About Zillion's Chili Seasoning

After tinkering for years on a recipe for the perfect chili, it came to Richard Zillion in a dream. “I went to bed one night and dreamed the formula. I got up, wrote it down and then went out and bought the spices. I finally hit on it,” said Zillion, a lifelong chili aficionado who sells his bottled spice blend Zillion’s Chili Bowl Chili Mild Seasoning Mix at a number of regional outlets and farmers markets. Zillion, 66, a three-time competitive chili cook-off winner, is the kind of guy who never gets tired of eating a bowl of red. “I’ll eat chili if it’s 500 degrees in the shade. I order it wherever I go. It’s good for breakfast, too.” Once in a while, he’ll order a horseshoe from Ritz’s Lil Fryer, add a dollop of chili and a sprinkling of Tabasco sauce and down the concoction for his morning meal. The retired Secretary of State security guard and bread-truck driver first started selling the chili-seasoning blend after his prophetic night of sleep in 1976. He keeps the recipe in a safe deposit box and will only reveal that the mix contains chili powder, onions, paprika, a little salt and “other spices.” “There’s one spice in there that balances everything out, but I won’t tell you what it is,” said the Springfield man. Read their story