A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Hot Cheetos vs. Takis
Episode Date: July 28, 2021Which spicy snack is superior? 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://podcast...choices.com/adchoices
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This, this, this, this is Mythical.
As the YN Rich Kids famously rapped,
Hot Cheetos and Takis, Hot Cheetos and Takis,
I can't get enough of them Hot Cheetos and Takis.
But which spicy snack is superior?
This is a hot dog as a sandwich.
Ketchup as a smoothie.
Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what?
That makes no sense.
A hot dog as a sandwich. A hot dog as 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, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates.
I'm your host, Josh Ayer.
And I'm your host, Nicole Handizadeh.
And today, Nicole, we are taking on two spicy snack titans.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're 1A, 1B.
This is awesome.
There's no one else
i'm hype in the race i am hype right now i can great podcast i can feel the citric acid and all
that cayenne pepper in the red dye 40 coursing through my veins also i blame my adhd on the red
dye 40 because that do you remember i don't know if you follow the scientific world like i do but
there was a study that came out that was like red dye 40 uh increases aggression in schools of fish i watched the 2020 special about it
it's very interesting because it does right it's like it's like documented it was yeah like a real
peer-reviewed study that was like this food dye anyways uh probably maybe a good thing that snack
foods are taking a lot of it out yeah like trick cereal uh-huh yourix cereal. Uh-huh. You seem like modern Trix cereal.
It's been a while.
I'm sorry.
I did love Trix, though.
Trix was one of my favorite cereals.
I loved it, too.
One, they took out the actual fruit shapes.
What?
And they're just little balls now.
Like Kix?
Trix look like Kix?
Trix look like Kix.
I hate this timeline.
The Trix-Kix dichotomy.
But not only that, the colors are now, like, muted because they took out all the artificial
food dyes, and now it's like beet juice and butterfly pea or whatever.
I know. Our whole childhood
is going down. However. America is
losing the battle. We're losing touch.
However, that bright red food
dice still exists in both Takis
and Flamin' Hot Cheetos in spades.
My mouth is like watering.
Literally the salivary glands have activated
thinking about the tip.
I'm just drooling over the mic.
You know what the problem is?
You know what the problem is?
I love hot Cheetos, but the salivary gland is from the talkie.
You know what I mean?
Like right now, the thought about eating a talkie is making me salivate more than the thought of eating a hot Cheeto, which is whack.
Because I love hot Cheetos.
So are you saying the hot Cheetos are your preferred snack for the talkie?
They are, but for some reason, talkies make me salivate more. Well, snack they are but for some reason takis make me salivate
more well it's not just for some reason it's because takis took everything that people love
about flaming hot cheetos and they just just cranked the dial up to like high voltage they're
just they like uh there's alex french guy cooking yes right he figured out a way to rig his oven
to cook at 900 degrees even though it only went up to 500 by using the self-cleaning
feature and then breaking a safety latch.
Okay, what does that have to do
with this? That's what Takis did.
They broke the latch. Oh, I see. They broke the latch.
And they cranked the oven up to 900
degrees and they were like, you thought you loved
spice and acid from Flamin' Hot Cheetos
America? Well... I mean
initially this went to the Mexican market, right? Sure. This is from
the Bimbo brand. Yes, yes it right? Sure. This is from the Bimbo brand.
Yes, yes, it is.
Very famous.
Love all the Bimbo snack cakes.
Are they also the ones that do the penguin ones?
No, that's, I believe, Gansito.
Gansito.
I don't know if it's owned by the same conglomerate.
I don't know either.
But I mean, it's a massive Mexican baked good snack food conglomerate.
But anyways, they, you know, just cranked every single flavor up to 11.
So there is so much more spice.
There's so much more acid.
But that doesn't necessarily mean it's better or worse.
But I agree with you that there's literally saliva pooling in my mouth thinking about the Takis Fuego going inside me.
Yeah, I know.
But I think you can eat more hot Cheetos.
And also, I have a close relationship with hot Cheetos.
Everybody that listens to this podcast knows my affinity for the hot Cheeto cream cheese bagel.
Yes, girl, preach.
If you don't know about my affinity for it, I'll explain it right now.
So when we used to have nutrition in high school.
Yeah, that was a weird millennial rebrand of recess.
Yeah, it was like 15 minutes when you were like, you could like socialize and have a snack, I guess was the point of it.
And the Beverly Hills School District decided titling it nutrition meant
putting the worst possible foods out there for kids to eat so we would take a buttered bagel
because they had buttered bagels it was basically a bagel with salted butter on it nice toasted very
lightly and then a little philadelphia cream cheese uh vessel i guess and a bag of hot cheetos now
they also gave you the option for baked hot Cheetos, I believe.
Unless I'm not thinking correctly.
We switched.
It was somewhere.
So the God, what was the act called?
It was passed while we were in high school.
And so at my high school, they switched every single fried chip for baked chip.
Yeah.
And they took out all mainstream sodas for Izzy sparkling ciders.
Do you remember?
Yes. Oh my God. Those are fire. Those are good. They're so good. They're good as heck. They for Izzy sparkling ciders. Do you remember? Yes.
Oh, my God.
One.
Those are fire.
Those are good.
They're so good.
They're good as heck.
They got natural fruit juice in it.
I mean, it's the same calories and same nutrition specs, whatever.
You're taking me way back.
I know.
I remember the cans.
Like, right now, I'm just racing my brain, and I'm thinking about the –
there was a green one that I really, really liked.
Yeah.
I think that was the green apple one, maybe, or kiwi.
I don't know.
Well, nutrition.
And then we would make the sandwich and then just go about
our merry days but we couldn't eat them in class because the teachers would be disgusted by us and
be like these are monsters well flaming hot cheetos and takis are both being banned at some schools
because too many kids ended up in the hospital with tummy tummy issues with tummy issues yeah
these kids are eating so much that they would get ulcers wow i mean lil xan patient zero
lil xan ate so many Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
I mean I feel like
he was doing maybe
some other stuff
that wasn't a healthy lifestyle.
