A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Are Cilantro Haters Faking It?

Episode Date: May 20, 2020

Cilantro aversion: a genetically predetermined distaste, or a scientific hoax purported by unsophisticated palates? Today, Josh and Nicole are debating: 'are cilantro haters faking it?' on this episode of A Hotdog Is A Sandwich. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. The cilantro aversion, a genetically predetermined distaste or a scientific hoax purported by unsophisticated palates. Today we ask the question, are cilantro haters faking it? This is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich.

A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Shearer. I'm your host, Nicole Hendizadeh. And today we are answering the question, are cilantro haters faking it? Nicole, what do you think? No, I don't think they're faking it.

Why would they be faking it? They have a multitude of reasons. You're not inside their head. I do believe cilantro haters are faking it why would they be faking it they have a multitude of reasons you're not inside their head i do believe i believe cilantro haters are faking it i believe that obviously food tastes are real there are people who do dislike cilantro but i think at this point once all those quote-unquote scientific studies came out saying that like it's purely to blame on your genes everybody used that as an excuse and they've since created the cilantro-hating identity off of it. And it gives them an excuse not to open themselves up to new foods and new cultures. Yes, they're faking it for attention. What do you mean new foods and new cultures?

Cilantro isn't that, like, out there. Cilantro's in a lot of different—it's in a lot of foods. That's not an excuse to not eat things. What? Oh, Nicole, Nicole. So we need to get down to the science of this really fast because, like, we want to come off. We I'm the only one in this. I am the one who does not want to come off as anti science. So they 23 and me did this very famous study. They have proven that there is one specific gene that is associated with the hatred of cilantro. It makes cilantro taste like soap to people. And that's because the gene has, what is it, it creates a variation in the olfactory reception of aldehydes. And aldehydes are often associated with rancidity in foods, so foods that have gone bad. And also it's found in

like a byproduct of soap making. So a lot of people say cilantro tastes soapy. However, having a gene that makes something taste different to you does not immediately mean that you cannot eat a single leaf of cilantro, that you cannot learn to like cilantro is the other factor in this. And so I think a lot of people are just using the scientific study, you know, as a sort of guard against them going out of their comfort zone. Is this similar to you in the same vein as people that believe that they are celiac or gluten free? Is this kind of the way that you're looking at this argument?

Yeah, I was just going to bring that up. Obviously, there are people who have celiac disease, which is very serious. I know people who have who if they eat, you know, a single, I don't know, a grain of gluten, what quantity does gluten come in? If they eat a single gluten, they will, you know, end up in the hospital. I also do believe that there are a lot of people who are intolerant to gluten, especially in America, we talked about how much our wheat is processed compared to other countries, and it's been a spike in gluten intolerance. I eat a ton of bread, I got the tummy bubbles a little bit, you know, but do I think there are a lot more people who, you know,

use gluten intolerance as an excuse at a restaurant to, you know, inconvenience a server? Sure. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, per se. Like, I get it. Diet is extremely personal. I'm not here to say that, you know, you need to eat gluten. If you don't like to eat something, don't eat it. If you don't eat like to eat cilantro, you don't have to eat eat it but these people who are chirping about how like oh it's genetic i'm special i have the cilantro hating gene that's why you know we can't order the guacamole for the table it's just like you know what chill but do you think they're faking it do you think their hatred is fake or is it just a convenience thing because i think if you hate like hate is a strong word you know if you like don't enjoy it why should you teach your why should you force yourself to like something

there's no logic in that like if i don't like eating snails which i do love i do love escargot why am i gonna force someone to eat a snail like what's the point of forcing people to like something they don't have to like it. They can enjoy other things. It doesn't bother me if I'm, like you said, sitting at a table ordering guacamole for the table. If the person doesn't like cilantro, it's fine. We'll just get to guacamoles, you know? We'll have the cilantro haters eat the cilantroless guacamole, and then the ones that like cilantro will eat the proper guacamole, you know? I don't think people are just

hating things to hate things, as much as you think. I don't think people are like that. Maybe I'm just like an intrinsically, I think everyone's like an intrinsically good person and like they just, you know? Wake up, sheeple. It's a cruel, dark cilantro-hating world out there and we need to fight against it. No, okay. One,

let's go back to the science a little bit. So in this 23andMe study, they found that- Have you done 23andMe, Josh? No. Have you done 23andMe? I did. Wait, what'd you find out? I found out that I'm part Iberian, I'm a little bit Ashkenazi, and 2% unknown, which means

