A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - The Truth About Designer Fruit

Episode Date: July 22, 2020

Cuties, Cosmic Crisp Apples, Cotton Candy Grapes. Are these brand name fruits really worth the extra money or is it just clever marketing? To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Cosmic crisp apples, cotton candy grapes, sugar kiss melons, heck cuties. Are these brand name fruits really worth the extra money or is it just clever marketing designed to sell more of the same thing? This is a hot dog as 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. A hot dog is a sandwich. 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 getting to the bottom of the issue around designer fruit. Now, for those of you unfamiliar, this can range from simple selective breeding of different plants, something farmers have been doing since the beginning of farming, to full-fledged genetic modifications in labs to create downright alien, albeit delicious, fruit-like objects in a variety of shapes. This trend in produce has been the source of price gouging as well, with some species

selling for hundreds of dollars. I know I have a lot of feelings around them, but first, Nicole, whatcha think? Okay, so, as a girl who enjoys designer things. Okay, listen. Okay, I'm going to break it down for you. I could buy a pair of black heels for like 20 bucks and be happy about it. Or I can buy a pair of Christian Louboutin heels for $800. And no one can know that I'm wearing them other than me and feel good about it. Same concept with eating a regular green grape and a cotton candy grape my guy okay wait are louboutins the red bottoms that cardi b refers to

yes that's okay i understand that reference um i am someone who my entire wardrobe is exclusively from target and old this shirt that you see me wearing and you can't see my shorts, they were both for under $20 at Target. So I am not someone who understands the designer appeal of literally anything except for designer fruits. Yeah, Christian Louboutin, not a sponsor yet. We're getting there, Nicole. We're going to get you free pairs of red bottoms. Oh my gosh.

Don't just keep saying that into the universe. I will be a happy woman. So I'm not, you know, I'm bougie in my own specific ways i don't understand designer labels uh but you do understand designer fruit don't you i do understand designer fruit i love them and the reason we're even talking about this right now is because for whatever reason during quarantine you know how um this is going to take a weird turn you know sometimes pregnant women eat dirt yeah it's called pica pica right it's like your body recognizes that it's missing a certain nutrient and you kind of start eating weird things that you normally wouldn't eat because say there's like iron found in soil and stuff like that yes that has been me but with designer fruits in quarantine

times for whatever i don't know if it's the fact that like, since restaurants are closed, I suddenly have more money that I'm not spending on restaurants. So I go to Whole Foods and I see not only cotton candy grapes that you mentioned are absolutely delicious. So they are like green table grapes. I actually did some research on this.

They were a simple crossbreed of two different grape species. And the botanist who developed it is actually trying to recreate original grape flavors that were lost due to like monolithic cultivation and so it's really fascinating but you eat them and it gives you this kind of like aroma of cotton candy and they're sold in this neat little package that says cotton candy emblazoned on it and they're like three times as expensive as normal grapes i rung up my cotton candy grapes at Whole Foods and it was just like a normal sized bag of grapes.

And it was like 9.50. Oh yeah. And I was just like, well, these are my Louboutin heels of grapes. I mean, it's just really good marketing. But also, do you remember learning about Punnett squares in school about how like, we like, like they cross bred,

like one stock of peas with another stock they pee stocks yeah dude we totally had the same textbook i remember that exact page it was a scientist named linnus yeah and it's uh it's it's a square cut into four quadrants and uh it's the green green green and then in the bottom left corner was a yellow pea stalk. And then from that, like the world changed forever. So this is just that times a million billion trillion. I just think it's so interesting how people are willing to spend three times the amount of a regular bag of grapes to buy something that's designer. But aside from the size of this designer, it tastes really good and it tastes really

unique. And I think as humans, we always try to find something that's unique and new and interesting that others haven't tried before because we just want to be better than everybody else it's true i agree with that and that's been like the history of farming in general right like everyone talks about the the bananas that we eat today are one specific cultivar because that was what was growing best in Guatemala at the time. So if you take a banana a hundred years ago, it's going to taste nothing like the bananas that we eat today. Ditto with tomatoes, right? We talked about this in the pizza

episode where people in Europe thought tomatoes were poisonous because they remember the nightshade family. And I'm sure they looked vastly, vastly different than they do today, even including the heirloom varieties. Like they're nothing like the tomatoes that were grown before. Watermelons used to be like a quarter of the size. full of seeds and like full of like their own little like holes and stuff weird looking weird looking fruits yeah so like the history of human farming innovation has been from this crossbreeding stuff but like the real innovation for all this is like you said the marketing which is crazy because it my big question if you tasted the cotton candy grapes without the branding of cotton candy,

if you just bought like normal ass green grapes, would you have tasted them and gone, ah, that's cotton candy. I'm like a kid at the carnival again where I threw up on the tilt-a-whirl and I kissed my best gal on the whatever whirlybird ride. No, of course not.