Maybe, maybe.
You know what,
I'm not here to judge Lil Xan.
No, we're not.
I was actually listening
to a Lil Xan song this morning
on the way here.
He has actual music?
He did a collaboration
with one of my favorite DJs
named Whipped Cream.
Whipped Cream come on the podcast.
Love Whipped Cream.
And it's called
Told You So
and it's really great.
However, yeah, we didn't have Takis at my high school i feel like they came out a little bit after we never had takis at our school unfortunately but i wish we did we had another
snack that i think has potential although one fatal flaw in this same category and that was
flaming hot munchies oh man yeah oh man why'd you have to throw that one into the race?
Okay, so I...
What?
To give my official answer here,
I love Flamin' Hot Cheetos for the nostalgia
and I think it's really interesting
because if you actually look at the flavor difference
between Takis and Flamin' Hot Cheetos,
it's pretty much Takis have more citric acid,
Flamin' Hot Cheetos have cheddar powder.
Correct.
Those are the two things.
There's still a ton of citric acid
because, I mean, it's so sour. If you suck on a Flamin' Hot Cheeto, which we have Correct. Those are the two things. There's still a ton of citric acid because, I mean, it's so sour.
If you suck on a Flamin' Hot Cheeto,
which we have done an inordinate amount
in the Mythical Kitchen.
That was maybe the first thing you made me do.
Like, first week, you're like,
hey, can you suck on this hot Cheeto
and try to recreate this powder?
Nicole, here's your training manual.
Now suck on these Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
And try to recreate the powder,
which we've recreated the powder of both of them.
No, like, literally the second day you were here,
we made you turn a vending machine into a barbecue pit
and then caused a fire.
I caused a fire.
No, it was a confluence of issues.
I helped cause a fire.
A lot of black smoke pouring into the parking lot next door.
They were not happy.
But anyways, so that's the flavor difference, right?
Cheddar versus citric acid.
However, Takis, most people think of Fuego.
Correct.
The purple bag.
Yeah.
Right now, I think our conversation is Flamin' Hot Cheetos versus Takis Fuego.
Am I correct?
Well, okay.
Yeah.
But I think we can talk about the other flavors of Flamin' Hot Cheetos because there's Flamin'
Hot Limon.
There's Flamin' Hot Extra Hot.
They've done a couple.
The fries?
Flamin' Hot Fries.
The popcorn?
Flamin' Hot Fries are my favorite. I hate Flamin' Hot Fries. The fries? Oh, Flamin' Hot fries. The popcorn? Flamin' Hot fries are my favorite.
I hate Flamin' Hot fries. The texture
of the puff is the worst. What? No.
The texture of the puff goes into
my gums and lives in my teeth
for like hours. That's what I love. I hate it.
Also, the cheddar jalapeno. I don't enjoy those.
So, here's the weird thing is I love
Flamin' Hot Cheetos. I do not enjoy
Cheetos themselves and I do not enjoy
cheddar flavored snacks. Oh my god. To me, they're just kind of basic. Like, Rufflesetos themselves and I do not enjoy cheddar flavored snacks. To me they're just
kind of basic. Ruffles, sour cream
and cheddar I think are really delicious.
Doritos, nacho cheese I'll gladly eat.
But I'd rather have any other flavor of Doritos.
You know what I mean? And so I
want that spice and I think
the Cheeto, the actual texture of it is not
something that interests me. I prefer a corn chip.
Which is why I enjoy Takis.
Makes sense. However, I do think Takis are incredibly dense. I'm still waiting for my Messiah chip. something that interests me i prefer a corn chip which is why i enjoy takis makes sense however i
do think takis are incredibly dense i'm still waiting for my messiah chip i am like uh you know
how uh you know our people are still waiting for the messiah to come i am waiting for my spicy
messiah chip i don't think the perfect spicy chip has been invented yet interesting because i think
i love the flavor i love the aggression of takis so aggressive the most aggressive flavor and they're so crunchy and all of them and they're
so crunchy it's so aggressive but i don't love the fact that they're rolled so they're not quite
dippable they're almost too dense there are flaming hot fritos frito scoops there are
in our kitchen wait we do you want them like loki yeah yeah okay i'll give it to you but i mean no
i mean they've made flaming hot doritos in the past you know but i think they they need to just like tweak
that if they took the taki seasoning okay and put that on doritos something a little bit lighter of
a crisp because once takis came out right takis are the difference between doritos and um a fried
real tortilla chip right is like a density issue fritos are like frying very thin raw masa so
you're getting more airflow in there sure whereas you go to like a density issue fritos are like frying very thin raw masa so you're getting
more airflow in there sure whereas you go to like a restaurant right mexican restaurant that's frying
actual tortillas i mean they are dense and they are crunchy and i like want that lightness from
a snacking chip that's something takis doesn't give me which i get that that density is something
that people love and it like works that heavy corn flavor and the crunch works with all that
spice on there got it but so i think takis
have the potential and they're coming out with a new line of like a bunch of different taki
they already have so many takis well not i mean they have a bunch of different flavors which are
all really great like their guacamole is the first guacamole flavored thing they've actually liked
i really like their guacamole one their fajita is great yeah we're getting the the blue takis
sent literally in instacart like i'm not kidding
they're coming in an hour and i'm so excited to see what they taste like we haven't even talked
about the talkies blue heat i'm so excited i've never had them you've never had them no i've
never had them but every time i go to like uh vayarsa or like another supermarket like that
i'm just like i want you but i can't have you because i know you're toxic so it's like a
boyfriend you know it's like a bad boyfriend's like, I want you, but I can't have you. Sister, I know that one.
