Hot steaming chili alert!

Faked chili lands joker in hot water:

It started as a prank, said Don Eastep, an Illinois retiree. When his brother Larry couldn't attend the Terlingua, Texas, cook-off, Eastep went under his brother's name.

But he had no chili. So on cook-off day, he scooped up spoonfuls of chili from some of the 80 or so contestants' pots and entered the mishmash in his brother's cup.

He figured he had no chance, but the judges loved it. And when he was declared the winner, Eastep was speechless. "Maybe I was afraid if I would have said something at the time, a Texas lynch mob would have come after me," he said.

Isn't the state motto 'Don't mess with chili"?

Suspicious contestants told the judges that no one had seen Eastep cooking chili. When confronted, Eastep fessed up and turned over his winnings -- trophy, engraved necklace and hand-painted stove -- to the runner-up, a Dallas dentist.

In the future, said judge Tom Nall, cook-off participants will be required to show photo identification. And Eastep will be banned from the competition.

OK, but what about the implications of "super combo chili" tasting better than any of the entries of the individual contestants? Have the chili gurus been funnin' us all these years?