A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Is Medium Rare The Only Way To Cook Steak?

Episode Date: May 27, 2020

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This, this, this, this is Mythical. Medium Rare, a moist, rosy bovine institution or a closed-minded example of beef brainwashing. Today we ask the question, is Medium Rare the only way to cook steak? 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, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Scherer. And I'm your host, Nicole Hendizadeh. And today we are answering the question, is medium rare the only way to cook a steak?

Nicole, what do you think? I'm going to say yes. A resounding Y-E-S. What? Medium rare is not the only way to cook a steak. There's so many other ways to cook a steak. Even if you're talking about like the very typical American steakhouse steak, I would argue that there are some steaks where taking it up to medium is actually much better.

But this is a very loaded question because steak is one of those foods. Can you hear me chewing? Yes, you're masticating quite uh intensely in my ear it's not very pleasant are you is that chew is that a chunky peanut butter right here no no that's just my teeth are falling out i'm crunching on my own teeth yeah i thought it was your molars for a sec a lot of people during quarantine have had a kind of like retail therapy thing is there any like expensive food item that you've been buying um yeah, it's Nielsen Massey vanilla paste. It is $28 for four ounces.

And it is the absolute most essential item in my pantry. It is amazing. I use it in place of vanilla extract and it just makes the most beautiful desserts. And like you can see the little flecks of vanilla bean in there. It's really, really wonderful. Yeah, i've been buying fancy nut i've been buying fancy nut butters oh and i look at you and i can't see yeah no this is a cashew butter and red plum jam sandwich anyways back oh wow back to steak steak is one of those foods that people put they steak they stake a lot of their identity on right like we've talked about that in the past how

there's the like i'm not like normal girls i like pizza and whiskey and then there's the you know like ew cilantro is the worst thing in the world it belongs in the garbage how could you eat a trash herb and there are a lot of people especially dudes who have that with steak and a lot of those dudes believe that medium rare is the only way to cook a steak and i don't believe that to be true but what's what's your reasoning behind medium rare being the only way to cook a steak. And I don't believe that to be true. But what's, what's your reasoning behind medium rare being the only way to cook a steak? Like if I served you a medium steak, you would just straight up say that like, it's wrong. No, it's just again, it's a preference thing. I think medium rare steak is the perfect temperature. I think the quality, no matter what

cut of meat it is, I think medium rare, You know what? Even medium rare applies to like burgers too. I like my burgers pink in the middle too. I think it's just the perfect amount of browning, perfect amount of crust. And then it has that wonderful melt in your mouth, chewy texture that you can only really achieve with a medium rare steak. Not to say that you can't enjoy a well-done steak. I enjoy well-done steak when it's done properly a hundred percent, a well-done steak. I enjoy well-done steak when it's done properly 100%. But my preference is, if I go anywhere, medium rare is the best and the way to eat a steak properly. That's what I'm saying. You can have well-done, rare, blue, however you want it. But the way I believe that meat should be eaten is at medium rare. De gustibus non est disputandum, Nicole.

There is no- Would you call me? Oh God, no, I didn't. I didn't. I don't know what it means. I think I put a curse on you in Latin. I think it might be like a voodoo thing. Oh, nice. No, there's no accounting for taste, right? I think you do have a point though, in the sense that like there is a certain deferentialness we need to pay to experts, right? Like if the, you know, person who invented steak is like, this is the best way to eat steak, and then you just come in there and be like, well, my personal preference is to completely disgrace this food, then that's not exactly like a matter of pure subjectiveness. You know, there is an objective way to eat steak,

and there is scientific evidence, you know, that medium rare is better than certain preparations due to the way that proteins denature when they're fully cooked in red meat and all that. But however, the term steak is so broad and one, it's so very American in the way that we define it that I think, you know, if you get down to if you have Vietnamese shaking beef, right? Bald look like delicious dish. Like, are you eating a steak or are you just eating steak? And is there a difference between the two? Because the steak is like cubed up. It's typically fully cooked all the way through.

