Volunteers are the life blood of the Mexican National Chili Cookoff.
And while every individual who puts in time for this year’s event deserves kudos for their efforts on behalf of lakeside charities, it’s appropriate to give a salute of the motley crew of trend-setting do-gooders who got it all going 40 years ago.
Lakeside’s cookoff history goes back to 1978, when an unorthodox charity fund-raiser held in the garden of the old Posada Ajijic became the precursor to the Mexican National.
Those who were there remember it as a wild bash revolving around a chili cooking match-up between three the community’s most colorful characters: Scrabble-master Bill Teunis, bagpipe blower Dave Bennett and lady-about-town Reni Rice, who famously laced her chili pot with a full bottle of Scotch whiskey. Most everyone present got rip-roaring drunk. and Bennett threw a full-blown tantrum when Teunis was declared the winner.
The success of that madcap challenge and burgeoning popularity of chili cookoff contests in the United States spawned the idea of putting on an annual lakeside gig to benefit altruistic causes and promote local tourism to boot. The Posada’s plucky proprietor Morley Eager banded together with charity organization leaders Joan Frost, Mickey Church and Ron Dorsey, the Reporter’s co-owner Beverly Hunt and Corona Beer PR chief Ann Whiting. With that rare mix of dynamic personalities, it was game on.
The first Mexican National was held on the Ajijic pier in March 1979. The contest was sanctioned by the International Chili Society (ICS), making it a draw for top notch chili cooks from the United States looking for a first-place title to qualify for the ICS World Championship.
To comply with ICS guidelines, it was run under strict judging rules that included the prohibition of recipes containing beans. To make sure everything was done by the book, ICS tagged the legendary chili-head Ormly Gumfudgin to oversee the event.
No kidding, that was the guy’s real name. I was there, competing together with my husband with a classic Mexican green chile dish that was soundly scorned by this bizarre chili “expert” and his panel of persnickety judges.
Despite our own painful defeat, the cookoff was a bit hit among the guest Gringo chefs as well as the local populace. The Mexican National quickly gained widespread fame among high ranking competitors from all across the U.S.A., who came year after for a shot at the golden ticket for a pass to the world championship. Harold Timber, Jim Beaty, Margo and J.R. Knudson, Ed Pierczynski, Cathy Wilkey and Tom Hoover are on the list of world champions who dished out hot stuff over the years in Ajijic.
Aside from the cooking angle, the Mexican National was recognized as one of the most fun-filled events on the cookoff circuit. Visitors from north of the border relished the colorful entertainment provided by folk dance troupes, dashing charro equestrians, the flying men of Papantla and other talents. Collateral parties involving serious consumption of Jalisco-made tequila were added attractions.
Local competitors rarely took top prizes, but many had a knack for zany antics that put a special stamp on the gathering. No one ever outdid the inimitable Morley Eager, who back in the early years contracted a circus to set up on the beach next to the pier and borrowed the troupe’s prize elephant to ride at the head of the first-ever cookoff parade.
The event has continually evolved, changing venue and format through time. The last ICS-sanctioned Mexican National was in 2008, when competitors from the States bailed due to a slumping economy and the outbreak of Mexico’s flu pandemic. The original rulebook was tossed aside, eliminating all restrictions on recipe ingredients and adoption of a more popular people’s choice taste-and-vote system to designate winners. A salsa contest and a green chili category-redemption for my year-one debacle-were incorporated, and later ditched. The Margarita mixing contest was eventually introduced and the salsa competition revived. Formal chili judging has been reinstituted to run side-by-side with People’s Choice voting. Addition of the cookoff marketplace has somewhat dulled the focus on the chili competition, but significantly increased revenue for charities to fulfill the principal objective.
Though most of our cookoff pioneers have relocated, retired from action or kicked the bucket, the Mexican National lives on as big and colorful as ever.