A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Have Snack Companies Run Out Of Flavors? ft. Arielle Johnson

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

Today, Josh and Nicole are joined by Arielle Johnson to explore the golden age of snack flavors. Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: http://youtube.com/@mythicalkitchen 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. Did you know that the middle of the galaxy smells like rum and tastes like raspberries? Nicole, you're sure you didn't just sneak a flask into Lush Cosmetics again? You're gonna end up on a list. Are you two okay? 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 we take on the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Scher. And I'm your host, Nicole Inaidi. And we have a very special guest joining us today.

She has a PhD from UC Davis. Go Aggies, baby! With a focus in flavor chemistry. She co-founded the Fermentation Lab at Noma. She served as the science officer for Alton Brown's TV show, Good Eats. And she is the author of Flavorama, a guide to unlocking the art and science of flavor. Arielle Johnson, welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me on the show. Do we call you Dr. Johnson? You can if you want, but I never make anyone do that. Oh my gosh. Have we had a doctor on the show before? Oh yeah, Dr. Mike. Literally somebody

called Dr. Mike. Oh yeah, but I like Dr. Johnson more. And he was very particular about it. He was like, I need you to spell it out, D-O-C-T-O-R, because that's what we have the trademark in, I believe. Wow, okay. He was very nice. Go off, King. You should trademark Dr. Johnson.

Dr. Johnson. No, but thank you so much for joining us. You are one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life, which is really fantastic. And I love that you put all of that smarts into food and especially into this incredible book. Absolutely. Tell us, you know, a couple of key takeaways from the book and how you got here. Yeah.

I mean, you know, I wrote this book. I mean, I studied flavor like as a scientist, but like I really got into it because I wanted to make things more creative and delicious and amazing out in the real world. So once I'd kind of absorbed all there was to know about this, I'd talk to people about it. And everyone loves flavor, but nobody understands how it works, or even that there is any science involved or that there's anything understandable about it. So yeah, it's not just vibes. There are vibes involved. But yeah, there's anything understandable about it. So, yeah, it's not just vibes. I mean, there are vibes involved. But, yeah, there's, like, real molecules.

So, like, flavor is taste and smell. I guess one takeaway is that smell is as important, if not more important for flavor than taste. And, sorry, like, wow, which takeaway? I have to think about every single takeaway and compare them together to find the most simplest one. I mean, I think, like, the big thing is, you know, wow, which takeaway? I have to think about every single takeaway and compare them together to find the most simplest one. I mean, I think, like, the big thing is, you know, people, you see, like, expert cookbooks or, like, books about science. And a lot of it's kind of intimidating and, like, trying to tell you what to do and, like, that, oh, you have to, like, study this to use it. Like, everything in here is designed to work with like the most casual of cooking.

So it's really about like informing your intuition about cooking and understanding why you're doing what you're doing rather than telling you like what to do. No, I love that. I use a phrase in the book using flavor science as a liberating tool for innovating in the kitchen. So many people, they get locked into this idea. I know so many. I lovingly use the term like cooking nerds, right? Sure. I remember having somebody

explain to me the science of a glutamate formation in my yard reaction, yada, yada, as he made me a steak and his steak sucked, right? Well, yeah. God bless him.

Been there, done that, yeah. But like you said, there are certainly like vibes involved and whenever anybody says cooking is science, it's like absolutely, but everything is science I have

no idea how this microphone works right now whatsoever science has a tiny wizard in there I'm sure of course of course um but that's what I love that you actually digest it and you like give people usable information sure yeah yeah well like I uh you know as soon as I finished my PhD I moved to Denmark and started working at a restaurant called Noma all the time. Ever heard of it? Have you? So, yeah, for like two and a half years, I was constantly figuring out how to like talk to chefs and be like, well, I know you understand how this works in a practical way. And like I understand like the theory, but like how do I communicate this to you who like have not taken chemistry at a college level or something like that. So like once you, you know, explain that over and over and over and over and over again, then the actual useful parts become much clearer.

Were you ever out there foraging alongside any of the chefs and stuff? Oh, yeah. I have many memories trying to climb like elderberry trees. Oh, I was going to say fistful of currants. Yeah, exactly. You know, picking like blackcurrant buds in the rain and stuff like that. like elderberry trees I was going to say fistful of currants but I didn't know that was elderberry picking like black currant buds in the rain and stuff like that

very glamorous that's awesome how cool I think it's fascinating because I've known a lot of chefs who you know drop out of school

at age 15 and end up cooking and I know a lot of people who intelligence is measured in many different ways of course but I know a lot this one chef once explained to me the reason that you soak liver in milk is because And intelligence is measured in many different ways, of course. But I know a lot.

This one chef once explained to me the reason that you soak liver in milk is because things want to be how they exist in nature. And milk is a body fluid. Ergo, liver exists in the body naturally. It wants to be in a bodily fluid. And that's why milk makes liver taste good. You're sure this is a chef and not like a 17th century alchemist? A weird doula you found off of Craigslist? He put a lot of leeches on me and I was like, this seems normal.

A lot of bloodletting. He made by far the best foie gras torchon I've ever had. And so it's almost like he's, you know, arriving at the correct conclusion using the wrong science. What is the importance in like kind of understanding the right science. Well, I mean, I think about it like the difference between being able to follow a recipe, which like is important, is like, you know, putting Waze up on your phone and following the GPS turn by turn.

Understanding like how and why things actually work are like if your phone dies or Waze goes down, do you understand like the city's roads enough to find your way around? No.

