American Cancer Society Chili Cook-off Moves to The Grounds in Mobile

The American Cancer Society’s Chili Cook-off, one of Mobile’s longest-running charity fundraisers, is relocating to a larger venue for its 25th year as organizers look to accommodate a crowd that has outgrown its previous home. The 2014 cook-off is set for March 8 at The Grounds, the fairgrounds complex at the corner of Zeigler Boulevard and Cody Road in west Mobile.

The event has moved several times over its quarter-century history. It began at Cathedral Square downtown before settling for years at Bienville Square, where teams of home cooks and local restaurants set up pots of chili for judges and the public to sample. In recent years, organizers say, the contest simply outgrew the downtown square, prompting the move west to The Grounds, which offers considerably more room for cooking teams, vendors and spectators.

The journey from Cathedral Square to Bienville Square to The Grounds traces the cook-off’s own growth curve — and, in a sense, the growth of Mobile’s charity-event calendar overall. Cathedral Square, the compact park beneath the towers of the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, was a natural starting point for an event that began modestly: a walkable downtown green surrounded by restaurants, big enough for a few dozen tents and a Saturday crowd. Bienville Square offered more of the same charm with a bit more room, and for years the springtime spectacle of teams tending smokers and stockpots between the live oaks became a fixture of the downtown calendar.

But success eventually strains any park. Downtown squares have fixed footprints bounded by streets, and a fundraiser that dozens of teams enter and thousands of attendees sample cannot expand within them. Parking fills, lines lengthen, and organizers face a choice between capping growth and moving. Choosing The Grounds — the fairgrounds campus off Zeigler Boulevard that hosts the Greater Gulf State Fair and a full calendar of expositions year-round — means trading the intimacy of the square for elbow room: more team sites, more vendor space, open lawn for families, and parking on a scale a downtown park cannot touch.

As in past years, the cook-off will pair the chili competition with live music, food and family-friendly activities. This year’s post-judging entertainment lineup includes local act Super Funk Fantasy.

Dozens of teams typically enter the contest each year, competing for top honors as well as a “People’s Choice” award voted on by attendees, while proceeds from ticket sales and sponsorships support the American Cancer Society’s mission of cancer research, patient support and early-detection programs. That mission carries extra weight for many Mobile-area families touched by cancer, and organizers say the fundraiser remains one of the most reliable ways for the community to support treatment and research efforts close to home. The event is typically open to the public for a ticket price that includes chili tastings and access to the live music and activities.

The two-tier judging format is part of what keeps the competition lively. A panel of judges works through the entries on tasting criteria — texture, consistency, spice balance, aroma — while the crowd conducts its own informal campaign, with teams pitching samples and working the grounds for People’s Choice votes. The People’s Choice prize rewards the team that best mixes cooking with hospitality, and over the years it has become the honor backyard competitors chase hardest, precisely because it comes from the public rather than the professionals.

The American Cancer Society’s work that the event funds spans the full arc of the disease: research grants, patient services such as transportation and lodging for people in treatment, around-the-clock information lines, and early-detection education that catches cancers when they are most treatable. In the Mobile area, that mission is visible in programs many residents have used without ever connecting them to the fundraising calendar — from Road to Recovery drivers who carry patients to treatment appointments to Look Good Feel Better sessions for people adjusting to the changes treatment brings. A Saturday of chili tasting converts directly into those services.

In other local news, shoppers who recently purchased smaller packages of Uncle Ben’s rice have little cause for concern following a recent recall. The recall affects only the company’s Mexican Flavor Infused Rice sold in bulk, wholesale-sized 5-pound and 25-pound bags, and does not involve the smaller packages sold on supermarket shelves, which are manufactured separately.

The recall was prompted after several schools in the Houston, Texas, area reported mild allergic-type symptoms, including flushing and rash, among students who had eaten the product. The manufacturer is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and has pulled its infused rice product line from the supply chain while the issue is resolved. Limited quantities of the affected product may still be found at some wholesale retailers and websites.

The distinction between the two product lines is the key detail for local shoppers. Retail rice sold in one- and two-pound boxes off the grocery shelf goes through a separate production process from the bulk infused rice that food-service distributors deliver to school cafeterias, restaurants and institutional kitchens, which is why the recall reaches neither the ordinary supermarket package nor the pantry shelf at home. Families who keep Uncle Ben’s boxed rice in the cupboard are not holding a recalled product. The people who need to pay attention are those who buy in bulk — caterers, church kitchens, school food-service managers and bargain shoppers who shop warehouse or wholesale channels — because that is where the 5-pound and 25-pound bags were sold.

The symptoms reported in Houston were described as mild, and no similar illnesses have been reported locally, but recalls of institutional food products move through a predictable path worth understanding: a pattern is noticed at a large customer, the manufacturer notifies regulators, affected lots are pulled from distribution, and the public advisory follows. In this case the company’s decision to withdraw the entire infused-rice line from the supply chain while the investigation continues goes beyond the minimum required — a precaution aimed at making sure no additional lots reach kitchens while the cause is traced.