that I'm from Mars. And I like cilantro. I don't have the cilantro hating gene there's like something about like haplogroups and like like you said like aldehydes i remember like looking through it extensively because i have this problem where like if i do like a like i like to like go back and like look at things that i did like five years ago to say oh i guess that is legit like it tells you if like uh your pee smells asparagus, like when you eat asparagus and stuff. It's really interesting. It is. But no, I don't I don't know if I just want to give away all my genetic information to find out if I have the asparagus pee gene. That's weird to me. And also, I think one of

the reasons I didn't want to do 23andMe is because my ex-girlfriend's mom got it for me for Christmas. And I was like, what are you trying to find in my gene pool, lady? It's so cool. I found out like like illnesses that I might get when I'm older, which was kind of freaky dinky, but like whatever. It's interesting. Like I might get AFib when I'm 80. Like what the frick? I like leaving that stuff up to chance. Where's, you know, the magic in life if you don't think you might get, you know, early onset Alzheimer's. I think it's interesting. It is interesting. It's not interesting enough for me to want to do it.

And again, I think it's funny that, did they just straight up say on the 23andMe test, like you got the cilantro hating gene? It said that you are likely to not have this gene due to your genetic composition. Interesting. So one of the things that they found in that study is that it is predominantly people who have this cilantro hating gene are predominantly from white European

descent, right? And if you think about the cultures that typically eat cilantro more, it tends to be, you know, Latin America and East, Southeast, and I suppose South Asia. So most of Asia eats cilantro, even though the history of cilantro, it was technically from like the Eastern Mediterranean and actually used to be a big part of European diets. We go on and on about the history of cilantro, but the way it stands now, cilantro predominantly in Latin and Asian cuisines. Do you think that there is intrinsic value in opening yourself up to other people's cuisines? Do you think you can learn about the world from eating other people's food? Of course you can. Absolutely. I'm a huge, I'm a huge proponent of that.

And do you think that it is always appropriate? So say you want to eat a bowl of pho and in this, you know, particular regions bowl of pho, cilantro plays a big role in it. In South Vietnam, cilantro is a big part of pho. So do you think it would be appropriate to still try and experience that cuisine without one very key ingredient? Do you think you're still getting the full experience? Or do you think that you are kind of imparting your own tastes onto that without truly opening yourself up to the possibilities of it? No, listen, if you try it, and you don't like it, that's it. That's done. You should I respect your decision to at least try it and give it an honest go it. That's done. You should, I respect your decision to at least try it and give it an honest go.

Try it in different preparations, sure. But I don't think you're missing out on, did you say Southern Thai? Southern Vietnam. In Northern Vietnam, I believe. No, Southern Vietnam, sorry. Mostly have scallions. No, in Southern Vietnam cuisine,

I think if you don't eat the cilantro, I don't think that's disrespectful to a culture. Like if someone came to my house and they don't like sumac, sumac berry is a huge, super, super important part of Persian culture. If they come over and they try it and they don't like it, it's not a big deal. I'm not going to be like, poo poo, like you uncultured swine. It's just a preference. And like, I respect their preference.

You know, I get like, good job. You tried it. You enjoyed it, whatever. Like you did your part. And if you didn't enjoy it, that's totally fine. Here's some other food that doesn't have any sumac in it. Tell me what you think. That's how I would go about it

because I think people are good. And I think, what's that? Hobbes or Locke that believe that people were inherently evil. No, I don't. But I do think people are sometimes inherently closed-minded and there are evolutionary reasons for that right especially if you look at how tastes developed okay so if you think about the reasons that evolutionarily we enjoy certain foods like we enjoy a sweet taste because your body purely like runs off of glucose and And so there's an evolutionary need to

have sugar in your diet that gives you energy, makes you not die. You like sweet things. You tend to like acidic things because they're associated with fruits and fruits have essential vitamins in them. We have the taste umami because at least a lot of anthropologists think that it's something that incentivize you to eat proteins and also fermented foods. So all these kind of make sense. And so the want to avoid that aldehyde taste that people with the cilantro gene say that they have is, you know, a biological imperative. Aldehydes are created from rot and bugs spraying defense mechanisms and all that. However, yummy. However, there are so many times in our lives that we overcome that. Nicole, what's your favorite cocktail?