No, Ariel, I don't. Really? I do. I'm pretty good, but like drop me off in Frogtown? God help me. I cannot get around. I once, I'm so sorry for this aside, but it just illustrates how

I view the world and exist in it. I once, my phone died in my car and the charger wasn't working, and I have two turns to get home. I literally live four miles away in North Hollywood. We're in Burbank. It's one straight shot going west. Okay. And I was like, surely I know how to get home. I've been making miles away in North Hollywood. We're in Burbank. It's one straight shot going west. And I was like, surely I know how to get home. I've been making this drive for six months.

I ended up in what I thought was my neighborhood and I looked around and nothing looked familiar. I finally got my phone to charge. I was 1.2 miles away. Oh my gosh. So wouldn't it be cool if you could do that? 100%. And I think a lot of people somewhat instinctively, we were just talking

about the science of reducing like, reducing a sauce. And you have an incredible graph in there. Such a great graph. Thank you. Oh, no, 100%. The artwork in the book is incredible. Yeah, it's very cute. But for some people, like, for me, it was always intuitive.

Right, yeah. You see steam rising. Steam is water. And you're, like, you're looking at how thick it's getting. And is it taking on a color? And, like, I mean, it's the kind of thing, you know, most of humanity's knowledge was developed through trial and error. And, you know, it took like inventing the scientific method to get like an idea about mechanism.

So, yeah, I mean, for me, just like chemistry is really about mechanisms. And I would rather teach chemistry to somebody who can like sear a steak or do a foie gras torchon and have them like understand why they're doing what they're doing than like start someone just off on pure chemistry and then be like okay now cook something tasty yeah yeah that's interesting well the thing that we really wanted to get into today um we recorded another podcast um with uh your homie dave arnold yeah cooking issues cooking issues check it out uh and somebody asked a question about Limoncello LaCroix, and you've never had it before. And I ran to the fridge to get you one.

Yeah, he told me about this. I was so impressed. I watched you like crack it open and sniff it, and you were like, there's obviously a vanillin compound. They're probably using sodium butyrate. I'm making up chemicals here. But it was really incredible to watch it in action. Trademark that one.

And so we wanted to talk today about the concept of snack companies just sort of running out of flavors. There's been a recent run of Coca-Cola launched, what is it called, the Creators Program. Sure. Where they introduced a Coca-Cola Starlight flavor. And we have right here, this is Galaxy flavored Torani syrup. Wow. If anyone can see. Cosmic.

There was a, God, some sort of headline that came out in 2009 that the middle of the galaxy apparently tastes like raspberries and smells like rum. Do you know what any of that's about? Okay, we might have to fact check me remembering the name of the molecule correctly. I believe, well, okay, so like taking a step back, like flavor is molecules. I believe, well, okay, so, like, taking a step back, like, flavor is molecules. And so, like, you know, some of those molecules are usually made by, like, plants or cooking. But, like, chemistry can happen anywhere. So, you know, there's lots of, like, carbon and methane and, like, the building blocks of the stuff floating out in space and crashing together and getting, like, hit by UV rays. Eventually, like, just from pure chemistry, you'll form, form like very simple sugars and other small molecules.

My organic chemistry professor described it as space candy. Yeah. So I believe the – in addition to sugars, I believe it's ethyl formate, which is like one of the smallest and simplest fruity smelling molecules that you can make. That's also in raspberries and rum gets made in this sort of like cosmic juice of molecules and that's wild. I mean it's kind of like if a smell molecule forms in

space and no one's there to smell it, like does it have an aroma? Does it have a flavor? We gotta send someone out there to smell it. I know, yeah. We gotta send someone to the center of the galaxy. Nicole, sign up. Why did you make direct eye contact with me? What? You love adventures. You all say you don't get out of the house enough. I already poured this in my cup a little bit. Oh, this color is...

Is it like deep violet? Oh, wow. That's very blue. Why do you think they went with that color, though? Because I would never equate the galaxy with this weird, muted, violet color. Well, I think if you look at it head-on... Going back to my wine tasting the galaxy with like this weird muted violet color. Well, I think like, I mean, if you look at it head on,

going back to my wine tasting days. Yeah, if you look at it head on, it's like so dark that it's almost black. And then if you kind of tilt it a little bit, you see this like inky blue purple tinge to it. I mean, I guess it kind of looks like the night sky. And yeah, maybe the closest thing to like the absence of color. A void. Yeah, a void.

It's void colored. It's void colored, if you will. Drink the void. Yeah, do the do is so 2008. But no, take a sip of this. I'm curious about what you're tasting. Yeah, I mean, it's like very, very sweet, very raspberry. Like not so much raspberry jam, but kind of like raspberry top notes, light and heady.

Like you pushed a raspberry in between your fingers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Although now, I mean, like I may be being thrown off by like the color and the viscosity. Tasting it, it kind of reminds me of like Dimetap cough medicine. Did you ever take that when you were a kid? Yeah, yeah. The like purple grape stuff. Getting grape Otter Pop.

Yeah, it's not like full on. I mean, there's like a cotton candy kind of nuance to it. Yeah. Can I ask about the cotton candy thing? So a lot of people say we have tried

all of these new Coca-Cola products and the reason we said snack companies are running out of flavors is because I remember every new Coca-Cola product

that came out when I was a kid, you know, you had vanilla Coke was relatively new at the time. They didn't orange Coke. They did a blood orange Coke when they launched these like fancy Diet Coke flavors.

