ABOUT THE COMPETITION
The Canadian Festival of Chili and Barbecue was inaugurated in 1987 by the late David Veljacic. David was a Captain with the Vancouver Fire and Rescue Service and was awarded Vancouver’s Firefighter of the Year in 1997. David and his wife Pat ran this annual event until 2001 after Pat passed away. David passed exactly one year later and the event has also become known as the David and Pat Veljacic Memorial Cookoff.
David was also a chef, and a pioneer on the barbecue and chili competition circuit. In 1999 he published The Fire Chef, a collection of grilled and “low and slow” barbecue recipes. This was followed by his books Hot Elements and In a Flash. He was also one of the first to market his own brands of BBQ sauces.
The Canadian Festival of Chili and Barbecue has been held at various locations including the New Westminster Quay Public Market, the Surrey Days Inn Hotel and at BC Place Stadium in conjunction with Eat Vancouver. In 2010 The Festival happily found its long term home with Cascades Casino in Langley. Also in 2010 we registered ourselves as The Canadian Chili and BBQ Society under the Society Act of British Columbia. We are a completely not for profit society and believe in helping charity.
This is a family friendly event and tasting passes are available to the public for a $5.00 donation. Funds raised from these donations as well as a portion of event registration fees are given to a charitable organization, traditionally the BC Professional Firefighters Burn Fund in honor of our founder David Veljacic. The 2011 competition raised over $8,000 for the fund.
The two day Festival consists of two different contests:
• The BC CASI Chili Championship takes place on Saturday
This is the Canadian Championship for C.A.S.I. Chili (Chili Appreciation Society International) and winners qualify to cook in the Texas at the Terlingua International Chili Cook-off. This is the world championships of Texas style chili. Texas style chili is not what you or I would make at home, it MUST consist of only meat (ground or cubed) and sauce. Points would be deducted from your chili or disqualified if they judges see any specs foreign materials in your Texas chili. To let our chili cooks have some fun we also have a “mystery meat” home style chili category where cooks can add anything they want and boy do they!
Two additional “fun” barbecue categories for our teams are included on day one. An anything goes Backyard Burger category and also cooks are given a surprise meat, like loin of kangaroo or musk ox, to bbq as in an Iron Chef challenge.
• The BC Provincial Barbecue Championship takes place on Sunday
Provincial proclamation makes this event the BC BBQ Championships sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society and the Pacific Northwest Barbecue Association. Winners can qualify to cook at the Jack Daniels Invitational Barbecue in Lynchburg Tennessee and the American Royal in Kansas City.
For the main barbecue event there are four categories: pork shoulder, beef brisket, chicken and pork ribs. The meat is cooked for a long time at low temperatures over wood and/or charcoal fires. The competitors cook on small Weber Smokey Mountain Cookers all the way up to huge trailer pit smokers.
This is a family friendly event and tasting passes are available to the public for a $5.00 donation. Funds raised from these donations as well as a portion of event registration fees are given to a charitable organization, traditionally the BC Firefighters Burn Fund in honor of our founder David Veljacic.
