The Rogers family white-chili recipe, unbeaten in years of Bosie and Provo ward tournament play, fell on Saturday to the recipe of a resident of the Seville Independent Senior Living Community.
The streak was broken in the Seville's annual chili cookoff, the $100 prize claimed by a heavyweight contender in his 70s. The winning recipe, a sweet, barbecue-sauce laden number filled with browned beef, onions, and peppers, was untitled.
"I hear he won because they felt sorry for him," said resident Val, embittered that his own chili lost just because someone was "out of money" and "on their last buck." Val's chili—chalk full of pinto and kidney beans—came in second, thanks in part to his door-to-door cook-off invitations, careful marketing, and, some would say, extortion.
Some 20-plus chilis were entered in the contest, their makers stationed behind their Crockpots, equipped with dixie cups and plastic spoons to allow for sampling. "This is most contenders ever," said Linda, the Taiwanese Seville activity director, in the opening ceremonies. The cook-off's oldest entrant was pushing 98, the youngest, Spencer Rogers, a spry 27—claiming to be a granson-in-law of resident Tyra Henderson.
Talk circulated of ousting the young competitor, with murmurings of "no shoe-string relatives allowed" flying in the dining room in the weeks leading up to the contest, as Val and Spencer threw verbal punches.
Fortunately for Val, the over-70 crowd had never seen white chili and was thus either unwilling to try the dubious white, cream-based stock or put off by the chicken—which, as Val put it, was not beef.
Yet the young chili champ was undeterred, saying he still likes his chili better than anyone else's, except for the one that was straight tri-tip steak.
Val