I probably wouldn't taste the difference in a blind taste. I'd just be like, these grapes are sweeter. Yeah, I'd just be like, ah, weird grapes. Yeah, these are some weird grapes. Are these old grapes? That's probably what I would say to myself. Are these like over ripened grapes? Oh, I have a question for you, actually. Do they genetically enhance the sweetness of fruits recently? Is that something? Yeah, well, that's that's part of the crossbreeding. Like literally, you take the sweetest, you know, variety of a fruit, and then you crossbreed that with another sweet variety of fruit. And then you just kind of perfect that technique. And you see that a lot with, uh, with apples actually. Totally. Cosmic crisps,

your favorite. Honeycrisp. Honeycrisp is your favorite, sorry. Honeycrisp are the best apple on the market. And it turns out honeycrisps were invented in like 1991. They were a crossbreed of two like somewhat obscure apple varieties and then they found out that when you crossbred them they created a sweeter fruit but not only that they created a juicier fruit because the size of the cells were actually bigger so you're getting like bigger cell pops in your mouth and you eat them but the problem with honey crisp apples is that they don't ship well and i think it's because of a large cell structure and a thin skin which makes them so delicious but that's why the why the most fascinating story in this designer fruit thing, and we're getting to an actual point about society at some time of this.

But right now, this to me is like an album hype drop, what happened with the Cosmic Crisp apple. So this is an apple that has been in development for the last 20 years at the Washington State. It's literally like an apple husbandry lab that they have. They've invested almost half a billion dollars into planting these cosmic crisp apples. That is a crossbreed of the honey crisp apple and the enterprise apple. They took the sweetest apple in the world and then they took like the sturdiest apple in the world. And they're like, what if we can crossbreed them to create a sweet apple that's sturdy

enough to ship and hold and not Brown and all that. And they put $10 million into a national marketing campaign. They called it the Cosmic Crisp Apple, which just like sounds absolute fire. And I remember going to Whole Foods and seeing it. And I was just like, it was like when Yeezys dropped. Yeah. You know, and everyone's waiting in line at Supreme. That was me at Whole Foods, except there was no line because I'm the only weirdo who is

like stoked on this new apple. And I ate it. You were camping out outside of Whole Foods is what you're saying. Hey bro, you heard the new Cosmic Crisp drop? I heard that apple sturdy AF. And I ate it and I was just like, yeah, that's an apple. And it was like, it was this kind of disappointment that like we have built up nature using you know uh marketing and hype and all this and packaging

and it's like we're trying to like build just natural things that grow in the world up to this you know incredibly vaunted item and then you try it and you're like yo that's just an apple exactly it's just a fruit. But is it worth it? Is what we're saying. You should talk. You know what we should talk about? We should talk about the culture, the fruit culture in Japan.

Yo. Yeah. Because they sell like million dollar melons. Million yen. That's a million yen is like nine dollars. I don't know how money works. So I haven't done my taxes yet. The most expensive fruits ever.

We have a list in front of us. The Densuki watermelon sold at the Senb Kaya flagship store in Tokyo for $121. Can you imagine buying a watermelon for $121? My mom would beat my a**. Let's see. Sakai Ichi apple. $21 for a single apple. Can you believe that?

I'd do it. I would absolutely do that. I would be that person who is buying a $21 apple. And I would feel no qualms. The only way I've seen these strawberries that they make in Japan, yo, that's the only fruit I would spend over $50 to eat 12 of. That's it. Why? What is it like actually try and psychoanalyze yourself? What is it about those strawberries that would make you spend $50 a pop? To be honest honest i'm not the biggest fruit person i don't love fruit i much rather prefer to eat vegetables and fruits but there's something about pristine beautiful strawberries that are huge and the leaves are green and they're packaged love like in a lovely way and they're just sitting in this

foam that you know it's good quality foam and just picking it up and like just nomming on a strawberry that was worth more than like i don't know a steak dinner is like something else but i'm not gonna spend 120 for watermelon never did i would no okay here's my thing so wine right wine people have no problem spending hundreds of dollars on a bottle of wine it's become like this huge dollars on a bottle of wine it's become like this huge culture but the value of wine it's like the value of fine art or jewelry or something where it's literally just it's nothing it's like if you set a price i mean certainly there's you know uh different labor costs that go into wines and different marketing and bottling and all that but like the value is largely completely subjective that's what i feel like why not why isn't fruit treated with the same value as something like

wine you know i think i know why i think it has to do with like food scarcity maybe or like the actual like labor that goes into the fruit picking that could be it i think that's that's why we might have a little bit of like a what's it called a stalemate like is that what it's called like it just doesn't it doesn't the value of the fruit and the actual labor that goes into cultivating and foraging the fruit does not match and i think that's why i'm a little bit resistant to designer fruit but i do love cuties and I'll eat a cutie. Okay. So you said you're not a big fruit person. I, when I was a kid, I thought I legitimately hated fruit. Like that was the thing. It was like, uh, one of those things I grew up on, like, I thought I hated salmon and steak just because my parents didn't know how to cook.