Oh, I love Negronis. We both love Negronis. But what's the main taste that you associate with a Negroni? Bitter death. Bitter death, right? Like bitterness is literally your body's mechanism to tell you like, this is poison. This is gonna kill you, you dummy. So if you tried a negroni for the first

time say when you were younger especially do you think you would have immediately associated that as a good taste no right no but the first time i had gin i was 15 and i was at a bar mitzvah and i got like seven screwdrivers and i'm like this is great so maybe i'm just an anomaly. No, that's a really good point. Also, wait, the first time I had gin was at a bar mitzvah when I was underage. Oh my gosh, maybe it was the same one. My cousin Vic gave me a bunch of gin and tonics. And yeah, there's like a fake Jamaican MC. And I tried to teach people how to dougie, but I didn't know how to dougie.

Yeah, I had gin and tonics too. Wait, it wasn't screwdrivers. Screwdrivers was another one when I was like 16. But yeah, gin and tonics too wait it wasn't screwdrivers screwdrivers was another one when i was like 16 but yeah gin and tonics were the first drink i ever drank at like at a bar and i was like loosey goosey but you know gin is bitter but i was just living my life well i guess i knew that i wasn't dying because it was alcohol and not poison yeah also don't don't drink under age please thank you if you're listening to this please don't drink underage, please. Thank you, if you're listening to this. Please don't drink if you are underage. Drink when you are 21, when you are legal enough to drink.

Thank you so much. Chat message from Ryan Moody. Give a don't underage drink to cover us. Okay. Don't underage drink. In Europe, they're allowed to, you know, but no, crimes are bad, I suppose, if we have to say it. Okay, so. Crimes are bad.

That's actually a really interesting point that you brought up, the fact that you associate that bitter taste with fun and good memories, right? So it now created a positive memory in your mind associated with bitterness, even though biologically you're not supposed to like that in the same way that someone isn't supposed to like cilantro if they have that gene. But now you associate bitter with getting slithered. Get a bar mitzvah, you know, and so that's getting slithered. Is that is that from? Don't tell me fly like a G6. Yeah, correct. Correct. So that's the thing. If you expose yourself enough to something and create positive memories around it, you can overcome this biological imperative to have a bad taste. And I think cilantro would fall into that category. Obviously, it's different because gin is fun juice, and it makes bar mitzvahs more tolerable when you don't speak Hebrew. But I think if you say we had like a dinner party at your place, and I have never

tried sumac, and you know, I try it and I go, I don't immediately like that. But then someone gives me like a little gentle nudge of just like, no, no, it's really, really good on this food. It's very important, you know, in Iran and in our cuisine, try it on this, and we're all having a fun time, you know, and then I might leave, you know, having a different appreciation for sumac because I've had this complete experience with it. Whereas if you don't, you know, completely open yourself up to it, you're never going to have that. And I think it takes more than one time to try a food i think exposure can like really kind of you know help you and push you through this is this a pavlov's dog situation like associating cilantro with good times and then is that what it is is it like similar yeah it's it's to me it's the same the same thing as that

you just uh have this like positive mind association with something. And I think there's really a lot of value to it in terms of empathizing with other cultures. Say you're a white American who doesn't like cilantro, then there was a writer, but he wrote a story about bringing Chinese food in his lunch to school and a lot of the white kids making fun of him

for having cilantro on top of that. Or his mom would pack him a ham sandwich. Story of my life. Right? But that's what I'm saying. Kids make fun of me all the time. Kids still make fun of me when I eat. What kind of lunches would you bring?

Oh my gosh. So some, okay. Have you ever had kebab, but you had it a day after and it smells like a bowl of farts? No. When I eat kebab, there's none left. Okay. Whenever you save kebab and you put it in a Tupperware,

like those airtight concealers, and then you open it up, it reeks. Okay? It smells like farts just ruminating through the lunchroom. And no one wants to sit next to you when your food smells like farts. So it's okay if there's three or four cilantro leaves on there because no one cares anyways because your food smells like farts. So it's okay if there's three or four cilantro leaves on there because no one cares anyways, because your food smells like a fart. But what if what if those kids have been exposed to that flavor? Because I know the fart flavor. I know. Okay, things fart is an objective term. Sometimes there's things that I'm like, that smells like fart, but I really want to eat it.