It is absolutely tender. It's deglazed in fish sauce. It's totally delicious. But like, are you eating a steak dish or are you eating a steak? And what's the difference between that? You see what I'm saying? That's a really, really interesting question because, you know, as we like to dine out a lot um we've seen that people like to pre-cut

their steaks which i absolutely hate like don't do that for me but it's still considered a steak even though it's like pre-cut for me but i think what differentiates a steak and a steak dish is the addition of the fish sauce and the other things that you listed in there i think adding things to it no longer make it a steak but what if you go to a steakhouse and i mean that you get steak sauce on the side or you get borlays or um what's the that's still a steak but like it's not mixed in there i mean i've been to plenty of places that put like a little salsa verde you go to kiss back and you got a salsa verde on top of your steak. You know what I mean? But that said, I know exactly what you mean.

But no, I think it's topped. It's not mixed in. Once you mix it in, that's when you it's just a dish at that point. So the meat, to be a steak, it needs to be like fully cooked without any sort of condimentary things. God, that's not a word. Without anything added to it. Condimentary? I like that. Cond. God, that's not a word. Without anything added to it. Condimentary? I like that.

Condimentary. It's a nice word. Yeah, I think that's whenever it kind of shifts over to more of a steak dish. But I still think that steak dish should be a medium rare. Are there, so you're saying that there is not a single steak that you would prefer to be cooked not medium rare? Yeah, I think every single steak I've ever enjoyed, more than less, is for sure a medium rare steak.

Including like really thin steaks like skirt steak and flat meat. You'd go medium rare. Hell yeah. I don't think the intramuscular fat can break down enough inside of a skirt steak for it to be enjoyed at a true medium rare. To me, it like has to be a medium. And I think that all this medium rare talk, it's from these like steak hardos, who like to, you know, really put finite limits on things and say that there's only one way to enjoy things. I mean, we recently published this how to cook steak video. And we just got so many comments from people who were just like, I can't believe you'd cook a steak on a pan. The

only way my dad ever said he's proud of me is if I threw it on a grill. And I was like, Jesus, that's so bleak. Like, why would you limit yourselves to certain experiences? And I think there's a lot of cultural reasons too, for people to not eat rare beef. And I grew up not eating rare red meat because apparently it's not kosher, you know? Yeah, it's not like no one in my house eats rare meat until I had my mom come over to the dark side. I made her steak like three years ago. And it was like perfectly medium rare with like some chunky big salt on it. And she was a convert, but like, yeah, my dad, the steak has to be well done. My sister's steak, she asks for it burned. I'm not kidding. She goes, can you make sure it's really, really, really, really, really,

really well done? Like just burn it. Like that's a very, very common thing. People like their meat, you know, done well, but again, having that open mind and knowing and trusting that the person on the other side of the restaurant or the other person in the kitchen is doing their best and cooking the meat with so much respect and so much knowledge to give you the best piece of meat when it's medium rare, which is the typical, you know, standard meat cooking time. I think having it any other way is just, it just doesn't work for me, you know? And I've had, listen, filet mignon is like one of the most famous pieces of meat, right? Persians like it well done, like kebab, well done, well done,

well done. If you have it medium rare, it'll change your life. Like just try it, you know, just change, it'll change the structure of how you eat. I do think you bring up a really interesting point about, you know, kind of trusting the experts. It reminds me of this really awesome essay written by Helen Rosner in The New Yorker. It was actually about how Trump prefers his steaks well done, and why that actually matters. With ketchup. With ketchup, which I am as much of a ketchup fan as literally anybody out there. I scoredirt it all over my eggs. I'll put it on mac and cheese.

I have literally toasted bread and dipped it in ketchup. I would never think to dip, especially medium rare steak, in ketchup. That is bananas. But the whole article is about- A1 sauce? But Josh, A1 sauce is just ketchup with some molasses in it and Worcestershire sauce, isn't it? No, but once you start going down that route, it's like, well, marinara is just ketchup. Anyways, the whole article is about how why Trump likes his steak well done actually matters because it shows that someone is not willing to differentiate

their experiences and actually trust in the expertise of someone who is doing a job. In closing, you might know. So I do take that point very well. I think my bigger takeaway is that we need to kill the idea of a steak. We need to kill our idols. We need to kill our gods. You and I, you and I have, okay. Would you describe yourself as like a huge steak girl, like a big steak fan? Uh, yes. The biggest, I'm a red meat fanatic. How many times have you been, we've, we've talked about this in private before, but now we need to air out a dirty laundry. How many times have you been like really wildly disappointed in a restaurant steak?

