Cinnamon is central to Cincinnati chili, and some cooks add cocoa for depth. Texas purists find the result too sweet. Neither major competition rulebook mentions any of these ingredients.
Sweet spices are where chili meets the Mediterranean kitchen. National Geographic notes that Greek chili makers favor a dash of cinnamon. Cincinnati chili leans on cinnamon, allspice and cloves.
Chocolate is the most argued-over addition, and it has its own myth. Some homemade versions of Cincinnati chili include it. Dann Woellert, the city's chili historian, told The Takeout that no Cincinnati parlor actually uses it.
Other cooks embrace it openly. In 1986 the Christian Science Monitor printed a New York chili restaurant recipe with three tablespoons of cocoa and two of cinnamon. Its owner, Michael McLaughlin, recommended regular cocoa over Dutch-process and warned that some people dislike cinnamon in savory food.
The objection is mostly about sweetness. Frank X. Tolbert's complaint about Cincinnati chili in 1984 was that it was too sweet to count. National Geographic lists chocolate among chili's unconventional ingredients.
Competition stays out of it. The current CASI and ICS rulebooks do not name chocolate, cocoa, cinnamon or sugar. Cooks may use them and judges decide whether they work.