It's like he makes you feel good right now.
He makes you feel special.
Like, where is this actually going?
I just want to say, like, I've eaten it.
You know what I mean?
It's like it's like one of those things like, yeah, I've had blue talk.
You don't like look back on it.
Yeah.
Like smile for what it was.
I love that they figured out the formula where people seem to love brightly colored things.
They loved red.
Why not blue?
Blue is so unnatural, though.
It is so unnatural.
It's more unnatural than red.
I remember reading something from,
I don't want to say it was in Cosmo.
Why would I have been reading Cosmo when I was a child?
But I remember reading an article that was like.
We all read Cosmo as a kid.
Like we would sneak it.
Because there was one thing that was like, do you want to get skinny for beach season?
Which again is problematic.
But I was 11 reading a Cosmo at the public library.
Deal with it.
It was like, put all your food on a blue plate because there are no naturally blue foods.
So this will trick your body into eating
less hmm yeah and i was like i don't know that this is a message i should be absorbing as a child
but that's that's so funny that takis you know made this blue heat chip um and people think that
they quote-unquote copied our flaming blue cheetos that we made the freezing cold cheetos
they came out before they came out way before Yeah yeah yeah We copied them to be clear We copied Takis
Well I wouldn't say
We copied them
But like we took inspiration
We were inspired by them
Yeah we're inspired
By everything
By the birds in the sky
Well hell Takis
Takis was inspired
By Flamin' Hot Cheetos
Well there you go
Takis came out about
A decade after Flamin' Hot Cheetos
Flamin' Hot Cheetos
Hit markets in 1991
And their invention
Is now hotly contested
Based on the recent,
you know what I'm talking about, right?
Yeah, the whole drama.
You can talk about it.
Yeah, so there was a lot of drama.
I mean, everybody knows that the janitor,
well, the former janitor at Frito-Lay, Richard Montanez,
who has an absolutely incredible story and still has an incredible story
and I still believe is the inventor of Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
He's working as a janitor, and he said that, you know,
there was
like almost a contest within the company to come up with new ideas to help Frito-Lay and, you know,
PepsiCo. It's owned by. And they wanted every employee to feel like an owner of the company.
And he really took that to heart. And he noticed that, you know, he was at a Mexican market and
he saw all the spicy Mexican snacks. And then he saw all these just cheese flavored American snacks
next to him. And he was like, why aren't we in this market there's a growing latino population and he also said he was eating
elotes on the street and he saw you know the the chile and limon on top of the elotes and he was
like we can just take that and put that on the cheetos so he said he stole just a bag of cheetos
off the line because he made friends with all the uh the like line assembly workers uh and then just
like kind of you know sprayed him down some oil tossed him in chili powder uh and like a little recipe he invented
and then brought them in and that was the invention of Flamin' Hot Cheetos so smart it's so smart and
I mean then he became a VP of marketing uh for Frito-Lay for like many many years and he had
been you know plugging the story a lot he got so much press he has a movie with Ava Long or a movie
produced by Ava Longoria coming out he's's written two books about it. And then LA Times writes this absolutely
bizarre article not too long ago that read as a hit piece that was basically implying that he had
nothing to do with the invention. And they got some people from a team at Frito-Lay who were
working on making Flamin' Hot Cheetos in the Detroit area. And Richard Montanez is from
California. And they wereanez is from California.
And they were basically like, yeah, he had nothing to do with it.
This was all some MBA from Northwestern who invented it.
And then Frito-Lay comes out and they're like, yeah, we have no record of Richard Montanez ever working on it.
What?
Which is super bizarre.
And then people started really digging into it and being like, well, one, the origin myth
of any food is never going to be provable, right?
Yeah.
Like they didn't have like.
It's just hearsay.
It's absolutely hearsay, right?
Like I don't believe that, what's his name?
Caesar.
Dude who invented Caesar salad.
Caesar salad man.
Caesar salad man.
Yeah.
He didn't, he wasn't the first person.
One, he was a restaurant owner.
Why would he be the one making the salad?
The chef made the salad.
But, you know, I'm not going to go out and try and write a hit piece on this dude's family yeah right philippe did not
invent the french dip you know or was it coals or you know all this uh did chef boyardee was he the
first person to can ravioli none of this stuff is provable so it's like weird to write from a
journalistic perspective but anyways point is a bunch of people lashed out at how weird and bizarre the article was.
And then Frito-Lay comes out and was like, never mind, Richard Montanez did invent Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
Psych, psych, psych.
Because of all the negative press they were getting.
And so it's absolutely bizarre.
Richard Montanez, to me, he is still the inventor of Flamin' Hot Cheetos because he is the one who the power of the myth was behind.
Correct.
Right?
A hundred percent.
So anyways, that was that.
And then 1999 is when Takis come out that were inspired by that,
and then they eventually flooded the American market in the early to mid-2000s.
So when did Hot Cheetos come into fruition?
1991 was when Hot Cheetos officially—
What?
Did you think it was earlier or later?
I thought it was like 2000.
No, I mean, I never remember life without flaming hot cheetos wow or flaming hot fries because i was eating flaming
hot fries when i was like you were eight years old buying them from the right aid wow really i
always i'd have no recollection of them like when i was a kid but that's probably because i was
protected yeah like you didn't like you probably weren't doing the shopping as a kid. No, I was not.
I don't know.
Not at all.
I think I would, I still have panic attacks when I go shopping with my mom and she's just like,
I'll be right back. And I'm like, okay.
I remember like the, one of the days I realized that I was in like a new income class is when I went to the store and I didn't have to only buy things that were on sale.
Yeah.
That was, that was wild for me. You don't have to. You don't have to. But you still do, right?
I still do. Oh, meat especially. Meat, only get sale meat. Yeah, no, I never get sale meat.
You never get sale meat? No, I don't like sale meat. Why? Something about sale meat makes me uncomfortable.