They did a raspberry Coke. They even had the Coke Black, the espresso Coke. Yeah, you love that one, right? But these are all flavors that exist within nature. And then it seems as if they've sort of run out. And now their flavors are called like Coca- GX3000, partnered with Rosalia. Actually, that one was called Coca-Cola Move, partnered with Rosalia. Sure.

And all of their flavor notes are paired with verbs and emotions. This tastes like excitement and hope, and I think that's what the Galaxy thing is. But a lot of the tasting notes people get, they all say cotton candy. Yeah. What is that cotton candy thing that people are tasting? of the tasting notes people get they all say cotton candy yeah what is that cotton candy thing that people are tasting um cotton candy well so like when you make cotton candy you like melt sugar and spin it into this like fine filament basically like as soon as you start applying heat to sugar it starts breaking down sure and uh like kind of it's almost like uh like a truck hitting

your car mirror and like shearing it off that that happens to it. And so it gets all these like kind of naked edges and then becomes like smellable in addition to tasteable. So ethyl maltol is one of those byproducts of, yeah, like melting in the early caramelization of sugar. So it's basically like simple things formed when you start to break down sugar, but don't break it down all the way. That would be getting more into caramel and cotton candy is mostly clear, not, you know, caramelized.

That's fascinating because you like smell a bucket of sugar and you don't really smell anything. Exactly. But if you smelled cotton candy,

even after it's cooled down, right, like it does have a smell to it. Yeah, of course. Also, they're pouring, you know, their blue razzes and their pink, whatever that smell is.

The association is just like a carnival vibe. It's incredible. I mean, blue raspberry is kind of the OG flavor that didn't exist. Right. The association is just like a carnival vibe. It's incredible. I mean, blue raspberry is kind of the OG flavor that didn't exist. Right, yeah. And then they just conjured it from nothing, but now it certainly exists in our consciousness, which I think is incredible.

Have you noticed anything, just like watching snack food trends change over the years from like a chemistry perspective? Oh, I mean, like a big one is obviously like spicy snacks. Like they were not as popular, you know, 10 or 15 years ago. And now like everything has to have a spicy version. Everything. And I mean, that's a molecule.

That's capsaicin, the spicy component of peppers. Yeah, I mean, like a lot of these flavors, you you know even if they're named after things from nature even if it's like oh this is this is cheese or like this is blue raspberry i mean not that there is blue raspberry but a raspberry um they'll be named after things in nature but like the way that these snacks are made they'll take like all of these flavorless ingredients to make you know like the chip or the liquid or whatever and then then like add a flavor to it. So like the flavor comes in a bottle from a flavor house. There's like several of these places that just like compose flavors from, you know, bare molecules all day long. Kind of like, I don't know, early electronic music when you had to program a synthesizer to make a

noise. Yeah. So, so, you know, now they're making more abstract-sounding ones, but even when all of the flavors had, like, a referent in reality, they were still not made from that thing. So you wouldn't, like, distill a piece of cheese and then make, like, cheese chips out of it. You would take, like, isolated butyric acid and diacetyl and, like, several other things and then, like, blend it together. So there's always this, like, element of making things up involved in, like, creating flavors.

So it's not, like, necessarily that surprising that people would start being like, well, if we're making things up anyway, let's just, like, make everything up. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting because I always thought about it from a perspective of I knew Coke wasn't adding actual raspberry juice into their raspberry flavored Coke. But at least the fact that it had a basis in reality, I was like, oh, this makes sense. But no, it was always they were retrofitting the term raspberry into just a combination of chemicals pulled from the void. Yeah. And so now they might as well be doing that with Coca-Cola Soul Blast or it was launched launched alongside Bleach, Thousand Year Blood War.

It had an action flavor. I actually can't tell if you're joking right now. I'm serious. Oh, okay. Cool. Did you say Thousand Year Blood War? Was it flavor? So Bleach, Thousand Year Blood War is, I believe, an anime movie.

Oh, it's an anime. Oh, thank God. But Coca-Cola Soul Blast was launched in. Coca-Cola, Thousand Year Blood War. Yeah. Tastes like metal, I guess. God, it surely does. It tastes like rock and roll.

And, yeah, there was Coca-Cola Y3000. Okay. That tasting notes were, quote, liquid from maraschino cherries mixed with grape cough syrup. Even has a little bit of that medicinal burn was from one food critic trying it. Wow. Which is fantastic. But my question is, what does Coca-Cola gain

from doing all of these silly, wacky, wild things? Like, what's the point? Like, being inventive, getting new people to come buy the Cokes? I don't understand the purpose of it. I mean, I think, like, a lot of it is just marketing

and, like, trying to maintain market share. I mean, like, Coca-Cola, just plain regular coca-cola as a like manufactured product is about like as close to perfect as I agree yeah I mess around with the action just to be innovative I mean like you know so if you like start started it's almost like a tail wagging the dog thing instead of like oh we want this thing so we're gonna respond to it it's like well if we like make this make this thing that's crazy, people will talk about it and get excited about it. You'll be hearing the name Coca-Cola all the time.

And the next time you go to the store, you'll be like, maybe I'll try to find, you know, Warlord Skull Throne Coca-Cola. And then if you can't find it, you'll just buy like vanilla Coke instead. What was that thing that Lay's did where they had what, like four flavors? Do us a flavor challenge. Do us a flavor. Do you remember this? I don't actually. So Josh, I think you might know more about it, but they.

