MOUNT VERNON — The 19th Annual Mount Vernon Chili Cookoff will heat up uptown on Saturday, Nov. 1. The event’s appeal goes beyond the chili; it’s the community that keeps people coming back.
“A lot of people really enjoy the event,” organizer Sue Margheim said. “We have people that come up from Iowa City and over from Cedar Rapids, but it really is a Mount Vernon homegrown and kind of a hometown event.”
Margheim said the cookoff began 19 years ago when three friends thought a chili contest would be “a great event for Mount Vernon,” a tradition that has grown into a seasonal staple.
Expect a festive look: the cookoff lands the day after Halloween, and teams lean into décor.
“One of the prizes that we give out is for the team that does the best job decorating their tent or wearing costumes,” Margheim said. Another tradition is the on-site side contests, such as a beer stein hold and a bags tournament.
Tasting of the chili begins at 3 p.m., after cooks have prepared cooking it all day long.
The community fun and cooking are what bring back The Chili Consortium, the Mount Vernon team led by Dave Sherman, with help from his wife, Nancy. This is their third year competing, and they have won both years they have competed.
“Cooking is my hobby, I’ve done it all my life,” Dave Sherman said. “I just love to cook.”
Through his years of practice, he has found that the key is building the flavor, adding layers throughout the process.
“I like to build layers of flavors,” he said. “ I guess that’s the key.”
The Chili Consortium specializes in non-traditional chili.
“We do chicken white bean chili,” Dave Sherman said. “And the reason we do that is because Nancy can’t eat beef. She loves it, but it doesn’t love her.”
He takes pride in using fresh ingredients and could be the secret to his success.
“One of the secrets we have is we use all fresh ingredients,” Dave Sherman said. “I don’t use anything canned.”
He also leans into the live-cook format.
“You can’t prep anything until 11 a.m, you can’t even dice an onion,” he said, adding that the on-site smoking and roasting are part of the show.
Nancy Sherman said the conversations around the tent are the highlight.
“The funnest thing for me is just talking to the people,” she said.
Those chats sometimes turn into small, memorable moments — like the time a father scraped the pot for his young daughter after running out of chili.
“They did, they scraped the bottom. It was priceless,” Nancy Sherman said.
Another couple even handed over their voting tokens: “We’re going to give you all of our coins,” Nancy Sherman said.
The Consortium brings a bit of showmanship, too.
“We have a banner that says The Chili Consortium, and then we have aprons that say the same thing,” Nancy Sherman said. “This year, there’s going to be hats, which is crazy, but fun.”
Margheim said the cookoff will again pack uptown with tastes and teams — 23 in all, split between traditional and nontraditional entries — and a People’s Choice vote that keeps tasters circulating from tent to tent.
“They get a wooden token to put in a bucket at their favorite chili’s tent,” Margheim said. “And we tally those up through the afternoon.”