HURON — The F.A.T. Friday Chili Challenge gets the weekend’s food competitions started at this year’s Wheel Jam festivities. Families, friends and food lovers got together in the summer sun at the South Dakota State Fairgrounds Friday evening to enjoy the variety of chili entries taking part in the challenge.
The teams set up their cooking stations at their assigned cooking sites Friday to execute all the cooking of their food entries on site before the People’s Choice tasting event, which started at 5:30 p.m. Tasters paid $5 at the gate for a bowl, which allowed for them to fill up with chili from every team before deciding on their favorite and voting for the winner. There were judges tables set up and voting buckets by the entrance where the People’s Choice voting took place. Each bucket had the team number and color representing their division, red represented group teams and yellow for individual teams.
The popular chili challenge draws in local competitors as well as out of state entries. Team “Eggspert BBQ,” from Willmar, Minn., has competed in the S.D. BBQ Championships the past five years, this is their first year competing in the chili challenge, and members, Jeremy and Jennifer Amundson explain their method: “Our secret is we add lots of different chili powders from all over the world at different times in the cooking process.”
Another traveling team was “Beer Belly BBQ,” with their sweet and spicy chili from Glendive, Mont., competing in the chili challenge for the first year.