Oh my gosh. Like out of, okay, when I think about like recent history, when I go out and I get steak, let's just say it's been five times. Out of those five times, three of those times my steak has been cold. It has been medium, medium when I asked for it, medium rare. And just disappointing. Really disappointing. Right?

But how much money did you spend on those steaks? $40. Like, at least. Like, that's just how much a steak costs. And apparently restaurants, I always thought that steaks were so expensive because restaurants were jacking up the margins and whatnot. Turns out steaks actually have some of the lowest margins in restaurants. It's just a cow is really freaking hard to, you know, breed and it takes a long time

for them to get to slaughter and beef is just really expensive. I have been in the same boat. It's been so long since I've actually had like a very good restaurant steak that I wasn't disappointed in. And I remember when I signed my book deal, I wanted to act like I was an adult. And I was like, I'm going to the fanciest restaurant and I'm getting the best steak. And I like hit up all these food writers that I knew. And I went to the Arthur J in Manhattan. I'm naming him. I don't care.

And I dropped $120 before tax and tip on a bone in tomahawk ribeye. And it was overseared. It was undercooked all in the name of trying to get it to a perfect medium rare. It was just completely screwed. And I dropped so much money on it it was such a disappointment but the only reason that i wanted a steak as like my celebratory meal is because that's an idea that's been like instilled in me since birth that like when you're celebrating when it's a special occasion you eat a giant hunk of beef and you cook it medium rare so i think i'm coming at this from a reactionary lens of saying like, let's kill that idea of medium rare steak being this like vaunted iconic dish. Listen, every single time there was a big deal in my family.

It doesn't matter if it was an engagement. I got to be on a math test. You know, it was my birthday. We would always go to Lori's. Have you ever been to Lori's prime rib before? I have. I love. I absolutely love prime rib.

Yeah. Prime rib is not a steak, though. But it's meat. It's meat. No, no, true. But I agree with you, but I agree with you in the terms of like a big hunk of meat equals a celebratory extravaganza. But like whenever it doesn't meet your expectations, it sucks. But that doesn't change the fact that when you eat a true medium rare steak, it is a very, very, very special, delicious uh experience don't you agree i do agree with you and i'm actually agreeing with you a lot more than i thought i would right now because i mean in my mind we're talking about you know there's so many beef dishes um throughout the world hold on what's what's this text coming in ryan what's a pittsburgh style steak let's read what a pittsburghstyle steak is. Pittsburgh has a style of steak?

Steak is heated to a very high temperature very quickly, so it is charred on the outside but still rare or raw on the inside. One story says that a local slaughterhouse during the Depression was looking to make extra money and open a restaurant in the front. How's my announcer voice going? Good? Great. Wealthy socialites could choose their cut of meat on a live cow and wait while it was slaughtered. The steak

would then be seared to kill bacteria and served at the cow's body temperature, thus creating Pittsburgh rare. What? Jesus Christ. This just makes me uncomfortable. It's quite morbid. What is that? I don't like that.

Delete from my memory delete yo let's just pivot to being a vegan channel why not let's just oh yeah blue there you go a blue steak i've i have a friend that literally she eats her meat blue like she's like slap it on the grill for 13 seconds and then move it over the funny thing is i don't like that i I love beef tartare. I love raw steak preparations. Like, I love carpaccio. I love tartare. I love yukhoe is the Korean version of it. Like, it's some of my favorite food out there.

I'm not saying, like, I prefer well-done steak at all. I'm just saying, like, you need to devalue what society has lifted the medium-rare American steak to to enjoy the full spectrum of world steak dishes out there like you know like go get like go drink and like eat thai style beef jerky that's essentially steak cooked to well done you know like get it out of your head that medium rare steak is the most important thing but josh have you seen the memes have you seen the meat memes with the fork holding up the different levels of meat? And they're like, rare, you're good. Medium rare, king, medium, eh, medium done. Do I need to call your parents?