Oh, I submitted. Oh, I submitted to Lay's do us a flavor. No way you did. Like they decided on like a cappuccino flavor, a chicken and waffles flavor, and some other ones. I don't know if you want to, like, tell us. So, yeah, about the Coke thing and the new stuff, yeah, they definitely, all of their sales are from Diet Coke and regular Coke. Okay. That's, like, a vast, it's, like, 90% plus.

Yeah. And it's these new things that just get their name spiked in media. It's the same way that 7-Eleven introduces a Halo 3 Mountain Dew flavored Slurpee so they can sell more cigarettes and lotto tickets. Fair. It's not about the Slurpees. The loss leader. The loss leader, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think it's fascinating. But no, the Lay's Do Us a Flavor Challenge, it came out in, what was it? 2014 was the first time they did it. They had 14.4 million submissions to it. They basically asked people, hey, we've run out of flavors. We need you to submit new ones. They had 14.4 million submissions to it. They basically asked people, hey, we've run out of flavors.

We need you to submit new ones. They sent themselves? They did, but it was a really fantastic campaign, and I got really excited about it until I actually tasted all of them, and there wasn't a single flavor that I was like, oh, this could actually compete with the other one. So we'll go through the winners from every year. There were a lot.

First year, bacon mac and cheese, which to me makes a fair amount of sense, right? And it was like the height of bacon mania. But that bacon flavor, it just bothers me so much. I love liquid smoke. I love liquid smoke. Don't love it. Don't love it. I remember, okay, so one, I don't think it was the Lay's Do Us a Flavor Challenge,

but it was in their era where they eventually flipped it to like the Lay's Taste of America and then Passport to Flavor. Were they getting international? No, they did because they had a Sichuan chicken flavored Lay's chips that I ruined a fantasy football draft party by because that was the only chips I got. Were they like mala flavored? Did they have like Sichuan peppercorn? I wish. Like licking a battery? I wish they did.

Also, we made mala chips here when we made our puffer fish flavored chips. Sure, I wish. Like licking a battery? I wish they did. Also, we made we made Mahala chips here when we made our puffer fish flavored chips. Sure, I remember. Which is really fun. But no, it had this like deeply just burnt

meat flavor to the chips that was really unsettling and I looked on the list of ingredients and it said like Lay's natural browned wok flavor

and it had a trademark on it. Oh, okay. So wok hay? Exactly. Literally. They made wok. So wok hay? Exactly. Walk hay into a bottle? And boy, does it not translate on chips. Oh my gosh. But how would you go about

making something like that from scratch? Yeah, so the first thing I would do, yeah, like wok hay flavor, for example, is I would fire up the trusty gas chromatograph mass spectrometer. Sorry, go back to, what was that? What was that? So a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer,

you remember like earlier when I was talking about my PhD, and it was like we're all just a bunch of chemists measuring different things. So yeah, a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer is how you measure flavor molecules. So, you know, the flavors are mostly like a soup of many molecules together so this this machine this instrument very carefully like separates them all from each other and then like tells you what they are all in a row and then you can also like you know calculate how much of each you have uh if you do more work but yeah so like the first the first thing would be like okay so i'd like, make some wok food and or maybe even just, like, you know, heat up a wok really high.

And then oil. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, we have, like, different ways of, like, collecting smells, essentially. So you basically get, like, it's like a little needle and it has, like, you, it's a little needle and you can push a, like, thread that's inside the needle out, and it's, like, coated with this, like, coating that's very sticky to smell. So you, like, collect it. Yeah, like, extract it, like, put it in the, we call it the headspace because, you know, smells kind of, well, the reason you can smell them is because they travel through the air.

So they're, like, you can't see it, but you'd imagine, like, there's your food, and then there's this, like, cloud of flavor molecules above it in the headspace. Collect those molecules, put them in the gas chromatograph, separate them all from each other, figure out what they were, and then go about trying to see if there's, like, is there a commercial source for this? Do we need to just, like, cook a wok a thousand times and then, like, extract it and put that in somehow? I mean, that is kind of how, like, natural flavors work. Wait, how do natural flavors work?

Well, okay, so, like— Josh and I are in a state of shock right now. We love this. We're, like, basking in the glow of your intelligence. Thank you so much. Keep going. Well, okay, so, like, if you ever look on, like, an ingredients list, then it'll say, like, so like if you ever look on like an ingredients list, then it will say like natural and artificial flavors.

So artificial flavors are just made from like from scratch from – I don't know, maybe you – like they used to make vanilla flavor by taking wood pulp and the woody part of wood, which is called lignin. It's like the thing that makes wood like wood and not like a bendable stem. I saw it. If you break that up, it'll release basically vanilla smell. So that's one of the reasons why like smoke smells kind of sweet because you're literally like breaking down the wood

and then creating these like vanilla-like molecules. They would never take vanilla bean and that would be a natural flavor. Well, they, yeah. So then to make a natural flavor, that is like flavors that come from a food that they have, you know, carefully extracted out with, I don't know, some kind of organic solvent and purified and then bottled. So like I guess the thing with natural flavors is, you know, you could have something labeled as a natural flavor like natural raspberry flavor does not mean it comes from a raspberry. It means that the components come from something that was once food. So they might then be blended together into something that resembles raspberry

that technically is natural because they didn't do any chemical synthesis. They just did extraction. But it comes from things that aren't raspberry. Fascinating. There's been a – and I've sort of talked about this before. I have two things I want to address. Should we start with beaver buttholes? I mean, why not?

What's the deal with the beaver? Wait, why didn't we start with that from the top? That's what I'm saying. What's the deal? Just think about the beaver buttholes, right? What's going on with those? Oh, are you talking about castoreum? That's the one.