So I'd only eaten like well done London broil until I was 15 years old and like did it with salmon. Right. Uh, but same with fruit. We're like, we only, we didn't have any fresh produce in the house growing up. Because like my parents were total boomers where they were like excited about the idea of canned foods and prepackaged mayonnaise and stuff. And so I only ate canned mandarin oranges for fruit. I would eat six cans at a time just packed in sweet syrup. And I would take the syrup as a shot afterwards because I was like, it's healthy, it's fruit. I'm sure you would. And now we know it afterwards because I was like, it's healthy. It's fruit. I'm sure. I know.

We know it's all just packed in sugar and all that. But the only fresh fruit I would eat would be like from a school lunch line. And they just have the crappiest red, delicious apples possible. And the like pithiest, rindiest oranges that like you'd have to. I remember in school just like digging my thumbs into the orange to try and peel it until my thumbnails bled. You'd have to bite the outside of the orange to get to it. Yeah.

Yeah. It's terrible. And I think my biggest concern, and I want to know if there's actual like practical application to make the world a better place, I guess, on designer fruits, right? And cuties, I think, are the best example of this in my own life. I literally thought I hated eating fresh oranges because of the crappy oranges I got from school. And if, you know, you're a kid who you're getting all your information about nutrition and diet and all that from school, and you're like, well, they're telling me I got to eat fruit, but the fruits

they're giving me completely suck, I don't want to do it. But then I remember going to Ralph's with my dad and seeing these little cuties, the clementines, which are just a breed of Mandarin orange that were originally grown in algeria and they've been around for a long long time i didn't know about them until they slapped like this happy smiling orange mascot that you know might as well have been a kid's cereal mascot and i was just like i'm a cutie eat me i'm good for you small impressionally young boy and then i got them and I was like, holy crap, these are easy to peel and they're delicious. And I feel good about buying them because there's an orange freaking smiling at me on the package.

And so, like, I don't know, can we use manipulating children to get them to eat healthier, I suppose? We, well, we manipulate children to make bad decisions. Like, you know, Toucan Sam on the Froot Loops box. And, you know, the Captain. It's not even Captain Crunch. It's Cap'n Crunch, right? Cap'n. Yeah, C-A-P apostrophe N.

Did Cap'n Crunch, did he actually attain that military rank? All I know is that he's the face that launched a thousand ships. Wait, is that like a tagline that they have? No, I think it's from a movie about sirens. I might be wrong though. No, I think Joan of Arc is, no, some woman had a face that launched a thousand ships. Helen of Troy. Thank you.

Joan of Arc, Helen of Troy, Potato Potato. From the Iliad. From the Iliad by Homer. You are confusing classical Greek poetry with breakfast cereal. That's so me. That's so you. That's so us. Ryan said, although Cap'n Crunch is allegedly a cap'n, he wears an admiral's hat. That's stolen value. Yeah, he can go to jail for that, can't he?

He can go to jail for that. Yeah, there needs to be like some sort of doxing campaign on Cap'n Crunch to get him to stop wearing that stuff out there. Yeah. Because that's. Let's start an online petition, Josh. We need to strip Cap'n Crunch of his military rank. We need to tie him up in the brig and get him to answer for his war crimes. Put him in the brig. Oh my God.

Captain Morgan and Admiral Nelson will be there on the tribunal to judge him. But like you said, we manipulate kids through packaging all the time. I remember when I was a kid, the biggest thing, Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man. We can all universally recognize that that was a fantastic series and well cast and well made and it was fantastic. They came out with Pop-Tarts that were like wild Spidey berry flavored or whatever and had Tobey Maguireire's face which for me apparently

it was very important to buy pot of hearts with toby mcguire's face on it and they were just these like artificially dyed blue and purple had a vague web pattern on the frosting you know yeah but what if they would have taken toby mcguire's face and i don't know slapped it on a head of cabbage i would have i would have bought to bought Tobey Maguire cabbage when I was 10 years old. Yeah. I think, I mean, I think this is a chance where like we need to shift over from advertising for the sugary children foods like pop tarts and toaster strudels and move it to, you know, cabbage and broccoli. Cause kids really don't eat. Isn't there like a study that says that kids don't eat as much vegetables as they used to yeah yeah no it's just like consistently dropping and that's you know there's there are so many

