonetheless, my favorites were the meat and beanless chilis made with tomatoes.

Among the several dozen exhibitors at a cookoff was a club that featured a pumpkin-based chili. That’s right. Pumpkin.

My first reaction was what does pumpkin have to do with chili? Pumpkins are for pies and jack-o’-lanterns.

I tasted it. I didn’t like it. I liked it even less than white chili. I asked the gentleman behind the table why the pumpkin. “Because it’s there,” he said. He laughed. I laughed, but not so much. I didn’t tell him that was the worst chili I had ever eaten. Actually, I wouldn’t call it chili. Pumpkin soup maybe.

Many of the hard-core chili makers didn’t tell me their secret ingredients, but will share their techniques in the actual preparation and cooking of the chili. A technique that sticks out in my mind is when stirring the pot, do not come in contact with the sides to prevent the residue of what is burned and stuck to the sides from coming loose and entering the chili. Another was to only use roma tomatoes. Still another was to only use wooden spoons and spatulas and to cook in an iron kettle.

The most common was to slow cook the chili over several hours over a low heat.

I can understand cooking chili in a crock pot over several hours. You don’t have to be there all the time. Jess Mancini doesn’t have the time to spend eight hours in front of a stove or fire to cook a pot of chili. I can waste my time on less productive things than that.

At another cook-off, I was speaking to a lady about her recipe that included deer meat. A most excellent chili and a pleasant conversation until I said my favorite package of seasonings was made by McCormick. Now I don’t want to burden those people who live by the chili pepper, but you have to get up pretty early in the morning to find a better collection of spices. It’s also the easiest way to make a pot of chili, but absent the pre-packaged mix, I use the most common spices such as cumin, hot pepper, garlic, salt and black pepper and onion salt in making chili.

For today, let’s stick with the pre-packaged chili mixes. I use the recipes on the package. My favorite was on a can of tomatoes.

My first rule is I don’t use water. Everywhere in the recipe that calls for water, I substitute tomato sauce. Why? I like a tomatoey chili. Tomatoes have taste. Water tastes like water. Beef or chicken broth will work, too. I also use a lean hamburger made from black angus. I’ve also used stew meat, deer meat, steak, ground chicken and turkey. I’ve eaten meatless, beanless and other versions I cannot recall. A red chili with beef, ground or otherwise, remains my favorite.

While cumin is a must in a recipe for a non-pre-packaged chili, I use crushed red pepper instead of cayenne. I believe crushed red pepper is the world’s most underrated spice, next to salt and pepper.

I also quit putting beans in my chili. That may not be kosher in the world of competitive chili makers. I’ve listened to a few debates over bean and beanless chili and I stand with the latter.

Perhaps my comments will be considered blasphemous with hard-core chili makers. So what else can I say that may make chili aficionados burn me in effigy in a simmering cauldron of chili?

I don’t put chili on spaghetti?

***

Unless you think this column wasn’t enough of a waste of time, send ideas for “Wastin’ Time with Jess Mancini” to Jess Mancini at jmancini@newsandsentinel.com.