Spaghetti Red

The name belongs to Joplin. In 1923 Fred Herring, a miner, opened a ten-stool chili counter at 10th and Main streets. The current owner says no record survives of the exact opening day, so 1923 is the year usually given. The counter sold hamburgers, chili and tamales. Herring tried ladling his chili over a plate of spaghetti one day, and the dish became the house signature.

In 1943 Herring moved seven blocks south to 1719 South Main, across from the grocery that supplied his meat. In 1956 that grocery’s butcher, William 'Red' Wilcoxson, bought half the business, and the sign became Fred & Red’s. Herring retired in 1973 and died in 1975. Red’s son Larry Wilcoxson ran the counter for decades and was the only one who knew the chili recipe. He closed the restaurant on March 16, 2012. David Schaefer bought the business and the recipe from Wilcoxson’s heirs and reopened it on November 23, 2016.

Tulsa has the older parlor. Ike’s Chili gives its opening year as 1908, the year after statehood. The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture dates Ivan 'Ike' Johnson’s parlor to 1910 or 1911. Its 1913 menu priced chili at fifteen cents a bowl, served straight, with beans or with spaghetti. Johnson’s recipe was kept secret, and the restaurant has remained family-run. It now sits on East 11th Street, an alignment of Route 66.

Plates of chili over spaghetti turn up all over the country, from Cincinnati to Green Bay. Spaghetti red differs from Cincinnati chili in the sauce. Fred & Red’s and Ike’s have never published their recipes. The best-known Joplin approximation seasons fatty ground beef with chili seasoning, cumin and garlic salt, and thickens it with crushed saltines. It has none of the cinnamon, allspice or clove of a Cincinnati parlor sauce.

Oklahoma chili in general follows Texas in its meat and spice and parts company over beans. The encyclopedia notes that most Oklahoma recipes over the past century have included them.