Right? A good French cheese. A plus we talked about this last episode. It smells like farts. It smells like someone threw up in a dumpster. you still see farts you literally refer to the tasting notes in a plus as cabbagey what other bodily functions cabbagey but a fart so there's certain things that like they smell bad but good like fish sauce yes like that's a perfect example fish sauce you know smells objectively bad but then you're like oh damn i remember eating this really delicious bowl of bun thit nung at a Vietnamese restaurant. I know that quote unquote bad, you know, rank smell is actually very, very good flavor. And you associate that smell of positivity now. So I think there's benefit to exposing yourself to different foods, especially from different

cultures, especially things that you may not like the first time. I think you can get like genuine empathy from that. What if those kids have been exposed to kebab and they're like, that's not fart. That's delicious old kebab. They would be much nicer to me and not make fun of my eyebrows that were one, one eyebrow, one large eyebrow. No, but, but, but again, I don't, I think if you give it a few tries and you still don't like it, that's okay. What I'm saying is you don't need to force yourself to like something and you don't need to force yourself to hate something. It's not necessary.

If you feel some way, it's okay to express it. You don't need to force yourself to like everything. Do you like everything, Josh? Is there one thing you don't like? What don't you like to eat? There is. It is raw celery is the only thing that I hate. And so you're correct. Are you faking, are you faking hating raw celery because you've tried eating it seven times, which you for sure have? No, I don't believe I am. I don't enjoy it. I don't believe you, Josh. You should have it in a different preparation.

Josh, have you tried it in this preparation? about a raw salad what about if it's marinated with a little bit of a cumin seed and lemon juice have you ever thought about having it with peanut butter and raisins a la ants on a log i i haven't wait didn't you did you or your mom make me a really delicious um koresh with celery um it was my mom but i brought it for you yeah it was really good uh i like cooked celery but no i i do your point is very very well taken it is as annoying as i find it when people won't give cilantro even a single chance and they you know pick it out of all food and they inconvenience waiters i understand how it would be like equally if not more annoying for somebody to say like no no no i know you better than you know you, you will like cilantro. So I totally get that.

So I don't think, are you saying that hating cilantro is just a cape for hating other cultures? No, not necessarily. But I do think the two can be somewhat linked in a way, I suppose. I really don't think it's that deep. I mean, if you get, like I said, if you give it a good, honest try and you don't like it, that's, I mean, that's that. It is what it is. Why force it? You know? I mean, do you, I like here, like here's some information about some people that don't like it. Ina Garten, my queen, literally the one person I look up to the most says, I know people love it and you can add it to the recipe. I just hate it. That's okay, Ina. I still love and respect you even though you hate cilantro.

Kim Kardashian, the Armenian queen of internet viral videos and photos. She doesn't like it. Julia Child, the actual first food star, said herself she would pick cilantro out and throw it on the floor if it was in her dish. And you know what? That's totally fine. Her hatred is valid. You can totally use that and you can say it for mint. You can say it for parsley. You can say it for X, Y, and Z. Do I think that the taste of soap is like a little bit dramatized? Yeah, a little bit. I don't think it's that bad. Did you ever get your mouth cleaned out with soap when you were a kid, Josh? Yes, yes, I did.

Me too. I really did, like, all the time because I was a naughty young child. But, you know, I mean, it's not that unpleasant. Soap isn't that icky. I watched a lot of South Park. I think I watched the South Park movie when I was, like, seven years old. And so I probably deserved to. I think I watched the South Park movie when I was like seven years old.

And so I probably deserved to. Okay, so there's a story in the New York Times where author Harold McGee wrote about one of the first studies that came out about the cilantro hatred. And he called up a neuroscientist named Jay Gottfried, who he didn't even know that he had any relationship cilantro. He just wanted to talk about it. But it turns out this Jay Gottfried neuroscientist at Northwestern was a former cilantro hater uh and he had this really fantastic quote may i read it of course you may thank you i love i love food and i ate all kinds of things and i kept encountering it my brain must have developed new patterns for cilantro flavor from those experiences which included pleasure from the other flavors and the sharing of friends and family that's how people in cilantro eating countries experience it every day so So I began to like cilantro, it can still remind me of soap,

but it's not threatening anymore. He's talking about in the biological imperative. So that association fades into the background, and I enjoy its other qualities. On the other hand, if I ate cilantro once and never willingly let it pass my lips again, there never would have been that chance to reshape the perception. So I'm not saying you should ever force someone to eat cilantro. I'm not saying to like really harp on it. But to the people who claim that they have the cilantro hating gene, just try it a couple times. You still may not like it.