Castoreum. Yeah. So this is, yeah. So, you know, smell is a big part of flavor. So if you know stuff about fragrances, then that also helps enhance your understanding of flavor and vice versa. So, like, a big thing with fragrances is, like, basically the idea that, like, having a small amount of something really nasty makes all the nice stuff, like, much richer and nicer and more amazing. Like ambergris? Exactly.

Ambergris, which is like a type of whale vomit. Castoreum, which is a beaver anal gland. There's a lot of deer musks and things like that. So if you smell them in pure form, it's like, I mean, it's musk. There's a reason that we use the term musk for other stuff. Really intense, really unpleasant, but like just a little bit of it with, you know, a bunch of other flower smells or something like that gives it like gravitas and deliciousness. So, yeah, just a little bit of something horrible makes things taste great. It's like life.

Lays. Exactly. Fever anal gland. It's coming at you in 2024. Castoreum chips. Okay, so you talked about spicy chips, and I remember talking to somebody who was a flavor scientist for Lay's, and they were talking about how it had just become an arms

race on how spicy can you make a chip, but there's obviously going to be a cliff that drops off where it's too spicy for people to consume. The Paki One Chip Challenge nearly felled me. It sent some people to the hospital, I think. Somebody died recently. Somebody died? oh my gosh

heart condition died it's tough out there so point is the chips are so spicy they're killing people they've made chips so sour now

that you know Lil Xan went to the hospital like a lesion on your tongue yeah and so there's kind of nowhere to go

in the spicy or sour sector anymore that they haven't hit what do you think the next frontier is for these snack companies well I mean there is like an upper limit

to how salty you can get. Probably as bitter as possible is not going to fly. I mean, umami is, you know, kind of like the dark horse of flavor. A lot of people don't know what it is or it's hard to identify. It's basically the taste of savoriness. So, I mean, I guess you could dip a chip in MSG, which is, uh, you know, glutamate. It's pure umami and then have like the most umami chip that you could ever have. Wow. And it would be like very, very, very like brothy and rich tasting, but just like completely, uh, umami.

They already made that and it came out like four years. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's called chicken in a biscuit. Oh yeah. Have you had a chicken in a biscuit oh it's been a while but yeah pretty iconic

it's literally it's MSG and onion powder and I swear to god it is the greatest tasting thing in the world it is delicious but no it would be fascinating to see

places go into like the black garlic territory like finding these things that have a ton of umami in them but that might be

a little bit limiting and talking about loss leaders the most popular flavor of potato chip is plain. And it outsells every single other flavor two to one. As it should be. I refuse you to plain chip unless I'm dipping.

I love plain chips. Unless I'm dipping. Or salt and pepper chips. That's a really good plain chip. Interestingly, sorry, salt and pepper chips. I love salt and pepper chips. But have you noticed that, like, it's not just salt and black pepper. Sure, yeah.

There is, like, the savory, garlicky thing, too. Absolutely. Yeah, it carries it. Do you like that or not? It carries this on its own. I mean, I like it's not just salt and black pepper. There is like the savory, garlicky thing. Absolutely. Yeah, it carries it. Do you like that or not? It carries this on its own. I mean, I like it. It's tasty. I would enjoy the opportunity to have just plain black pepper and see what that was like. Probably would be boring, though.

It might be. I mean, I don't know. It might be like, you know, having like a palate cleanser almost. A palate cleanser. After the umami bomb. I think the chip world should make a complete harsh left turn and go into like weird sweet flavors. I think a blue raspberry chip would be an absolute trip and something that we've never, like, imagine like Laffy Taffy banana, but you're chewing in a chip instead of it being like a candy experience. I think that's something as a human being we haven't seen before. And I really want us to like explore and see what will happen.

Like an appletini chip. Oh my God. Midori sour chip. Nicole loves Midori sours. You remember? Dude, I started making Midori sours because of you. Oh my God. And I started making Midori spritzes because of you.

I have a whole ass bottle of Midori at my home. Cheetos made sweetos. They made sweetos. I mean, if you hit the right, like, sweet-salty thing, I think that's, like, really nice for people. Honey butter chips are really popular. Exactly, honey butter chips are delicious. Those are ridiculous.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's some flavors that, like, would be too unfamiliar for people in a chip context, kind of like this, like, Wok-He didn't work as a chip. There's actually, like, a sweet spot where, like, people like things to be, like't work as a chip. There's like, there's actually like a sweet spot where like people like things to be like novel and also familiar. So like there's a point in the middle of like medium familiarity, medium novelty

that like everyone loves. The maple bacon bar to me. And then it starts dropping off. The maple bacon bar is like the perfect middle point where it came out at the time and it was like, oh, maple syrup, bacon, breakfast plate, donut, like this all makes sense. And then it was all downhill from there.

I'm curious to see where stuff goes. The rebranding of Sierra Mist to Starry I think points in a big direction. Is that what Starry is? I thought it was some kind of off-brand like Dr. Phillips instead of Dr. Pepper. So no more mountain-y,

range-y, we don't want that anymore. That's like pastoral, rugged, pioneer, salt of the earth. No, now we're reaching out to the stars. We're optimistic.

We're living in the digital age. We're in the cloud. We don't exist in physical form anymore. Totally thought it was like a self-confidence thing, like star, like you're a star. Oh,

it sure is. Shoot for the moon and even if you miss, you're landing among the stars. That's where I went. You were thinking it was in the galaxy. I was thinking it was all about like, you know, self-esteem. What if I told and even if you miss, you're landing among the stars. See, that's where I went. You were thinking it was in the galaxy. I was thinking it was all about, like, you know, self-esteem. What if I told you, whatever you think, you're right as long as you drink the soda.