Well done. Get out of my kitchen. Have you seen those memes? Yes, and I think that's the reason that I'm arguing so hard against this is because I hate when people elevate this stuff to have some sort of moral value to it. No, listen.

Liking a meat temperature should not be a personality trait at all. I'm not saying that it should be. I'm just saying if you eat a piece of meat that is medium rare, and if you eat a piece of meat that is medium, your mouth might enjoy the medium rare one more because of the actual science behind it. That's what I'm saying. This raises a much bigger question, though, about like, what is objective in food and what is subjective, because the science doesn't already, the science doesn't always cover this. And we talked about it earlier, like the reason people like bitter flavors,

like science doesn't justify why we should enjoy that unless you, you know, consider these cultural reasons that like bitter makes sour taste tastes more sour. That's why you drink Negronis before a meal, etc. And so like past the scientific explanation of, you know, a medium rare steak tasting objectively better, like every culture, it's such a subjective taste. So like, would you say that like a Vietnamese shaking beef would be better cooked to medium rare rather than, you know, like a well done or a medium well? Would you say that like every international steak dish would taste better if cooked medium rare? Does shaking beef have the fish sauce and the other stuff tossed in it?

I believe after the fact that it's cooked. Hmm. Well, that's a great question you know i would have to try it because when you say like medium rare is the only way to cook steak when i've had other foods that are that are steak quote unquote that have been cooked to medium rare when they're used to being well done a la kebab great example it definitely changed it for me and made me enjoy it more. Like churrascarillas, you can get it well done, you can get it any way you want,

but the medium rare preparation of it is the most enjoyable for me, yes. What about carne asada? You love street tacos, I love street tacos. I love carne asada. Right, but I actually really dislike the taste of medium rare steak inside a tortilla and in a taco. Like to me, even you take a skirt steak, a flat meat, whatever, and you grill it to medium rare and you throw it in a tortilla, I would much rather have like a steak that is cubed and diced up and crisped up in its own fat and then tossed in lime. So you get those little crispy bits. That's undoubtedly a steak, right? Why are street tacos my kryptonite?

Why do you always have to hit me with the street taco logic? Street tacos just take every single statement I have and just flip it on its backside. But yeah, I do like my carne asada, crispity, crunchity, gristly, and delicious, the way that it is prepared. Right, and that's... But you know what? That's an anomaly. That's one dish out of hundreds that I've had that I like well done. But one cannot give me the response for all the others.

cut, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah. So I think I do agree with you that medium rare is the best way to cook a steak in the sense that the term a steak is an incredibly limiting term that I hate that we should like completely do away with and like absolutely tear down your idols because I enjoy so many other like steak dishes that do not involve a steak. I will never forget when I was a kid, I would get like a $6 allowance when I was 11 years old. And every week I would take that, right? I would ride my bicycle home from school, not two hours after eating lunch at school. And I would get a steak chalupa from Taco Bell. And the first time I had it, I was like, steak is fancy. This is adult food. I'm so excited. And I ate the steak chalupa. And I was like, this is so much worse than beef. And I didn't understand the difference like between what

steak and beef was. And I've had people who are not American who have like asked me like, what's the difference between beef and steak? I was like, well, steak refers to like, eight random parts of the cow and different interconnected muscle groups that we decided were more important than the other ones, so we gave it a new name and devoted entire chains of restaurants to it. Expand past steak, eat some oxtail, eat some beef shank. I had a braised

beef shin and that was delicious. That sounds delicious. Of course, but braised beef shin isn't steak, and if I had a braised beef shin medium rare, I'd be like what are you doing man i need that muscle tissue all broken up and delicious and well done yo have you ever braised a ribeye no but i do have a frozen ribeye hold on should i think about the way that

a ribeye looks compared okay so if we're talking about braising cuts of beef versus steaks most people would think that you know steaks are leaner So you're not chewing through a bunch of raw fat when you cook them rare. Braising meats are tougher and filled with a lot of fat and connective tissue and all that. But think about a ribeye, right? A ribeye has crazy, crazy marbling and a lot of that fat doesn't break down. I've had a lot of ribeyes where 30% of it is fully inedible fat. I have braised, meat hardos are going to get mad at this. I've taken a ribeye and just braised it because it kind of looked like crap. It was a ribeye steak and it was absolutely delicious. I like braised it and like turned it into like a barbacoa situation and put it in tacos. I mean, that was still a steak that I cooked to fully well done and passed that until it broke down