No, no, you don't get manager special meat. Manager special meat you shouldn't get. But sale meat,
you always get sale meat. Because they just pick random parts of the cow to put on sale.
Josh, I can't do that. But like, i will go to the sale and just like look at like uh like like chips
or like uh like uh like anything carbohydrate wise yeah yeah or if there's like fruits there
maybe maybe i'll grab a fruit bro when the kombuchas go four for five dollars oh you bet
i'm stacking 20 in that car that's not the sale rack that's just a sale special i can't like the
meat i can't but that has nothing to do with Hot Cheetos or Takis.
No, no, no, no, no.
But you know what I'm excited about?
What's that?
They are coming out with five new brand extensions of Takis.
I saw that.
That is pretty incredible.
Which I think Flamin' Hot Cheetos, I don't know, they've done a lot of Flamin' Hot stuff.
They have the Puff Corn.
They have Flamin' Hot Puffs.
Flamin' Hot has gone to Doritos, to Fritos, to Lay's Chips, all that.
But I still feel like there's more innovating that Flamin' Hot Cheetos can do.
I want them to wow me.
What do you imagine?
I don't know.
What is your dream?
You know, I want...
Flamin' Hot experience.
Like some sort of weaponizable Flamin' Hot Cheetos powder.
They should come out with Flamin' Hot Cheetos branded pepper spray,
you know, for ladies in parking garages.
That's like, like, that literally, that's like idiocracy.
That's literally idiocracy.
No, but I don't know.
I mean, Takis is coming out with all these new brand extensions.
Like, do you see the Takis Watts?
Yes, it looks amazing.
It looks incredible.
They're shaped like lightning bolts and they have such
an explosive flavor that it makes you feel
like your mouth is being electrocuted. Their brand language
is a little bit more coy than what I just said.
But that's their whole thing. And I don't
know if they're putting like mala powder in it to make
your, to give you that electric
heat, the stuff that's in Sichuan peppercorn.
Or if they're just upping the spice
and sour even more. Do you think there's
a world in which another brand is going to come in and give us a crazier chip?
I don't.
I actually, I talked about this with a journalist.
A journalist actually interviewed me, Rhett, and Link together a while ago.
And I don't know if this story ever ran.
But what they were talking about is the fact that chips can only get so spicy before people are like, we can't take this.
Right?
only get so spicy before people are like we can't take this yeah right i mean think about um the way that the fast food market has like when sriracha started hitting big every fast food place had a
sriracha thing yeah and then like ghost pepper was another thing that people knew so they all
started putting in ghost pepper sauces but it's like what's the point of a ghost pepper sauce if
you can't actually make it that hot because you need you know midwestern moms to buy the chicken
sandwiches for their kids exactly and that's their market so it's like where do you go from there and all
these chip companies are finding that out i remember when doritos came out with fiery habanero
and those were really really good still maybe one of my favorite chips of all time so you can taste
the habanero in it oh paki chips those little paki chips you know the single oh yeah the paki
one chip challenge oh you did it i did that there's a video
on my instagram doing that did you record me i think that was me yeah oh god that was a long
i started throwing up on the floor and massaging ice cream into my mouth with my hands i remember
my god so i guess it does exist but i don't think we're ready for that as like a as like a
society no so what chip companies have been doing is because you can't go hotter, they've been going sourer.
I know, which like
that is also going to reach its breaking point.
I feel like Takis is about to find that breaking point.
So the big question is like where does
the chip market go from there once you
get so hot and so sour? Because you need to keep putting
out new flavors, right? I mean,
let me tell you, the best
chip as a plate is a simple chip.
Hot Cheetos and Takis are great, but a salt and pepper kettle chip with the ridges?
No way.
Josh!
Life is too short for plain flavored chips.
It's not plain!
Whoa, salt and pepper.
Wow, big adventurous, bold flavors there, Nicole.
No, no, no.
You are weird.
Give me the weird.
Give me the shocking.
I love weird, but you can't be weird all the time.
Sometimes you have it on normal.
Laughs are cheap.
I want gasps, Nicole. I want to be slapped in the face. I love weird, but you can't be weird all the time. Sometimes you need a normalcy. I want gasps.
Nicole, I want to be slapped in the face
with that. That's an all-sunny in Philadelphia
quote.
But no,
I love these chips because I want to be
slapped in the face with flavor, and no one does that
better than Takis. They are pushing the envelope.
I think Flamin' Hot Cheetos, they are resting
on their laurels. They're resting on brand
loyalty. They are about to be surpassed by Takis if they're not careful.
And their Chipotle Ranch one tastes like bleach.
It is really nasty.
That's like the worst chip.
I agree with you.
It's actually nasty.
Cheetos, Chipotle Ranch, awful.
But on that point, have you ever had the, what is it, the Nitro Takis?
Those are disgusting.
Nitro are my favorite.
Ew, Josh.
They're twice as aggressive as Fuego.
Ew, they're so disgusting.
Resting on your laurels? No.
The point of a chip is to enjoy
eating it. The point of the chip is to keep eating a chip.
You want to eat one chip and let it go?
No, not one chip. I polish
a bag of nitro talkies. Exactly.
But don't you feel... I want
a chip to challenge my
authority as a person. What do you mean?
Why are you sneaking so in-depth into the chips?
I want a chip to make me feel alive by confronting me with death. That is what I want from a person. What do you mean? Why are you thinking so in depth into the chips? I want a chip to make me feel alive
by confronting me with death.
That is what I want from a chip.
That is what anyone
wants from a chip.
I want the sharpness
and the rigidity of the Takis
to cut up my gum lines
like they do
and then get all of that
citric acid and cayenne pepper
in there
and just scream
you will never die.