That's exactly what they want. That's what they're going. Whereas Sierra Mist is only one thing. You're John Muir lost in the woods. Who likes real things? We like AI and the cloud and, you know, no gravity and stuff like that. And we sure like to taste them. We do.

All right, Nicole and Ariel, 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 universe. Well, it's time for a segment we call... Opinions are Like Casseroles. Casseroles. All right. Get to the first opinion. My name is Nick.

I'm from Michigan. A longtime listener. Missing Kitchen. Best YouTube channel out there. Hell yeah, brother. Thank you. So watching the shows, I always thought that the Blood Lava Cake from Food Fears and that the Blood Taco

from Will It Taco Reheated looked like the most interesting stuff Josh ever made. And after going to London for my honeymoon and having black pudding, I have to say, blood really should be put in more dishes here in America. I'm going to be keeping an eye out

for dishes like that. Hope you guys have a great day. Thanks for all the awesome stuff you do. I agree. I love blood. I love blood. It sounds like we're being edgy, but black pudding, morcilla, dinuguan in Filipino cuisine, all delicious.

Sundae from Korea. There's a French jugged hair dish where they bleed the hair and then they cook it in its own blood and then they emulsify the blended liver into it. And it's all a metaphor for Christ christ being risen in the springtime so cool oh so good but it like the flavor actually comes through and all of these things are just an animal exists and you should try and use all the parts well exactly yeah it's about yes not not wasting this thing that like gave its life for us to eat it 100 americans need to have more open minds about eating awful organs and blood. What are the flavors?

Because there are some people that are very sensitive to it. Like Rhett and Link, the founders of this company, Link especially, like he hates the taste of liver, of blood, of a lot of awful. What are the actual things that you're tasting? I think the thing that turns a lot of people off is the like metallic flavor. Yeah, for sure. And we can taste metal ions. They're usually bitter tasting. Yeah, for sure. actually, like, catalyze other molecules, like fatty acids and things like that, to form, to, like, break down and form into, like, smaller volatile molecules. So you get, like, aldehydes and the smell, the flavor of, like, raw meat

that can be, like, quite intense in, like, blood and stuff is epoxy decenal is the molecule. So I think some people are especially put off by those flavors. Damn, that's rad. That's so rad. But when you cook it, it kind of gets rid of that, doesn't it? That metallicness of blood kind of goes away, right? When you cook blood? Yeah, I mean like –

Maybe you mask it with all the onions and garlic. Yeah, it depends. Yeah, I think – and like everybody has – we have like 400 different types of olfactory receptor. And so everyone has like a different kind of profile of do they have more of this one or more of that one. So it's definitely possible for some flavors to be like much more intense to, you know, person A versus person B. And that can be good or that can be like off-putting. There's a stat that people very casually throw around that taste is actually 70% smell. Is there any validity to that number or how does that interact?

So I think what they're referring to is that like flavor is both taste and smell. So like strictly speaking, taste is just what happens on your tongue with taste buds. So like sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami. If you're talking like metallic aromas or roasted meat or coffee or floral or fruity, whatever, that's all smell. And if you've ever had a cold or like more likely if you got COVID in the last four years and you like lose your sense of smell and like food tastes really flat and boring, it doesn't actually change the taste of the food, literally speaking. That is just flavor minus smell.

So it's like taste without smell. So if you think about how muted that is when you can't smell versus when you can, obviously, like, smell is a huge part of that. It's like, I don't actually know how you would, like, quantify the percentage. I think it, like, depends on the situation. I mean mean because also smells without tastes can be a little weird seeming as well but uh yeah i guess as a uh as a thought-provoking statistic that makes people appreciate that smell is a big part of flavor yeah sure yeah 70 science communication 100 accurate all the time 60 of the time all models are wrong but some are useful hi josh and nicole this is grace from buffalo new york and i've got some opinions and questions

oh my gosh so as someone from the city where chicken wings originated from why do places outside of buffalo call them buffalo wings they should be called chicken wings only and should be ordered as hot, medium, mild, or barbecue. I just, I hate the term buffalo wings. Also, I'm a vegetarian, but I will always defend the proper way to eat chicken wings. You must eat them with blue cheese, which I find disgusting, but eating them with ranch calls for war. Thanks for listening. Love y'all. And go Bills.

Go Bills Mafia. So, like, you don't call them French fries in France. No, you call them frites. You call them frites. You call them fries. You don't call them Buffalo wings in Buffalo. I call them freedom fries. I went to a restaurant in the year of our Lord 2018 in El Reno, Oklahoma,

and they had freedom fries on the menu. Oh, my God. I don't even remember why people were mad at France. I think it's like Iraq War or something like that. This is like a 20-year-old argument. I know, I know. Give it up. But anyways, yeah, I get that.

People from Buffalo, they have one food that was two foods that were invented there, but nobody cares about beef on weck anymore. Have you ever had a beef on weck? Yeah, yeah. Super good. It's incredible. Better than buffalo wings, I would say. I agree. Yes, I agree with you. She mentioned that blue cheese is disgusting. Are you a blue cheese fan? In certain

contexts, I'm a blue cheese fan. I think it's good to balance out the high acid, high spicy of buffalo sauce. Definitely. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah, this is interesting. So like buffalo wings are fascinating to me as a case study of how to balance flavors because you just have capsaicin and vinegar and salt.