Mobile’s grocery scene also continues to expand. Rouses Markets, the Louisiana-based grocery chain, has opened its first two Mobile County locations, on Theodore Dawes Road and Old Shell Road, with three additional stores planned soon in Baldwin County. The new stores join a recently opened Publix and an anticipated Whole Foods location, adding to a growing list of grocery options in the area that also includes long-standing local favorites such as Mac Dixie, known for its produce, beer, sushi and lunch takeout; Food Champs, popular for its butcher counter; and Greer’s and Food-For-Less, both known for their selection and value. The added competition is expected to benefit shoppers across the Mobile area.

The Rouses expansion is a notable chapter in that story. The Thibodaux, Louisiana, family grocer has spent decades building a reputation across the Gulf Coast for regional seafood, local produce and a store experience with Louisiana character, and its arrival in Mobile County marks a direct investment in the area’s retail growth. Grocers of that scale site stores only after serious demographic homework, and opening two locations at once — Theodore Dawes Road serving west Mobile and the Old Shell Road corridor serving the central city — signals confidence that the population base will support them. Three more stores planned across the bay in Baldwin County, one of the fastest-growing counties in the state, extends that bet.

For shoppers, the near-term effect of new grocery competition is usually price and selection pressure, not store closings. Established chains respond to new entrants with weekly specials, remodels and expanded private-label lines, and the neighborhood stores that hold their ground do so on service and specialty. Mobile’s grocery market has always been a patchwork: national chains, regional players and beloved local independents each holding a niche. Mac Dixie’s produce and lunch counter trade, Food Champs’ butcher counter and the value pricing at Greer’s and Food-For-Less give shoppers reasons to split their trips — and a new wave of competition tends to sharpen every one of those selling points.

Finally, as Mardi Gras season continues despite the recent cold snap, street vendors are out in force around downtown Mobile, particularly near the corner of Broad and Government streets, serving up parade-day fare ahead of festivities such as Joe Cain Day. Local watering holes including Callaghan’s remain popular stops for revelers heading to secure a spot along the parade route.

The cold snap has done little to slow the season, which is no surprise to anyone who has stood on a Mobile sidewalk in February. Paraders simply add a coat under the costume, vendors do brisk business in hot drinks alongside the usual offerings, and the ritual rolls on. The corner of Broad and Government sits along a stretch where parade routes pass and neighborhoods converge, making it prime territory for the food trailers and street vendors that follow the schedule from one procession to the next. For many families, the vendor line is as much a part of parade night as the floats — the same mouthwatering choices, the same cash transactions, the same standing orders passed down a generation.

Joe Cain Day holds a special place in that calendar. The celebration honors Joseph Stillwell Cain, the Mobile man credited with reviving Mardi Gras in the city after the Civil War, when he paraded through the streets in a Chickasaw chief’s costume under the banner of the “Tea Drinkers” Society — an act of levity that restarted a tradition that continues today. The Sunday procession bearing his name is one of the season’s most attended events, deliberately looser and more raucous than the mystic society parades, and the crowds it draws keep the vendor economy around downtown humming through the weekend.

The neighborhood institutions surrounding the routes do their share of the season’s business as well. Callaghan’s Irish Social Club, a south Mobile landmark long known for its burgers, cold beer and close-quarters conviviality, is the kind of place parade-goers stop on the way downtown — part staging area, part warm-up, part wind-down after the last float passes. On the biggest nights, its tables fill early and the conversation turns to route strategy: where to stand, what time to arrive, which stretch of median has the best sight lines.

Taken together, the three stories running through Mobile’s news this season — a charity staple moving to roomier grounds, a grocery market adding new players, and a festival season that cold weather cannot touch — sketch a city and region in motion. The chili cook-off’s Silver Anniversary at The Grounds gives cancer-fighting programs one of their biggest local stages of the year; the expanding grocery field gives shoppers more reasons to comparison-shop; and the parades give the city its oldest and most distinctive show of community. Each in its own way depends on the same thing: Mobile residents showing up, week after week, to take part in the institutions that make the area what it is.

For those planning around the dates, the practical list is short. The Chili Cook-off runs March 8 at The Grounds at Zeigler Boulevard and Cody Road, with tickets covering tastings, music and activities while supporting the American Cancer Society’s research, patient-support and early-detection work. Rice shoppers should check the package size and product line before worrying — the recall touches only bulk Mexican Flavor Infused Rice — and wholesale buyers should confirm whether their supplier pulled the affected lots. And for the parade schedule, the advice is unchanged from generations past: get to the route early, dress warmer than you think you need to, and leave room for whatever the vendors are serving at Broad and Government.