New England Has Voted: Is Chili Considered a Soup?

Three words divided the entire region of New England last week: Is Chili Soup?

The question is simple. The answer, however, is not as simple.

Let's back it up before we get to the results. This question was brought up by a friend of mine who posted a poll on his own social media account.

I decided the obvious answer was 'no'. Chili is NOT soup. Chili is chili.

That being said, Kira of 'Kira and Logan in the Morning' on 97.5 WOKQ completely disagreed with me. So, we did what was needed: we asked New England.

This started with a simple Instagram poll on 97.5 WOKQ Instagram: "Is Chili Soup?"

The results were 70% NO and 30% YES. But it did not end there. We needed reasons. We needed New Englanders to convince us why chili was or was not a soup.

The reasonings were hilarious.

Many New Englander callers said that chili has to be a soup because it is on the soup section of the menu. A decent argument. I mean, where else would you put it on a menu? And if it DOES fall under soup on the menu, that means it is a soup.

Other callers said, "Who cares where it falls on a menu?" It is all about the consistency. With this theory, chili that is "soupy" is not good chili. I, for one, love this argument. However, it was not my favorite.

The best argument was the gurgle/slurp agreement. A caller voiced their opinion that soup is often slurped and can be gurgled. This relates to the previous agreement. A delicious chili should never have enough liquid to slurp and gurgle. That would be BAD chili.

Another brilliant point was added that the base of most soup is water, whereas some of the best chili has tomatoes as its base (you cook the tomatoes down to a liquid form).

Some called chili a stew. But is a stew a soup? Let's not even start with that one....