The texture of Cheetos does not even talkies cannot
hold a candle stop laughing talkies cannot hold a candle to hot cheetos they are so crunchy they
are so delicious it tastes better cheetos taste better yeah i agree with that your your tongue
is probably like cut up you probably have like uh like, have you seen the guy in Black Panther that's like cut up on his chest?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's what your tongue probably looks like.
I'm not going to be able to taste anything in 20 years.
There's scar tissue.
You have scar tissue on your mouth.
I'm like the thing that all the parents warned about where kids are eating Warheads, the sour candies.
Like, you'll burn a hole in your tongue.
I was like, that's BS.
Then I eat 30 more and I was like
ahhh
oh my god
no I'm sorry
hot cheetos are so much
better than takis
you can eat more of them
that's the point
I do think
hot cheetos are
more pleasant
you are right in that
I was
I was doing a goof
takis are really good though
I'm not gonna lie
if I see takis
at a party
or hot cheetos
at a party
I'm probably gonna pick hot cheetos but it's a cool party to be at it's a good party to be at
i'm trying to think right now bowl in front of me do i go takis or hot cheetos and i would i would
eat one taki to prime my palate and then i would start shoving my face with hot cheetos you're
correct you know what you would do you would suck on the taki you wouldn't even eat the taki you
would just do and then throw it okay literally the the weird thing about talkie so i i'm not a particularly
health conscious man okay you've seen me exist in the world i i go i'm not explaining it i know i i
will like i'll eat a 50 gram of protein protein shake in the morning uh and then i will eat like
a whole bread bowl full with mac and cheese and then I'll go home and I'll make a nice light fatouche salad. You know, like I like to exist in both those, but like I drink
diet Red Bull and diet Coke for a reason, right? It's because I can have 12 of them and not deal
with, you know, any of the sugar high, the crash, the calories, all that. Takis are so calorically
dense. This doesn't necessarily factor into my decision but you can physically
eat more cheeto true over time because it's airier which which i kind of agree with like you can you
you eat like eight takis and you're kind of like full yeah you know from just all of those calories
and and all the flavor yeah whereas cheetos you just keep eating exactly keep eating also it's
so much fun whenever you have powder on your fingers isn Isn't it fun? Yeah, it's so fun.
Then you get more powder because you've eaten them for longer.
What kind of person are you?
Are you a person that like you just –
Go on.
This is going to be gross.
Are you the kind of person who like after you finish the bag,
like you lick your fingers or do you like wipe them off?
Or like in between, do you lick your – like what's your like move?
This is a great question, Nicole.
I'm glad you asked because I used to be a tooth scraper.
One, I always wait until I am absolutely finished.
And sometimes if it's like a half hour, 45 minute Cheeto eating session, I mean, you're
getting a centimeter of Cheeto dust on your hands.
And I'll tell you, I used to be a bottom tooth scraper.
What's a bottom tooth scraper?
So I would take the Cheeto fingers and I would go, and I would scrape it physically on my
bottom tooth till I get like a chewable mass.
But now I'll tell you what,
I am a sensual finger licker,
which is even worse because, Nicole, look at me.
Look at my eyes.
What I do is I get the Cheeto dust on my fingers
and I put one finger at a time
and I physically massage my tongue around
all regions of my tongue.
I like...
Until I have licked the entire thing clean
like a blow pop.
Was that a satisfactory answer to you?
And I do that with all of my fingers, starting from the middle,
then going to the index, then to the ring, then to the pinky.
Ring.
Start with the middle.
Middle always gets the thickest coating.
Can I ask, you said ring and pinky.
That makes no sense.
I know, it doesn't make any sense.
I go middle, I go index, I go ring, I go pinky.
Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb.
Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but that is actually what I do.
Oh, so when you pick up Cheetos or Takis, you use your whole hand.
Whole hand.
Correctamundo.
Oh, see, I just use my thumb, my finger, and my index finger, my middle finger, and I just poke at it.
No, what I do is I put my thumb next to my tooth, and I just go like this.
Yeah, like a baby.
Like a babe sucking at the teat,
you suck at your thumb for Flamin' Hot Cheeto dust.
Like the teat of Red Dye 40 with citric acid.
Suckle at the Frito-Lay teat.
You are hooked and you cannot stop.
Oh, man.
Hold on.
What is the future?
Where is this all leading?
Because we love both of these snacks,
and they got to keep innovating.
They got to keep competing.
I think I agree with you ultimately that Flamin' Hot Cheetos, I do prefer.
We grew up on them. It's nostalgic. You can eat more of them.
But Takis to me is more exciting.
Takis is like Bitcoin. I don't quite understand it.
But I understand that I should probably invest in it.
Well, I was going to say, you know what the future is for you and I when it comes to hot chips?
Yeah, yeah.
We need to just invest in Frito-Lay and Bimbo.
Bimbo, yeah, yeah.
What we have to do is invest and then maybe one day, hey, look at these investors.
Let's bring them in.
And then they'll be like, well, we have ideas.
Taki coin.
Putting all my money in it.
Let's go.
All right, Nicole, I've heard what you and I have to say.
Now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling around there in the universe.
It's time for a segment we call... Opinions are like casseroles!
This is a good one.
This is at Ryder Rashley Allen.
Hot dogs with cottage cheese is better than any regional style of hot dog.
I would ask you, what region are you from?
Oh, my goodness.
Make that a regional style of hot dog.
If you're from like Manasset, New York, is that a thing?
Manasset?
Manasset?
I've never heard of it.
Like a small town in Long Island?
I don't know, Josh.
If you're from Bend, Indiana? No, Bend, Oregon?
Make that a Bend, Oregon dog.
Put that on the map because that sounds disgusting and people on the internet will get mad about it.
That sounds like a food crime.
That does sound like a food crime.
Cottage cheese, American style cottage cheese.
Because when you talk about cottage cheese, you're basically talking about ricotta, right?
Farm cheese.