Yeah. And then you throw basically pure fat, like dairy fat into the mix. And it's this incredible alchemy and you can use that knowledge for anything. But in terms of pairing that with ranch versus blue cheese, like from a science perspective, what do you think works better? Because we had this debate, ranch versus blue cheese.

We sure did. I'm a ranch guy perennially. I'm a blue cheese girl. I love the herbs. I think specifically, I generally prefer ranch and ranch-like dressings, like, you know, categorically if I had to pick one. But like specifically for the wings, I think there's something about the like funk

of blue cheese that just like really synergizes well with that like punchy spicy pungent thing of the buffalo sauce so I would go with blue cheese definitely if offered the choice. Lactonic mold wins again

Josh. Oh look at you go with the science words. I know words. Damn. I just, what's, but the thing that, like, I'm confused about is why not put respect on Buffalo Wing's name? Like, what's the problem? Self-loathing Buffalonians, man.

Let me tell you, people from Buffalo should be proud that one of the greatest things that come out of your town, city, is the chicken wing covered in delicious sauce? I would say no. Do some deep-seated reflection. Think about what you're saying here, my friend Grace. I do find it difficult to believe that no one ate a chicken wing before someone in Buffalo decided to. Right, so then that, like, as a style of wing,

I think would be properly called buffalo wing. It's sort of like, you know, you can't call it champagne unless it's from the Champagne region of France. If it's the wrong sauce on buffalo wings, it's just a sparkling chicken wing, I guess. Can we make it? Oh, that sounds horrible. Of course we can make it. Taco Bell put Pop Rocks in a burrito like a couple years ago and tried to make a sparkling burrito and it was not good. Were the Pop Rocks sweet?

Yeah, they were. Oh, that was a problem. I know. You can make an unsweetened Pop Rocks, sure, but like sugar gives it that. Like less sweet, yeah. Yeah. It gives like isomalt or something. We'll go to the drawing board and see what we can do.

We made a Baja Blast isomalt cage once. Do you remember that? Of course I remember that. It was encasing a Baja Blast panna cotta. Oh, my God. We used to be on the cutting edge. Now we're washed. Mythical Kitchen got washed. Hi, Josh and Nicole.

I've been dating a guy for a long time who has been convinced by his parents that he is lactose intolerant. I have spent our entire relationship building a menu and buying the groceries and cooking surrounding his supposed dietary restriction um i decided to start experimenting with small doses of dairy. Oh, my gosh. I hope she got an IRB form for that. There's been no reaction whatsoever.

And if he knows that he eats something at a restaurant or orders something in that has dairy in it, he has a reaction. If I put it in the food that we make at home, he is none the wiser. And I feel kind of bad about it, but you should. Yeah. So I guess this is more of a confession than an opinion. You guys have a good day. Okay,

this is like the opposite. So it's like Munchausen's by proxy, right? I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor, even though I would be a really good one. And Nurse Judge says Yeah, yeah. And nurse judge says, hell yeah.

I cannot condone this behavior. I'm so sorry. Yeah, stepping away from the science advice and into the relationship advice, like, I've been married for a while, and, like, sometimes you really need to, like, give up your need to be right about some things. Yes, thank you. As an also married person, I agree. Yeah, and just, like, accept the irrational, crazy thing that they insist on.

Yep. I mean, if it's everything, then fine, you deal with it. You don't need to be right all the time. Well, and it's like, I'm sure I have idiosyncrasies that drive people crazy. But, you know, to a certain extent, just accepting those about people is, you know, a nice thing to do. You're right. Now, I ain't married, but I'm hurtling towards it. And I also have a fiance with fake food allergies.

Hear me out. Hear me out. Hear me out. Hear me out. She's allergic to, quote, beans. But that is a very large category. Okay. And so she's not allergic to, like, beans, right?

She's allergic to something within a bean that has caused a reaction to her before. Yeah. And when I say she's lying, she's not lying. But chickpeas she can eat. That's the one that she knows she can eat. Yeah. Those are like kind of the highest protein beans. And is it like lectin?

Is it the protein that tends to cause negative reactions? I don't know. I mean there are lectins, but that's like – it's like a different kind of molecule than a protein. I would be curious, is her reaction like indigestion or like a rash? Vomit, like straight, just like spelling. So, yeah, I mean, like. Both whole. Oh, my God.

TMI. I get that with oysters, so, unfortunately. I mean, so, like, there are, like, basically forms of soluble fiber in beans, fructo-oligosaccharides and stuff. That's like what gives you gas if you have beans. But it sounds like she's reacting to something more than that. I mean, didn't Pythagoras die from eating fava beans? Yeah. My brother-in-law has that.

Fava beans, yeah. My brother-in-law has that. Incorrectly processed fava beans. My brother-in-law, if he eats or is near fava beans, he will die. Wow. But maybe not that dramatic. He cannot consume a fava bean. It's some sort of genetic thing in his makeup. Yeah. So she's allergic to beans, can consume chickpeas.

And I'm like, what about lentils? And she's like, no, I can't have that. And she doesn't know at all. But I just don't push it. And I don't cook anything with any bean or bean-like things. And when we go out to restaurants and we will go to like a traditional Lebanese restaurant or something, and she'll go, can you ask them if it's only chickpeas and the hummus? And I go, yes, this is, they are all speaking Arabic in the back. Hummus is literally Arabic for chickpea. It's only that. And instead

of saying that now, I just ask the server and they side-eyea. It's only that. And instead of saying that now, I just ask the server and they side-eye me. And that's love. That is love. That's love. That is love. That's a very mature take. Whether or not they can process lactose is not the point.