all the muscle tissue and connective tissue and all that. And it was freaking delicious. Yeah, but you altered it. You made a barbacoa out of it. What is in barbacoa? You took, you made the steak into a steak dish. Therefore, it no longer was medium rare. You took it and you changed it and you flipped it. I feel like I, Nicole, I think you are right in that a steak is an incredibly limiting term that takes a lot of dishes from other cultures that are very delicious off the table. And I agree

with you that the term steak should be completely done away with and absolutely destroyed. Yeah, Nicole, I agree with you on all these things. But I also agree with you that medium rare is probably the best way to cook the very myopic version of steak as we see it in America. Yes, I am in full agreeance with my original point, and thank you for coming over to my side, because it is the correct side. And I love when you agree with me, man. I do agree with you. Truly, I do. Maybe it's just, I don't cook

steak a lot in my own home. It's like, it's not a food that I crave very often. I need to eat meat three times a week or else I feel sick. But I'm not anemic or anything. I just eat meat all the time. So I know my steaks. I do too not anemic or anything. I just eat meat all the time. So I know, I know mistakes. I do too. It's a problem. I have to take psyllium husk pills. Do you really take, doesn't that help you poop? Yeah, I take psyllium husk pills every night.

And then I also drink a green smoothie in the morning just to offset the amount of meat I eat. But I'm mostly eating, you know, chicken and fish and stuff like that. Hey, Josh, I have a question for you. What's that? After cooking, should you let it rest? So I think one of the problems, I think one of the reasons that we get so many crappy steaks in restaurants is that people, especially in the meat world,

take everything to the extreme because it's one of those identity foods, right? So people are like, you gotta sear a steak super hot. So then they're like, all right, let me get my pan up to 9,000 degrees and just burn the hell out of it. Oh, char is good. Char is flavor. Great. Here's a burnt ass steak. Medium rare is the best. Here's a raw ass steak. Let a steak rest so the juices can solidify in it. Great. I'm gonna let it sit on a counter for 15 minutes. And I think it's all these rules like medium rare is the best way to eat steak that hold people back from actually making a good steak you know it's like it's like a a well-intentioned rule in sports that makes the game worse and

allows james harden to score 37 points a game that's how i feel about it is james harden the one with the beard yeah long beard boy yeah he has a beard boy he has a whole like candy line from heart or from from trolley i believe where he can eat his beard what yeah that's crazy good for him i'm glad i'm glad he got that uh that deal that trolley deal probably really really helps um but yeah one time i had a steak like and i was at a really really fancy steakhouse like the fanciest and i ate my meat i'm like why is it cold i was like really upset i was like confused i'm like i'm spending like like you had your experience at at um arthur j i was like why is my meat cold and i was like inside i was like i'm supposed to eat

it this way it's supposed to be room temperature nicole it's okay you don't need to send it back you're at a fancy place but like that that biatch was cold. I was upset, but I still ate it. But I think it's, I literally do believe this, that it's rules like saying medium rare is the best way to cook steak that holds you back from enjoyment. Right. And this is all a metaphor for how toxic masculinity holds men back from thinking that pleasure is good. And the reason I drink black coffee every morning, because someone, when I was nine years old, nine years old said that that's what men did. I think that's the same way with steak. Like you trick yourself. You literally say like, no, no, no, you're supposed to eat steak at room temperature because that way all the juices

are inside it and it rests and all that. And I've been through that exact same process. And I'm like, no, this sucks. Just give me a hot steak out of a damn frying pan with plenty of salt. It's delicious. Yeah. Just make sure it's medium rare and I'm fine. I think once you elevate food to the status of godliness, you make it untouchable in a certain way that decreases its enjoyment around the world. Same as pizza. Like we talked about the pineapple on pizza. Pineapple on pizza, it's very enjoyable.

