 Today we bring you one of the most fiery culinary debates ever waged. We're talking chili. My name's Trey Crowder. As a stand-up, I spend most of my weekends on the road. And I spend most of that time listening to folks tell me that their regional cuisine is the best in the world. The object of this show is to settle these debates once and for all. Welcome to Grubbin. Representing Texas Chili, we have Stephen Hager from Chili John's in Burbank, California. It's the original product and it's the national dish of Texas. And we also have Dan Fisk, the founder of LA's Cincinnati Kid Burger Company. Ooh, Dave! It's not the original, but you can really diversify it. Before the food fight commences, let's dive into some history. In the appeal of Texas Chili, it's pretty straightforward. It's a tasty staple you can make from all local ingredients that wouldn't spoil while you're spending days out on the trail. It's a preserved dish, so if you add anything into it that can spoil, you're basically ruining the chili. So in your mind, like, real chili is what? It's a meat sauce. It's got meat, salt, fat, and spices, and that's it. For Texans, chili is serious business, so they get a little touchy when anyone messes with the recipe. Cincinnati chili is all about messing with the recipe. You can thank a pair of Macedonian immigrants to Ohio named Tom and John Kyrgyz. The brothers were seeking economic opportunity in the Midwest, which had become a hot spot for Eastern European immigrants during the Balkan Wars. In 1922, they opened Empress Chili in Cincinnati. Why Empress? That's what the burlesque house next door was called. Why Chili? Because thanks to the world's fare a few decades earlier, Americans were in love with the dish. Branding, baby. But what they actually served was closer to a Greek dish called Musaka, a casserole containing some distinctly non-Texan ingredients like cinnamon, allspice, and eggplant. It makes sense when you look at its origins and you're just like, oh, these are just like Macedonian ingredients and like Greek ingredients spicing a meat sauce, more or less. So adding a little bit of cinnamon kind of cuts into the heat of the chili peppers and the chili powder in there and balances out the dish that is undeniably Cincinnati chili. The dish was served over spaghetti and in later years was modified to include a cheese topping. A two-way would be your spaghetti and your chili, when you get your cheese, then you have your three-way. Then four-way is when the onions or beans come in. So obviously four-way onion or four-way bean. Five-way is everything, all through the garden. I feel like the big dig for people that, you know, don't like it as I say, like, Cincinnati chili, that's not even really chili at all. I hate that stuff. It's not real chili, it's just sauce. Call it whatever, it's delicious. I feel like it always has Cincinnati in front of it, so it's got like a qualifier. Yeah, it's an important qualifier to make sure and put that in front of it. I want to give you guys some ingredients, right? And HRE tell me like whether you feel like that goes in chili or belongs in chili or not. I'm wondering what you're going to throw at us. Chocolate. Not like a Hershey's bar, right? So it's like dark unsweetened cocoa, which adds like bitterness and some kind of like complexity to the chili. I can see where it might have a place like based on, you know, traditional mole has chocolate and cinnamon in it, but it doesn't have a place in traditional Texas chili for sure. Beer. There is no water of any form in chili. Water sucks. You put water of any shape or form in your chili, you're messing it up. It won't be shelf stable. I don't do any beer. No, no beer. Tomatoes. Tomato paste. Yeah. Whole tomatoes, crushed tomatoes. All good. I'll welcome it in my book. I think not at all. It's a preserved dish and there's really no place for fresh vegetables in it. Meat, salt, fat and spices, and that's it. Banes. I'm for it. The beans are just fine, but you got to put the beans in. It's a separate thing that you put the chili over the top of, but they don't go in chili because beans will cause the chili to spoil. It has to do with making sure that the chili is shelf stable and safe to eat on the range. Okay, now we're going to do a little bit of a lightning round where I'll give you a scenario for the use of chili. And I want you to make your case for why yours is the proper one for that situation. Put it on top of a hot dog. I think it's the right consistency. I think the spices work well with the hot dog and the cheddar cheese on top. It's a perfect bite. You know how many things in life where you can get a perfect bite in every bite? I feel like the Coney chili is pretty close to Texas chili. And I think that it probably was the first one on there and, you know, it's been working this long. So why are we going to mess with it? All right, what about if you're going to put it on a burger? I'm biased here as I decided to put it on a burger. That's your whole plan. I was just like, how can I, there's so many burger pop-ups now. And I was like, how can I stand out? And then there's the Tommy's California burger. And like that's kind of like an LA staple. So it gets very much Cincinnati chili instead of the California style chili. Definitely. Our chili is really good on a burger. Folks, you're not going to believe this, but after a lively teta-teta, our guests once again find themselves deadlocked. It looks like we got to give our guests one more chance to state their case to the people. Look at the camera. Pretend that is like your most fervent opponent from the other region. So Steven, that's like a hardcore Cincinnati chili lover who wants nothing to do with Texas chili. Texas chili is a piece of American history that we're still living with today. And if you get a chance to eat traditional chili, that you're eating a piece of our history, and it's part of our culture, and chili's undeniably one of the most American foods that you can get. That's smart playing the patriotic route. I feel like they would go well for a while in America. You've got a little bit of the tougher job here, even though it's an imaginary person. If I go down the wrong track, I could end up with a hole in my head. Hello, Mr. Texas Chili Man. I know this isn't a traditional chili that you're used to, but one bite and you'll know it's just as delicious. Don't think of it as chili. Think of it as, man, this is going to taste really good. I like the part where you said don't think of it as chili. That's how you got to convince them. Again, the patriotic route, you got to know the audience that you're playing to. Want some chili now? Thank you to our guests for sharing your expertise with us. Hopefully we inspired folks to try some new grub and taught them a thing or two. Y'all keep the conversation going in the comments and keep it spicy. But, you know, respectful. If you like what you sawed, subscribe to the Attention YouTube channel. Continue your culinary education and check out Dish History. Get your mind right with free therapy. Or, hey, spend some more time with you boy and watch my show, South and Off.