William Gerard Tobin is credited with coming up with the idea of canning chili in 1880, and secured a contract to sell it to the United States military, but he died before his plans could come to fruition.
Chili cook-offs are, of course, competitions, and, while different regions of the country no doubt had strong opinions about their chili long before the advent of such competitions, cook-offs have helped to codify different styles of chili. Each chili cook-off sponsored by the ICS must have separate judging categories for “Traditional Red Chili,” “Chili Verde,” “Homestyle Chili,” and, incongruously, “Salsa”; Homestyle Chili is the only category that permits the use of “fillers,” such as beans and pasta. The other main sanctioning body for chili cook-offs, the Chili Appreciation Society International, makes no mention of different chili categories in its rules, but adamantly proscribes beans and other nonstandard ingredients, like macaroni, rice, and hominy.