And I know I came on the side that I don't think it belongs on pizza because I don't want pissed off Italian dudes hitting me over the head going, idiota, idiota, with a filone loaf. Right. But I think once you elevate a status of food to this like untouchable nature, I think you're doing a disservice to your own pleasure. However, when it comes down to it, and I think in my heart of hearts, like, could this steak be any better cooked anything other than medium rare in the sense that we're talking about an American version of steak blah blah blah i think you're you are right and i fully capitulate to

that thank you means a lot xoxo people out there diversify up your beef eating experiences find off cuts that you normally wouldn't cook some dang short ribs out there oh yeah a lot of people think that if you cut a cow in half you just see like oh there's his t-bone and there's his sirloin there's all these things but like those cuts don't really exist in nature and i remember my roommate at the time i was shopping at vallarta supermarkets and i was like this place is the best you got to go there like all their meat is fantastic huge butcher section and he goes there and he comes back and he goes i hated that place and i was like how could you and he was like well they didn't have steak and i was like what are you talking about they have like 30 different cuts of meat and he goes yeah but none of those are steak and i was like

they're all they're like all steak and he was like no there's no t-bone there's no porterhouse there's no whatever and i was like no that's you just don't understand what you know those are only american canonical steaks there's an entire world of beef out there that you've limited yourself to because you grew up with a certain idea of what steak is you know but oh my god they're oh vallarta's meat section shout out to vallarta supermarket sponsor this podcast i love vallarta supermarkets love you guys so in summation yeah you're right thank you i know you ain't gotta tell me twice all right nicole we've heard what you and i have to say now it's time to find out what other wacky

ideas are rattling out there in the twitterverse it's time for a segment we call on three one opinions opinions are one okay on three one two opinions are like opinions are like on me on me opinions are like casseroles. Opinions are like casseroles. No, on me, on me. Opinions are like casseroles. We nailed it. First up we got at OuijaBoar. Strawberries and other fruits with lots of seed, like raspberries, are the worst fruit since the seeds make them taste and feel gritty,

especially when used in drinks. I don't want to chew my drinks. I agree with it. I do not like blackberries and passion fruit and kiwi and pomegranate for that reason. I love the flavor of literally all those fruits. They're some of my favorite flavored fruits. And I hate that I can't enjoy them because passion fruit seeds feel like I'm crunching through light bulb glass. And it's just, I know it's upsetting to me nicole more than you so i agree but i'm shameful i'm shameful about it so upset i'm literally drinking a a drink with sliced strawberries

where i'm pounding them down so i can get the seeds in my mouth it's an enjoyable flavor differentiation okay i like it sorry ouija boardija board. I disagree. Dude Foods says, I like mixing mayonnaise with marinara sauce when I make a meatball sub sandwich. I call it mayonara. That's hilarious and a really good idea. I would do that too. That sounds perfect.

Yeah, shout out to Nick from Dude Foods. He's like one of the OG food bloggers, does a lot of similar stuff to what I do. And mixing mayo with marinara sauce is right up my alley, right up his alley. What an alley to be up because that sounds incredible. My only question though is like at what temperature do you serve this thing? Hot. Hot. Hot mayo. Hot mayo nara. I want to do another one by Dude Foods because this is an opinion that I enjoy.

Five Guys has the worst fries ever. I have zero idea how anyone can like them. They're soggy and taste like garbage. Oh, but they give you an entire bag of them, people always say. Who cares? A giant pile of garbage is still garbage. I wouldn't go so far as to say that garbage. I don't personally enjoy Five Guys fries.

They always end up on the list of best fries. And they cook them fresh in the store. They even double fry them. But to me, they are always grease laden, always soggy, always over salted. And it's not my thing. People crap on In-N-Out's fries all the time. And I'm over here just like, yo, look at Five Guys though. I would rather eat the bag that the Five Guys fries come in. Honestly, I do not enjoy them. them they're like mashed potatoes i don't like it i really am not a fan of them uh wing stop fries too wing stop fries kill me they're they're they would be pretty good i mean they're kind of five guys in the sense that they're like thick and soggy which is fine uh but wing stop puts this spice blend that's a bunch of savory spices and then just like straight up white sugar and it like kills me i can't stand the sugar on it but i