And it's a larger curd.
Yeah, it's a larger curd in like American style cottage cheese.
It's all kind of the same thing right
ricotta is denser
and smaller curds
and then cottage cheese
is like creamier
but it all just like
refers to the most
basic cheese you can make
I guess
I kind of want to eat
cottage cheese right now though
yeah why am I craving
cold cottage cheese
yeah me too cold
like ice cold
weird
because I was about to say
it's kind of a crime
but then I started thinking
about cottage cheese
filled like in a
hollowed out half a cantaloupe
oh you would do that yeah I wouldn't do that I about cottage cheese filled like in a hollowed out half a cantaloupe.
Oh, you would do that?
Yeah. I wouldn't do that.
I love cottage cheese and fruit.
Oh, no.
Even though it is savory.
No, I would just have cottage cheese with salt.
Interesting.
Like a sprinkle of-
But you don't think it would go well on a hot dog?
No, not at all.
Oh.
I can kind of see it.
No, I would gag the second I touched it to my lips.
Because the cold-
Get the cheesy flavor.
The cold cottage cheese
and the hot hot dog.
We'll microwave it all together.
Stop trying to make me like it.
I don't like it.
This is a combination that I would like to try
because it's so out there.
I've never even thought about it.
And I can't imagine the flavors working together
because I like mayonnaise-y,
creamy things on hot dogs.
Oh my God.
And I like the cold curds,
the cottage cheese against the hot hot dog.
I think this is very interesting. I'd like to try this. I have cheese up and down my body. I believe you. Thank you, Ry God. And I like the cold curds of the cottage cheese against the hot hot dog. I have chills. I think this is very interesting.
I'd like to try this.
I have chills up and down my body.
I believe you.
Thank you, Ryder.
Gross.
Okay.
Chase underscore Hanson 440 says, medium well is the least cooked Algona burger.
I don't want too much pink to distract me.
What do you mean distract me?
What do you mean?
I don't know.
Are the colors?
Are you sensitive to colors?
I'm confused.
Yeah.
They're like photosensitivity, but like chromatosensitivity.
Yeah, that makes sense.
They have a disorder of the retina, and they cannot handle a pink burger.
You know what it is?
I like my burgers medium well myself.
I do too.
Because I don't like the blood that pools in the bread.
I'm not going to lie to you.
Oh, okay.
The blood pooling in the bread makes me...
Well, so you got to flip your burger.
No.
So it doesn't pool.
It stays...
If you flip your burger, I believe this, Nicole, if you flip a constructed hamburger every
five seconds, it doesn't give the juice any chance to run and it stays in the middle like
a gyroscope.
Josh, I hate it.
Literally, like whenever I see like a line of blood, like it may not even be blood.
Maybe it's just juice.
Like I just don't like the very...
I'm on the same page as this person, honestly, I guess.
I'll still eat it.
Like, I'll still eat it and I'll still enjoy it and I'll still savor it.
But I think I like a more cooked burger patty.
So, the most famous burger in Los Angeles, the Father's Office Burger.
I knew you were going to say that.
I hate it.
Because you got to bring it up.
So, this is the burger that literally it launched in, God, I think 1999.
I think it's been around for that long shut up
it's like really old um but yeah it really it launched the modern fancy burger movement in
america after his name is chef sang yoon at father's office in los angeles put together i
think it's only maybe like a what do you like it uh yes i do i do i like it for what it is but one
it's like hardly a burger because it's on like an elongated French roll.
And so a non-circular burger to me skews me out a little bit.
The flavors are really delicious.
There is a bacon and onion jam on it.
There is collegio cheese and also blue cheese. Yeah, both.
And then there is arugula on it.
And the burger is grilled to bordering on the blue.
I have had some rare freaking burgers there.
Yeah, me too.
And it's a good burger, but it's a good sandwich to me.
It's like a steak tartare, grilled steak tartare sandwich,
which I enjoy, but it does not satisfy like a burger for my money
because it is so freaking rare that you get the texture of the raw meat in the middle,
which is not something I want for like a burger burger.
Yeah, I think I'm just a classic California style burger person.
Char, baby, char, char, char.
When I was thinking of the blood and the bread, I literally thought Father's Office burger.
So that's so funny.
But I also don't love smash burgers.
I also don't love smash burgers.
I don't need that much crust on a burger.
I need something in between a like mid-rare, meaty, juicy burger and a
smash burger, which is also just called
a normal burger. A good char-grilled
burger I absolutely love. Yeah, I agree.
I don't necessarily need a rare burger. Also,
the USDA warns against eating
burgers cooked less than 160. Very true.
Capital Burgers has a great burger, too. We should talk about
the best burger. You've never been to Capital Burgers?
Never been. They say that In-N-Out stole their recipe.
Ooh, girl. Drama. Drama alert. Oh, here we go. we go here we go back to the cottage cheese i don't want it
at jmg5567 savory cottage cheese sriracha specifically is better than cottage cheese
and fruit nicole you live so funny you just talked about that yeah i think say yeah uh it's not better
it's just different and i think savory savory cottage cheese is more my pace.
I could agree.
I will go ahead and jump in and say that sweet ricotta in a dessert is better than ricotta on savory dishes. Sometimes I really don't like ricotta in my lasagna.
I don't like ricotta on pizzas.
Makes sense.
I love a ricotta cheesecake.
Yeah.
I think I agree with you on that.
Okay, next.
E. Gabriel Brown says, a cheesecake yeah uh i think i agree with you on that okay next e gabriel brown says nachos are
best room temperature once the queso is congealed and the chips are soft
sir let me tell you about a little dish called chilaquiles that i feel like you would really
love yeah i mean i understand i get it but i't. Room temperature queso makes me sick.
Yeah.
The thought about like spooning, like just the way that it drags on the plate makes me audibly like.