But all I ask is that like you give it a couple good solid attempts at it. And even there's if you what is it if you kind of like smash cilantro, then it actually like breaks down some of the compounds that form the aldehydes. And so that can be like a good gateway into doing it. There was at the end of this article, he talks about making a cilantro pesto and that being like a gateway into it. So all I'm saying is having the open-mindedness

to not use, you know, this study that says it's in your gene pool, it can't be avoided. Like you still have some agency over yourself. Tastes are completely fluid. The first time you drank beer, you over yourself tastes are completely fluid the first time you drank beer you probably hated it and then the 19th time you drank beer when you're of age ryan uh you probably had a really good time and all i'm saying don't force people and obviously not they're not faking that this uh genetic difference does exist but i do think it's

over dramatized and a smoke screen. Okay, I agree that it is over dramatized. I'll agree with you on that. But I also don't think it's fake. Yeah, I guess you're correct that it's not fake. I like I do believe that the science exists. And I don't believe that everyone it's like gluten intolerance is real. It's really unfair to say that that's fake um you know especially the people who end up in the hospital because of it um yeah but i would say another part of it is i think this has become like a sort of identity for certain people like if you look at all the face there's so many facebook pages that exist that are like cilantro haters anonymous and it's like you're not anonymous because you're really going off on it yeah and there's so many memes about it that I think that all reinforces it culturally.

That like, this is just a genetic thing and I hate it. And that tastes are completely fixed and I'm never going to like this. And so I think that's like part of the problem is that people use it as like, you know, I'm not like the other kids. I hate cilantro. You know, it makes them feel kind of special for that. It's like left-handers. Aren't they the worst?

Josh, I'm left-handed. Yes, that is my joke. Josh, half of my identity is being left-handed. The other half is cooking. What? You ruined me. I have a serious question. Are there any dishes that do not work with cilantro?

Do you think cilantro absolutely obliterates a dish? Have you ever experienced that? I'm trying to think about it. I mean, I'm personally and again, I'm coming at this from a very biased source, but I am a huge cilantro lover, especially growing up in Southern California. You know, my parents didn't cook at all. And so I grew up eating at local taquerias and I lived in a big Vietnamese neighborhood and cilantro is like really big in both those cuisines. And so I'm sure the first time I had it, like it wasn't my favorite thing. But now when I make guacamole, like it is forest green because of the amount of chopped cilantro that I put in there. It's one of my favorite flavors to me. It has a very kind of grassy smell in the way that like fresh jalapenos do or, you know, any sort of like really aggressive green or

chives. But I really love it. So, I mean, you can put too much cilantro in a dish in the way that you can put too much of any ingredient in a dish. But for me, I mean, it's just this pure, absolute, bright vergency to it. I agree. I mean, I can't eat a street taco without tons of cilantro and cebolla on it. If I don't, it's not the same. I don't think it's ever ruined a dish for me either. So you're saying that if someone really wanted to enjoy a street taco in the proper context, you're saying they would need the cilantro, right? Yes. Right?

That's what I'm saying. Yes. That's the proper context. You said it best yourself. It's not the same if you don't have the cilantro on there. The cilantro is the freshness that cuts through all you know the fatty meats it's like people who don't put like salsa on their tacos it's just like no this is the relationship this is the social contract you signed when you rolled up to this taco truck and then there's people that

go i don't like mexican food because it's dry it's like you didn't visit the salsa bar bro what are you doing i'm trying to hide my face so you can't see how like, how like found I just became. Because literally if I go to a taco truck and someone isn't eating cilantro on their tacos, I give them the side eye. Yeah, I do too. eating cilantro on their tacos i give them the side eye yeah i do too i love that i love that none of this was like you were like yeah don't don't put the sumac on the persian food who cares but when it came to like street tacos you were just like there better be cilantro on there or else you're dead oh my gosh why is that that's so weird i know that's a part of it i think it's probably because you and i have like a deep, deep respect for, you know, that

food culture. And, you know, the fact that I really do. Yeah, me too. You know, and so I'm not saying force people to eat cilantro, but I'm saying that you are missing out on a valuable part of life by not opening yourself up fully to like all the tastes of the world and the cultures of the world. That's my only argument. But what if but what if you don't like it this is my this is the conundrum like what if you just don't like

it does that mean you're not allowed to partake in the experience of a street taco i want everyone to experience street tacos i but does that mean that they can't experience it because they hit cilantro or can they still you know navigate around it by having just onions on it and still you know kind of being with the crew even if they get side-eyed, but from that weird girl on the corner, me, I don't know. I mean, that's a heck of a question. I know if, if I went to a restaurant and they were like, it is very traditional to put raw celery on this dish, I would eat it.