It's about trust. And there's so many good lactose alternatives. Yeah. Hey, y'all. This is Martin from Minneapolis. Two opinions. First, kale is a maligned piece of produce. Kale is just spinach that learned to stand up for itself. Everywhere I used to use spinach, I used kale. Second, really the only beverage you should have with a meal is water. You can have something else as an accompaniment, but you're not using it for lubrication. Those are my two opinions. Thanks for your work. Bye. How much lube does this man need?

those are my two opinions. Thanks for your work. How much lube does this man need? I'm confused that the primary role of your accompanying beverage is lubrication and not some kind of sensory experience. I mean, I guess lubrication is a sensory experience. Yeah, ish, but I don't know. I've never thought about it that way. I mean, I think the idea is that it's not so much that the tannins in the wine help

the food go down faster, but that you get an enhanced experience. You get synergy between what you're drinking and what you're eating, and it could bring out different stuff or balance it. I mean, drink water if you want to drink water. Is he just eating old, crusty

bread heels like an 18th century French laborer? They actually make thickeners to put in liquids Is he, like, just eating old, crusty bread heels like an 18th century French laborer? Probably. They actually make, like, thickeners to put in liquids. Thicken. So that, like, people, like, very elderly people who, like, don't have the muscle control to swallow. Yeah, can swallow it. So, like, maybe he would, like, if he's, like, that concerned about lubrication, he might want.

Maybe. Hear me out. Go get checked out. You know what I think? I think my friend Martin, Martin is their name, I think they chew their food and drink it. You know what I mean? I think they chew it, keep it in their mouth, and use the water to push it down. If I'm in a rush, I'll do that.

You know, we've all been there. No. I mean, like, from sensory science, I do know that there are people that are high salivators and low salivators, so you can't vary in the volume of saliva that you produce. So it could be that he is lacking in that arena. It's very possible. I'll pass store tacos and a real sugar Coke is the best. Or the, what is it, the sangria soda?

That's a sensory experience. That's a special thing. Even if you're not drinking alcohol with your meal, that's a fun time. Oh, yeah. I'm a fan of very promiscuous beverage pairing. Oh, me too. Yeah's a special thing. Even if you're not drinking alcohol with your meal, that's a fun time. Oh, yeah. I'm a fan of, like, very promiscuous beverage pairing. Yeah, not just wine. Nothing better. What about the kale and the

spinach? Oh, the kale. Everything's so cyclical now, right? We went from kales just lining the Pizza Hut salad bar. Ornamental. They were the world's largest buyer of kale for a period.

And then we went to Beyonce wearing a kale sweatshirt and then we went to kale sucks and then now we're back to actually kale's good and round and round we go.

It'll be turnip greens tomorrow, mustard greens the next. I think people should eat more turnip greens. I would love, I was about to say. I agree entirely. Let's eat more turnip greens.

Let's have a more biodiverse leaf diet. Yeah, let's bring it. I love me some chard.. Let's have a more biodiverse rainbow chard. Leaf diet. Yeah, let's bring it. I love me some chard. You know what? I'll say I hate baby spinach. Give me that mature spinach. Oh, yeah.

I want something that'll like stand up to that. I mean, talk about spinach that's grown in a backbone. Yeah, 100%. Blue sail of big leaves of velvety. I disagree with the both of you.

Baby spinach is leaps and bounds better than regular spinach. Are we talking about cooked spinach or raw spinach? Both ways. Oh, no, no, no. I refuse raw spinach.

Not cooked baby spinach. Oh, my God. It just turns into like nothing. Doesn't got no taste. So does regular spinach. You're eating the stems. It's got like more texture. I can't with you two.

I just can't. It tastes like char. There's more flavor. It's like richer tasting almost. Kale, like regular curly kale. Does it? I mean, I cook with a lot of curly kale because it's just there and available and I need greens and I put flavors in it.

I like dino kale. Like, uh, lacinato? Lacinato. Cavallonero, I think. I think they're the same thing.

I think they're the same thing. I mean, that's why I like, like mustard greens, for example, because like, it does have like, kind of more things

beyond vegetal, uh, that you can enjoy. I will say, I run through about a head and a half to two heads of cabbage a week. Cabbage is delicious. Cabbage is amazing. Big cabbage guy, I run through about a head and a half to two heads of cabbage a week. Cabbage is delicious.

Cabbage is amazing. Big cabbage guy. Cabbage is having a moment. The world has run on cabbage for thousands of years and I will continue that tradition. My people subsisted

on beets, cabbages, and small frozen river fish and that's how I want to eat. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. On that note, thank you all

for stopping by the podcast and thank you so much to Dr. Ariel Jompson. Jompson. On that note, thank y'all for stopping by the podcast. And thank you so much to Dr. Arielle Johnson. Johnson. Dr. Arielle Johnson. Google that one. Dr. Arielle Johnson, author of Flavorama. Check it out.

Arielle, where can they find you elsewhere? Oh, online? Sorry. No, what's your location? Oh, my gosh. Sorry. What's your apartment number? My social security number.

I live in New York, so come check me out in New York if you're in town. Oh, if you want to be featured on Opinions or Like Casseroles, give us

a ring and leave us a message at 833-941. I fudged the outro. My computer went to sleep and I was Googling other things. That's why this is

clunkier than it used to be. If you want to be featured on Opinions of Lake Castro Give us a ring Nicole just let me Have this one See y'all next time