This past Saturday, the Middlebury College Men’s Cross-country team was hard at work by 6 a.m. cooking 24 gallons of chili to serve to students, Middlebury residents and chili connoisseurs at the Sixth Annual Vermont Chili Festival in Middlebury, VT. Their Wild Rumpus Chili took home first place in the overall competition, as well as the “Kitchen Sink” category.
The Cross Country team is the first student group to win the Vermont Chili Fest. In past years, the Solar Decathlon team has entered and promoted their work in the progress. The recently founded student-run business Otter Delivery also had a table at Chili Fest.
The team, led largely by Jake Fox ’15, spent months preparing for Chili Fest. They decided to enter into the competition during pre-season training camp in August 2013 and have been perfecting their recipe since. The team prepared six trial chilis before finalizing their secret winning recipe over February break.
“After every chili night, we would sit down and decide what was good or bad with the batch,” Fox said. “Our keystone ingredients are habaneros and apples—but we’ve tried one with sweet potatoes too.”
45 pounds of ground beef, 53 apples and 27 onions were used in cooking enough samples for thousands of Chili Fest attendees to try. The team was on their feet from 5 a.m., when prep-work began, until 4:30 p.m., when their win was announced.
“I think we rallied around the chili process,” Aaron de Toledo ’16 said. “We took kind of a scientific approach, dressing up in lab goggles and lab coats to cook. We even keep a lab notebook to record the recipe. We had a really good time with it.”
Chili was cooked in 10-gallon pots and carried from the Middlebury Community Church to the team’s tent at the intersection of Main Street and Merchant’s Row.
The team used a wheelchair found in the church basement to transport its chili-filled 10-gallon pot from the kitchen to their tent.
In addition to difficulties with temperature and transportation, the team faced many more logistical challenges than the average competitor. Restaurants that participated had large scale heating capabilities, whereas the College team only had one propane heater to warm their chili. Furthermore, favorites like American Flatbread, Tourterelle and Bluebird Barbeque brought dedicated clients and more experience along with their chili.
The team said its four tins were filled with chips from both students and residents, debunking accusations of ballot-stuffing by friends.
“I had two or three folks from Better Middlebury, the group that organizes the event, come up to me and say ‘You’re doing a really good thing for the College and the town,’” Fox said. “They do a lot for us so it was nice to sort of serve them back in a way.”
“It was a positive interaction with the town if nothing else,” David Russell ’15 added.
In addition to pride, a trophy and a prize-winning chili rewcipe, the team won $1,000 for their overall win and $100 for their “Kitchen Sink” category win.
“Initially, we weren’t trying to accomplish a lot with this,” Fox said. “When we first came up with the idea, we just thought it would be a fun way to get everyone together, but in the fall, we lost one of our team captains ... Donny Dickson [’11]. We noticed that [a fundraisier run for a scholarship set up in Dickson’s name] fell on the same weekend as Chili Fest and we thought it would be a good opportunity to promote the run to the community.”
The team’s winnings will go towards a scholarship fund set up in his name.
“After 12 hours on our feet, we all took long naps and I drank a beer out of the trophy we won,” Fox said.
Additional Reporting by KATIE SCHOTT