do god i love wing stop though i don't think i've ever had wing stop before wing stop man man i want some wings now i'm in love with my car too says cheese should never be put on tacos because it's not authentic boo boo this person just being dramatic uh have you ever had a mulita or a vampirio like get out my face yeah the notion of authenticity i think they're probably referring to like taco bell tacos and shredded yellow cheese but even then and you look at tito's tacos uh that you know dates back to like the 50s i believe i mean i love tito's tacos something may start as quote unquote not authentic to you and that becomes authentic real fast i mean like remember that like half the crops that are like tomatoes did not exist in italy

until like the 1600s you know uh and now it's like the biggest part of their food so yeah no cheese put cheese on your tacos it's good even put shredded yellow cheese on tacos it's good and it's a part of a very important cultural piece of history and it's just good man yeah man all right at just underscore joya this sounds basic as hell but i do not like tomato slices on my sandwich or burger i feel it doesn't add anything but sogginess is this link is this low-key link yo link started a finsta just to get shouted out i know isn't that so weird? I think tomatoes add, I understand the argument for lettuce a little bit.

Like I love lettuce in my sandwiches and on my burgers, but I would understand the argument for people who are like, it's just crunchy water. It's like, yeah,

not in a gust of taste. You're probably just eating bad tomatoes because tomatoes are very, very flavorful, especially when you drop a little bit of flaky salt on those tomatoes

right before you put it in the sandwich. One of my favorite sandwiches is just thick white bread, my nickname in high school, mayonnaise and tomatoes. It's fantastic. Yeah. I was going to say, if you salt your tomatoes,

that can definitely give you more of a flavor punch, and it helps with the texture too. So try that, and then come back to us. Let's see. Catherine underscore Lane, boxed mac and cheese has always been and will always be superior to homemade mac and cheese um you know definitely the boxed mac and cheese uh definitely scratches the itch if you know what i mean but homemade mac and cheese is dank so uh

yeah i disagree with you they're like two different things you know what i mean it's like uh instant ramen versus like a bowl of tonkotsu ramen right like instant instant ramen is still great for what it is and like i get cravings especially for shin ramyeon black uh just to slurp it out but it's like not comparable at all to a bowl of legit shio or miso ramen um but both are still delicious like box mac and cheese it's like chemically and violently orange and completely delicious and craveable but yeah no no no real comparison on that yeah at matri just just a combination of letters chick-fil-a is not good yeah you're right uh chick-fil-a's good their uh politics aren't politics are garbage uh their chicken

to me it just doesn't even taste good like politics aside their chicken i would much rather have a chicken sandwich from i mean one now popeyes um but like mcdonald's even i think does a better job i've never had a good chick-fil-a chicken sandwich no it's a good it's a good chicken sandwich they're just bad don't start if you start i'm not gonna stop okay um uh i don't know how to say this name raleigh jenkins uh cereal is better dry um i disagree but that's because i like geriatric old people's cereal like grape nuts so if i grape nuts like by the handful i would probably choke and die so i need that milk but like yeah lucky charms take a handful and shove it in your mouth

sure i don't think it's better she needs some milk okay here hear me out though what if cereal was shaped and sized like chips so imagine instead of a dorito it was a giant cinnamon toast crunch and you could eat them out of the bag by the hand like a weedabix have you ever had a weedabix yeah i freaking love weedabix is the plural of weedabix weedabices i think it's just weedabix like mousse like one mousse two m mousse. Or lasagna. Hey, Nicole, if you stack what now? Don't. So I don't know. Cereal, I don't like eating.

I don't like having to shove handfuls of snacks in my face. I don't think, is that true? I like shoving handfuls of peanuts in my face. Josh, you're literally, all I see you do is take handfuls of whatever it is. If it's spaghetti bolognese, if it's freaking Doritos, you're just chomping them in there like it's your job. You don't do the individual chip in your mouth.

