Unlike many of the other chilis on this list, Cincinnati chili’s origins lie not in the Southwest but in New York and Greece. When the Greek-Macedonian immigrant brothers John and Tom Kiradjieff arrived in Cincinnati in the early 20th century, they, like many other Greek immigrant restaurateurs at the time, sold coneys, or hot dog sandwiches slathered with a spiced meat sauce. (Coneys and coney sauce are a separate yet still chili-related regional specialty, most popular in Michigan but prevalent across the Midwest.) Oklahoma chili is, by all accounts, very similar to the Texas bowl of red. The main exception is that Okies are far less militant about the exclusion of ingredients like beans and masa. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society’s account of the history of chili, Oklahoma has never met a chili it didn’t like. Oklahomans embrace both the Texas and the Cincinnati styles, along with coneys and coney sauce. Perhaps because of this open-armed attitude, it’s rather hard to pin down exactly what the state’s chili style is, so I turned to a born-and-bred Oklahoman (my sister-in-law) for some insight.