I would understand that it's not my favorite flavor. To me, it kind of, you know, really permeates the dish very deeply. That said, I would absolutely bite the bullet and eat it as it was meant to be eaten and not to me in what is a somewhat selfish act, you know, ask them to remove that. That's my opinion. I think that if you expose yourself enough to it, and you create these positive memory associations with it it which what is a more positive memory association than going to leo's taco truck uh or no you're a you're an el chato girl yes i am going thank you for catching that i'm tacos tomics that's my spot i just assumed i've never had that before anyways la street street taco politics aside uh rolling up to el chato at one in the

morning you know having you know, having, you know, that fresh taste of cilantro and the spicy salsa and the fatty al pastor or cabeza in your mouth, I think you will learn to appreciate it. Damn it, Josh. That's all I'm saying. So you're saying that science is fake in that we create-

No, I'm not saying that. I just think, I don't know. I don't know. I'm more confused than I started. And this always happens to me because my mind gets blown. And then I just, I'm just left blubbering and my voice gets heightened. And like, I can't make eye contact. I don't know.

It just gets weird. No, it is. It's a really complicated issue. You know, like you don't ever want to tell someone that your personal preferences are wrong. But then how do you excuse someone just saying like, my personal preferences exclude a large swath of cuisine from an entire part of the world that I've never actually opened myself up to. So it's very complicated. But to me, just have an open mind. And don't, you know, use whole uh genetic idea that there's a cilantro

hating gene out there as an excuse for you to just close yourself off to certain foods open your heart open your mind and stop faking it you idiot nicole we've heard what you and i have to say now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the twitterverse it's time for a out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the Twitterverse. It's time for a segment we call Opinions Are Like Casseroles. We're never going to be able to get that right over Zoom. Just do it with confidence, dude. What's wrong with you? Three, two.

Opinions Are Like Casseroles. Casseroles. Okay, let's start with uh at twitter we got at toaster oven donut shops are useless if they don't also serve breakfast sandwiches i'm prepared to fight anyone about this toaster drop drop the gloves bro get into the octagon i'll be flat on my back you you get in my guard i'll get you in uh god i know nothing about mma um well i in in la most donut shops do also serve breakfast sandwiches and a lot of them serve boba and some of them sell cigarettes uh i love my la donut shop they are my favorite institutions in the world shout out to the cambodian community because they actually own most la donut shops um i wouldn't say they're useless though i don't know i think there's room for standalone donut shops i mean if you do something good and that's that's

your namesake do it there's no problem you don't need to like pull out all the tricks and and be like like you know a superstar just do one thing and do one thing good and you know it's it's worth it it's good you're not useless yeah they're very like that yeah there's use to a good donut agreed okay random jeff says all places that serve wings should have a flats only option on the menu it is a superior wing and the and the only one anyone needs to talk about unless that's an option i'll enjoy boneless wings instead okay i agree because i love flats and i don't want to eat the the drums but the secret is you need to date someone who likes the

drums so you can eat all the flats. This is how relationships work. It doesn't matter about the same religion, respect, attractiveness. No. All that matters is when you eat wings, one person eats the ones you don't like and that's it that's so beautiful i might cry um the problem with having a flats only option on the menu is that there's just going to be like thousands of drumettes thrown out because flats are vastly superior to drumettes and so that's why a lot of restaurants will have a drumettes only option but no flats only option because like they're trying to get the drumettes out of there they're just worse drumsticks so i agree in theory but very hard to actually practice okay random jeff has another one but this one's

important so i really want to read it chili with beans is not chili you don't get to change my ancestors food and keep the name call it american chili or something so people can know you aren't serving authentic chili there's a there's a reason official competitions ban beans chili is one of the most fascinating foods in the entire world because like its full name is like chile con carne a spanish dish chile spelled with an e meaning actual like dried chilies with meat um and it is a very native tejano dish i'm reading a fantastic book by gustavo ariano about the history of mexican food in america and like uh you know back in the late 19th century there were what they called the chili queens of San Antonio, back when it was, you know,

actually a part of Mexico who were serving like legit chili con carne. And that became the first taste of Mexican food for America. But now like, you know, you have this sweet ketchup meat sauce on top of hot dogs that we also call chili that has like nothing similar to it. And then you have all these vegan nine bean chilies cooked in a slow cooker that just looks like a can of Progresso soup. So it's really fascinating. And you know, I might agree with you that we need different names for legit like chili con carne and or a bowl of Texas red as they call it. And then you know, Cincinnati style chili that you slop on top of spaghetti, but all of them are delicious. But I think we should call them different things.