You go like, oh, oh, that's what you do. You are correct. But I do like having the option, and this is important, the option of eating a single chip and being somewhat satisfied. I choose to shove them in my mouth. If you eat a single Cheerio, it does not satisfy the same way as a single chip and being somewhat satisfied i choose to shove them in my mouth if you eat a single cheerio it does not satisfy the same way as a single dorito i would like a world in which i could have better dry cereal options that were large in this shape of chips all i'm saying okay at i make coffees pizza rolls are vastly superior to pizza bagels fight me i don't

want to fight i will fight you yeah i agree i think pizza bagels are vastly superior to pizza rolls yes i think one million percent i think my reason is that i need the cheese sauce and pepperoni to interact with the top of my palate i think that's the actual reason to me there's something satisfying about feeling that against the roof of your mouth and not having it fully encased that's why I prefer pizza to calzones. That's a really interesting take. I never thought of it that way. Like that barrier of the additional like dough getting in the way of the true like pizza eating experience.

That's a really thoughtful point, Josh. I was like, I like pizza bagels because they're delicious. But you got really deep with it. And that's a really good point. And I agree with you wholeheartedly. How do I say this? E-cheat-y sucks. Yeah, cheat e sucks yeah probably e cheaty sucks ranch is disgusting no you're disgusting next i was literally gonna say the same thing oh my gosh you're not disgusting you're a valid person

but no you're disgusting all right at red divider carrots with peanut butter been a go-to snack for me since i was a kid and it's arguably more enjoyable than an apple with peanut butter. Huh. I've never had a carrot. Why have I never had a carrot with peanut butter? Because you probably think carrots are better with ranch, which is not disgusting. I don't know.

I think apples and peanut butter is better than carrots and peanut butter. I've done that before, too. I don't know. I'm going to try it. I don't know why I haven't, because I love the, like, carrots are earthy, peanut butter is pretty earthy. I feel like that would go really well together. Both are, like, somewhat sweet. I'm into the try it. I don't know why I haven't because I love the, like, carrots are earthy. Peanut butter is pretty earthy. I feel like that would go really well together. Both are like somewhat sweet.

I'm into the idea. Okay. Cole is great says turkey bacon only gets a bad rep because they put bacon in its title. It isn't bacon and it isn't nearly as good as real bacon, but no one can look past the name and to see how good it actually tastes. If you drop the preconceived bacon biases, rebrand them as crispy turkey strips and people would stop hating it um you have a good point but also turkey bacon is is like i most i'd rather just eat turkey sausage nicole you're feeding into the problem you're totally feeding you're feeding the problem turkey bacon is freaking

delicious and and i think you can almost eat it in like bigger quantities because there's less fat on it. So to me, like you get all that like cured meat smoked flavor that you would from bacon, but you get like a big old meaty bite of it without all the grease. I actually really love turkey bacon. Sometimes I'll just make like a giant turkey bacon BLT and be very satisfied

with it. I'm all about turkey bacon. Also growing up, you know in a jewish household uh turkey bacon was a big part of my childhood really you didn't eat bacon in your house uh when i was like 10 and moved in with my dad yeah but when i like lived with my grandma uh we didn't she just had so much turkey bacon we would eat it on like i didn't know that about you we had similar childhoods in that in that aspect i also didn't eat bad stuff and i didn't eat my first taste of like uh like bad meats naughty meats was when i was 14 my mom went out of town and then my dad's like hey you want to go to an italian restaurant and i'm like yeah and then we got prosciutto and melon when i was 14 and he totally

changed my life forever that's so so funny. Thanks, Dad. We got one more, Josh. So take it away. All right. Underscore JTV. Squeezed lemon on mac and cheese. Lemon makes everything taste better. I never tried this, but I do like citrus and cheese together. And I do think that most people should start adding lemon juice to a lot more of their foods, including steak.

The thought of putting Kraft macaroni and cheese with a squirt of lemon juice is absolutely vile to me. Like, that sounds like vomit. But maybe white cheese could work? Like a very, very light, white, mascarpone situation. Nah, give me the cheddar. Give me the lemon on the cheddar. Don't put lemon and cheddar together

Let me shove handfuls of it into my face Alright and on that note Thank you for listening to A Hot Dog Is A Sandwich We've got new episodes for you every Wednesday If you want to be featured on Opinions Are Like Casseroles You can hit us up on Twitter At MythicalChef or NHandizadeh With the hashtag OpinionCasserole

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