The way like a processed cheese sauce sets up in mounds and films and crusts after eight minutes in the open air without heat.
Yes.
Is a little unnerving.
It is.
I don't hate it.
I just consider it like a savory fudge.
It's kind of that fudgy texture.
It's not my favorite.
Yeah, the cold congealed nachos at the bottom of like,
the way I'm picturing this is an Angels baseball game.
You get them served in an Angels batting helmet.
Cool, yeah.
You know, a little souvenir.
Never been, never been.
And then you get to the bottom of this big old batting helmet
filled with nachos
and it is invariably cold
and it becomes like a salad,
but albeit all mush.
But no, I mean,
this is, you know,
chilaquiles, right?
I guess, but chilaquiles...
The last bite of your chilaquiles
where it gets real soggy.
But my chilaquiles
never has, like,
nacho cheese on it.
Yeah, fair enough, fair enough,
fair enough, fair enough.
I respect your opinion.
At I'm a Cake Ninja,
red velvet cake is gross, overrated,
and tastes like chemicals.
Sincerely, a pro baker.
I'm trying to find the right analogy for this, right?
Because we've talked a lot about red velvet cake.
Yeah.
Red velvet cake, there's,
in a traditional red velvet cake,
there's no food dye.
The red comes from the alkized alkali treated chocolate that
interacts with vinegar in a cake which vinegar i don't really know what it does it gives extra
leavening to cakes it evaporates yeah it does also it gives like i don't know if you've ever
had like a vinegar meringue before but it has like a like a vinegar pie or anything like that
oh i've had a like a buttermilk and vinegar pie like chest pie it has a nice it gives a nice tang
which offsets the uh the the sweetness of the baked good.
But it's not that prevalent in red velvet cake.
Like that vinegar flavor isn't the predominant flavor.
No, I mean, the predominant flavor is just Dutch processed cocoa, like a little bit of it.
So it's like a very lightly seasoned kind of, you know, cocoa cake with a little bit of vinegar in it.
That's the OG red velvet.
That's where it came from.
But once that like red image
of the cake became popular all it became was food dye and so it became food dye cake with cream
cheese frosting on it i hate that because i've had a legit scratch red velvet cake from a really
good baker um and it was really fantastic it was a very cool like moment in time sort of dish uh
and it literally has to do with the chemicals that were being used to treat the chocolate
yeah and so that's really cool but i mean i agree with this now is that it's all just, I remember I got a blue velvet
cake from Ralph's.
Oh, I thought they had, they had it at Milk.
Oh, did they?
Yeah.
Oh no.
Is Milk Bar just doing like blue velvet and red velvet stuff now?
Not Milk Bar.
It was another milk.
Oh, Milk in, it's Milk Jar.
Too many bakeries.
Too many, yeah.
Too many bakeries.
Too many bakeries.
But yeah, I agree.
Yeah, I agree too.
I love cake
And red velvet cake
Is not in my top five
No
No
No no no
Coconut cake
That's what I'm talking about
Give me a good southern coconut cake
Oh my god
It's just butter
Butter and just
Buttery goodness
Chewy coconut man
Oh my gosh
Give it
Marybear93 says
Chimichurri is extremely underrated
And I also use it as a salad dressing
Yeah
What a great sauce I love chimichurri What a great sauce, and I also use it as a salad dressing. Yeah. What a great sauce.
I love chimichurri.
What a great sauce.
I'm always throwing herbs and garlic and olive oil and citrus and acid and spices and stuff
into sauces.
That's how I love eating at home.
You grill any meat.
You put some sort of herb sauce.
And I would just call all of that a salsa verde.
I guess.
Yeah.
You know?
Sure.
But chimichurri is typically, it's parsley.
It's fresh oregano.
It's crushed chili flake is typically in it. And then a little bit of red wine vinegar, olive oil, yeah. You know? But like, I mean, chimichurri is typically, it's parsley, it's fresh oregano, it's crushed chili flake is typically in it.
And then a little bit of red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt.
Correct.
And also most Argentines will get pissed off if you do it in a blender.
Yes.
You got to hand chop it and then mix it all together.
And it is really fantastic. But I made one of these sauces the other day that had, you know, like basil and pumpkin seeds and crap that I blended together.
But it's good. Oh, it's absolutely great. people are like is like is that a chimichurri
like it looks like a chimichurri but you call it a salsa verde i was like look i don't know every
culture they just they throw things together and they mix it until it tastes good uh but chimichurri
is like a very like kind of codified recipe i'm sure people play with and they call it argentinian
ketchup yeah it's great salsa de golf make a chimichurri. Yeah, salsa de, explain salsa de golf.
Uh,
mayonesa
and ketchup.
Si.
Es bueno.
I go,
at Scott Buju,
ketchup never belongs
on scrambled eggs,
hot sauce,
or nothing.
Look, man.
What?
Look, man,
I'm doing what I gotta do
to get by in the day, okay?
Ketchup belongs
on scrambled eggs.
I agree with that.
Belongs. I don't know, can you like justify it from a flavor okay? Ketchup belongs on scrambled eggs. I agree with that. Belongs.
I don't know.
Can you like justify it from a flavor profile perspective?
What do you mean?
So I kind of can't.
Like, I don't know.
Do you think the eggy taste goes good with like sweet and acid?
It works for me.
I've been doing it forever.
The funny thing is I agree with you.
I load my scrambled eggs up with ketchup.
I typically mix ketchup with sriracha or another hot sauce and put it on there.
But I'm thinking about it now. I hate, like, I hate when people put grape
jam on like a breakfast sandwich with an egg. I hate when syrup touches my eggs. I don't like
sweet and egg in the context of breakfast. And so I don't necessarily know why I love ketchup and
eggs. I only know that I do and I will never stop eating it. I will take that to the grave. You can
pry the ketchup omelet out of my cold dead hands.