I don't have enough information about this to really comment on it. So I'm just going to let you go on that. All right. Big Mama J-Z-00. Step one, order Arby's mozzarella sticks. Step two, f*** that marinara sauce. Get Bronco berry sauce. Wait.

Step three, lament wasted years of not doing this first of all my dad's favorite restaurant in the whole entire world is arby's so i'm definitely gonna do this and uh i don't know what bronco berry sauce is in my household we know two sauces horsey sauce and arby's sauce literally i have one of those green uh whole foods uh salad containers full of both sauces so uh i don't know man big mama underscore whatever your name is i'm gonna try this out of respect for you because your name is big mama i saw the phrasing of that come up and i was like i wonder if nicole is gonna change the words nah no but that said dipping mozzarella sticks into a sweet sauce

makes a lot of sense to me uh because i i was just thinking right before we started recording this i was like what if you made a really delicious mac and cheese and like drizzled honey on it you know like like a good like a bunch of like white cheese in it like maybe even toss some humboldt fog in there i love like cheese and sweet like salty cheese and some sort of sweet drizzly thing i love so i'd be into that same i'm i'm i'm in the same boat should we move on to the next one yeah what do we got we got only pomegranate don't know if this is weird but sugar plus pumpkin plus cinnamon is a turkish dish and it's great it translates to pumpkin dessert we're very straightforward like

that uh that sounds dope i like the idea of eating vegetables for dessert and not just like vegetables blended into stuff like a carrot cake but it's taking a sugar and roasting it with pumpkin and cinnamon on it that sounds incredible what a, like healthier dessert than a refined pastry. We do that too, but we do it with yellow squash, I believe, or acorn squash. It's really, really good. Big fan, big fan. I think a lot of like West Asian people have told me,

like people from the Middle East and the Levant, is that white people can never understand fruit culture. Oh yeah. And how like- My mom is literally, my mom is literally my mom is literally on the other side of the door right now probably with a plate of fruit waiting for me to stop this podcast so she can come hand it off to me i i want that so much it's just a sign of love my dad would microwave me hot pockets sometimes i guess that's the same thing that's

totally the same thing josh mine is just fresh fruit yours is ham and cheese okay uh crisp ranger 2166 says barbecue does not belong on pizza it blink and slaps even i replay i even replace the sauce with barbecue he said it does it does belong on pizza oh no barbecue does belong on pizza uh yeah i mean i i love a good barbecue chicken pizza from CPK. I know you do too. Just rub it all over my body. Let me shower off in the sink. Josh loves barbecue sauce so much. It actually doesn't make sense.

Like Josh, I think Josh should just like take all the blood out of his body and just fill it up with Stubb's barbecue and he would be like so happy. No, I'm doing the long game. I'm just eating so much Stubb's barbecue that it's naturally infusing my blood with it. Like if I get your skin turned more, more ruddy because of it. It has. If I get a paper cut, I just smell like liquid smoke. Okay. Barbecue chicken pizza is fantastic. It was a part of my childhood. It was the fanciest dish I had eaten until I was 18 years old. I love it. And I also hate when they just put a normal red sauce on it

and then drizzle barbecue sauce on top. No, barbecue sauce is the sauce. It is the garnish. It is the dessert. I love you, Chris Pranger 2166. I love it too. I love him too. I love you.

This is a good callback. Samantha Young 6 Cincinnati style chili is the best chili, hands down, no contest. Can you tell me what it is? What is Cincinnati chili? Okay, so Cincinnati style chili is commonly served at a restaurant chain called Skyline up there. And that's where they will put the chili on top of like spaghetti with cheddar cheese. Oh, yeah, I've seen it.

What makes their chili really interesting is it was invented by a macedonian immigrant who basically like had this um macedonian dish that is a braised meat dish with tomato and red wine and cinnamon i've had a greek or albanian dish called kappa ma that's really similar and i really love the flavor profile um but he needed like a new way to kind of market this to americans and chili was kind of big at the time it sort of looked like chili and so he said screw it i'm gonna call this like random macedonian um stew uh chili and so it that's why it's it's so much sweeter uh the only link that it has with chili is that like they're both red and have meat in it yeah yeah and so it's okay it's delicious i'll just like submerge a hot dog in it french dip

style and eat it but like to me there is nothing better than a bowl of texas red chili con carne i don't i still don't know enough about chili to comment on this but i i respect your your to talk about this freely we need to have like a chili night because there's been so many chili comments. We're like, I eat it with peanut butter sandwiches. I ate it with cinnamon rolls in Kansas City. We need to just do a whole chili day. Okay, that's fine. But I need a bottle of Tums

and a bottle of Pepto Bismol and just like some Kaopectin just in case I die. Okay, Squidney Louise says, my husband and I constantly fight about whether soy sauce is a salad dressing please settle this once and for all okay so like some people they like to just put acid on their salad dressings like some people like some people like to put just like a squirt of lemon and that's their dressing and like that's fine like that's cool is it for me no absolutely

not but like it's cool like if you want to put soy sauce on your salad greens live your life i don't care yeah i don't think you could reasonably call it a salad dressing if i like ordered a salad dressing at a restaurant it's like here's a packet of kim lon soy sauce i'd be like are you gonna apologize soy sauce i'll add soy sauce to the vinegar. And I respect if people are just adding, I mean, honestly, raw vegetables dipped in soy sauce is really good. So sure. But like, is it a salad dressing is such a definitive philosophical quandary that I feel like I'd have to say no.

Okay. And wait a minute. That's a good name. That's a good name. Guacamole is just Mexican mashed potatoes and sushi is Japanese burritos. No, guacamole. I mean, that word literally predates Spanish and predates, you know, the introduction of mashed potatoes to anywhere not in Latin America because potatoes are a new world crop, as we all know know that came from peru uh and so no guacamole is like a millennia old dish um that comes from a native plant uh sushi is japanese burritos i think it's funny they're trying to define a mexican dish as something else but then they're defining a japanese dish as a mexican dish this is all over the place um but no uh all over the place. All over the place. That said, there are trucks that serve sushi burritos in LA that are just giant uncut sushi rolls.

And it's just sushi that's very hard to eat. And wait a minute. Maybe you got to wait a minute. This is wild. Yeah, I don't know about all this. It's really confusing. It's making my brain go, we don't really care about it. Mullen Cider.

My dad will have baby carrots yogurt a bowl of peanut butter honey and a coca-cola for lunch immediately after mowing the lawn um your dad is you know satiating his body after a long hard uh you know physical task man don't don't make him feel bad about enjoying food after sustenance like he just mowed your lawn say thank you and go move out of the way you know who this dad is this dad is a man who knows what he wants in life and he's not afraid to get it he's like for lunch i i know most a lot of people may eat a sandwich some people may eat a rice ball nah i want baby carrots yogurt a bowl of peanut butter and honey and a coca-cola and that's his right that sounds like a lovely little metzah platter. Agreed.

All right. At Michaela underscore 711, peanut butter on bread with spaghetti. Sorry. So many peanut butter. Peanut butter on bread with spaghetti bolognese is fire. Spagbowl. Have you ever seen people that are from like England and they go, I like to eat a bowl of spagbowl.

And they're like, for the longest time, what is spagbowl? And then they were just eating pasta i'm like oh spaghetti bolognese well yeah it's australian right spag bowl uh i don't know but like i like to watch like dating shows that are like not from america and they go i make the best spag bowl i don't know where the accent's from i'm assuming it's like English because, you know, I like to eat Spag bol. I can't look up here like I'm from Essex. Yeah. No, they're from the show, whatever it's called.

Geordie Show, is that what it is? Oh, yeah. What is Geordie? I don't know. Did you watch Too Hot to Handle on Netflix? No, but it's on my freaking queue. How have you not watched that yet? It's the best show that's ever been made.

It's on my queue. It's on my queue. It's so good. Peanut butter bread, spaghetti bolognese. Yeah, why not? Okay, whatever floats your boat. Whatever floats your boat. Josh, we're done.

Oh, we're done. This is our last one. We're done. We did it. Can I go home now? Do you have to say your last words? The audio wrap up. Opinions are like casseroles.

Everyone's got one and it smells like onions. Opinions are like casseroles. Everyone's got one and it smells like onions. Opinions are like casseroles. Sometimes they have tater tots. And on that note, thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. We've got new episodes for you every Wednesday. If you want to be featured on Opinions Are Like Casseroles, you can hit us up on Twitter at MythicalChef or nhandendizadeh with the hashtag OpinionCasserole. For more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube. We launch new videos every week.

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