I love ketchup with my eggs and I don't get people that don't.
Yeah.
At Anna Kensonberg says the correct hierarchy of mayo is Duke's, Hellman's, Kewpie, Kraft,
Miracle Whip doesn't count.
Don't dog on Miracle Whip.
Come on.
Okay, Mayonnaise Man, can you take this?
Because honestly, I don't care about mayonnaise enough to rate it.
Absolutely.
So Duke's, I don't know that you can call it the best.
I think that everyone grows up with the regional mayonnaise that they prefer.
I happen to prefer Hellman's.
We call it best foods out here.
Best foods, yeah.
I have Duke's in a solid second.
This is probably going to upset a lot of people.
I actually dislike Kewpie for whatever reason. I still would have it
ahead of Kraft. However, Kraft to me, it doesn't have enough egg yolk flavor. It's too sweet.
It's too neutral.
It's too neutral. Yeah. I need some more acid, some more egg in there.
Miracle Whip does not legally count as mayonnaise. That is correct. It does not
satisfy the government definitions. However, I love Miracle Whip for what it is. Like Miracle
Whip on a tuna sandwich on some crap white bread is absolutely delicious. Miracle Whip is a
beautiful coleslaw flavored aioli. It is sweet. It is tart. It is beautiful. But I think this is
actually a pretty good mayonnaise ranking. I'm trying to think if there are any other mayonnaise
out there. Sir Kensington's makes a really good mayonnaise, but it's almost a little too heavily
seasoned for me. I love Sir Kensington's mayo.
They have a good mayonnaise.
Delicious.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
My favorite.
I think Sir Kensington's might be my favorite, actually.
It's good.
It's bougie.
And they have a little flecks of black pepper in there to make you feel alive.
Real bougie.
But I think I grew up in a Kraft household.
Yeah.
Oh, interesting.
You grew up in Kraft mayonnaise.
Yeah.
I mean, it's not that I prefer it.
It's just all I've ever known.
Yeah.
I've never gone out of my way to taste spoonfuls of mayo and be like,
these ones are better than these ones.
Just Mayo actually makes a really good product.
They're a vegan mayonnaise company.
And they are a company that the American Egg Board is trying to take down because their mayonnaise is so good that they're threatening egg-full mayonnaise market.
But that said, their product can get tainted by the heat.
Oh, that's separate?
Yeah. And so I've yeah and so i've
had some no it doesn't even separate it um it like gums up because of all the vegan stabilizers in
there so i've had some that were like kind of heat tainted and sucked but when they're good they're
good all right we got at sarah hornstein 47 my brother will eat an ordinary sandwich on blueberry
bagels like ham plus cheese plus mustard i this is a hotly contested topic uh
the bagel choice because a lot of people believe that blueberry bagels uh cinnamon raisin bagels
only exist as a trap to weed people out who don't deserve the good bagels i disagree really i i
enjoy them i enjoy them for what they are i would never put a full sandwich on it never i don't want
to say never but but I wouldn't.
When I go for a bagel, if I want sweet, I eat donut.
If I want savory, I eat bagel.
Okay.
I want savory most of the time, so I eat many bagel.
Many bagel.
That said, I don't love bagel sandwiches in general.
Oh, really?
Oh, my God.
I don't think a bagel, I don't think it is best utilized as a closed sandwich.
I believe all bagels need to be eaten open-faced okay i understand thank you for understanding me i
understand that but i disagree with you i love bagel you want to know what my bagel is i sure do
okay so on any given day and these are my options i would love to have a jalapeno cheddar bagel
toasted with a scallion cream cheese a big smattering of black pepper like
crispy crispy black pepper all over it and then avocado cucumber tapatio hot sauce red onions
what an la jewish girl thing to do yeah i am that's what i am and i'm proud of it that's so
funny i okay so one of my favorite bagels of all time. I don't know if their bagels are actually good on the general bagel spectrum,
but Isla Vista, what is it called?
Bagel Broker?
Bagel Cafe.
Bagel Cafe, okay.
One of my favorite bagels of all time,
and I could not tell you if it actually stands up in the general bagel canon,
is Bagel Cafe in Isla Vista, California.
Shout out UCSB.
Go Gauchos.
But they would serve all of these open-faced bagel sandwiches.
They did one that was just like a smoked salmon Benedict.
And it was like, you know, a galley kitchen that was four feet wide.
So I don't know how they were making a hollandaise, but they would toast it on the tin foil and
they'd put the poached egg on it that was cooked in a microwave, but you can microwave
poached egg pretty good.
You sure can, yeah?
You sure can.
And then they would put the hollandaise on it with the smoked salmon and they would like
seal up the foil and serve it to you. So you'd unwrap it and it kind of steams that smoked salmon gets
a little hot kind of primes the palate it changed the color a little bit as delicious but they would
also you know they throw chipotle cream cheese on bagels with just a sweaty slice of cheddar
cheese and like bean sprouts uh and it was good so like i i love that but bean sprouts but if i
am eating bagels i'm typically a purist where I'm going plain cream cheese.
I'm going smoked salmon, seasoned tomatoes, red onion, lox.
No, not toasted.
If it's a good bagel, I don't toast it.
If it's a bad bagel, sure.
Okay.
But a good bagel, like I am a bit of a purist on that, which is shocking.
That's fine.
You are allowed to be a purist as much as you want.
I contain multitudes.
Yeah.
I also put a squirt of lemon on mine.
You have like eight condiments. The black pepper, the lemon, the tapatitudes. Yeah, I also put a squirt of lemon in mine. You have like eight condiments.
The black pepper, the lemon, the tapatio.
Yeah.
And you get the jalapenos and cheese baked into the bagel.
Yeah.
That sounds like my order.
Like we should be flipped.
You know what?
No, we shouldn't.
And on that note, thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich.
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We'll see you next time. you you