reasons yeah for that like as more people enter the workforce there's just like less time to feed kids totally like you know the school system doesn't actually educate people about you know i remember getting so many lessons about nutrition and like here's what you should eat and here's what you shouldn't eat but there was never any like practical plan sure i'm just like here's how to cook fresh vegetables here's how to buy them here's literally any usable information they're like hey you should eat fresh fruits and vegetables uh all right now go to lunch and suck down this melted chocolate milkshake and a piece of pizza and that was like all the instructions that we got isn't pizza a vegetable pizza is okay so there is a pizza lobby in america which my backup plan is just to become a pizza lobbyist oh my gosh i don't know them hold on hold on don't you dare judge me all right you over here rocking your louboutin heels i don't have any yet i don't have any yet

this is the plan. They're supposed to sponsor us. The pizza lobby in America, their primary focus for a period of time, I always thought it was to get pizza classified as a vegetable. And then I actually started researching this. It was already classified as a vegetable. The pizza lobby's job was to get it to be classified as two vegetable.

They wanted, they were so greedy that they wanted pizza to be classified as two servings of vegetables so kids didn't have to take another serving of vegetables at lunch because that was part of michelle obama's healthy hunger free kids act that was like kids have to get at least two servings of vegetables at lunch and the pizza lobby was like yeah that's you know slice of pizza that's two vegetables and they were like how do you figure and they were like well tomatoes is a vegetable which we'll talk about that in a different podcast but they were like tomatoes is a vegetable and we used pure tomato paste on our pizza so we're concentrating the tomatoes into two vegetable

oh my gosh that's really wrong that's actually so incredibly wrong it makes me physically ill it's diabolical it's's rude. That's screwed up on like another level. Why don't you put some mushrooms on the pizza and then it's a serving of mushrooms. That's how it's two servings of vegetables. You dummies. Cause kids won't eat it. I mean, that's, this is, it's always a chicken or egg situation though, right? It's like, do kids actually hate vegetables or have we made kids hate vegetables by giving them crappy vegetables? See, I don't know. Maybe it maybe it's just well i always think about brussels sprouts whenever i think about gross vegetables because they taste like uh green farts you know wait do you still hate

brussels sprouts no i like them a lot now because i learned how to cook them and i learned how to eat them to be honest and you know i think it it's, we just don't teach kids how to enjoy vegetables. And I think that's the issue, which is why we just take the easy way out and say pizza, pizza, two vegetables, not one waxy apple. Enjoy. I have this theory. I have this theory that if we were to, especially in the school system, but also a lot at home, cook vegetables the way that we cook meat and then cook meat that the way that we cook vegetables, we could flip the entire perception that kids have about them.

So you want to boil chicken and roast veggies? You're crazy, man. Not even roast. No, no, no. I want to get even deeper on this. I want to, because if you think about the meats that they serve in school, right, they're all processed, formed, all this stuff coming from tyson and cisco and all that like the only chicken that we had at school was pre-formed breaded chicken patties that are you know super salted and mixed with fillers and all that what

if we did that but with vegetables and you just took like cauliflower salted the hell out of it turned into a patty deep fried it served in a bun kids would have no idea that it was even vegetables but you could say this is a cauliflower patty and then you serve them a side of just boiled plain beef and then you're going to rewire kids' brains. Nicole, I am pro brainwashing children. Let the record state that I think it is our moral imperative as adults to brainwash children because they are constantly being brainwashed by alternative factors. So like you said, like with Tobey Maguire's face, you know, every kid wants to be respected

and loved by Tobey Maguire. That is a fact of life that I know. So when you put his face on Pop-Tarts, that is brainwashing kids to want Tobey Maguire's love, like the love of their own father to buying, you know, sugary processed food. So you want to make cauliflower patties with some sad processed beef on the side and a cutie that's what you're correct that's what you want to me that is what an imperfect but practical future of american school lunch looks like so you're trying to deter kids from liking meat so they can like vegetables more. So their diets can include more vegetables.

You know, that's not a bad idea. It's not a bad idea. No, I don't think that's a bad idea at all. I think your brainwash technique will actually be very, very useful. The only issue with that is, is that we don't have as much money going through the lobbyists of cauliflower as we do for beef, chicken, pork. That's the issue. No, that totally is the issue. And that's like why we find ourselves in, you know, this whole dietary crisis that we have in America. And I understand, you know, food is a personal choice and all that. And I fully believe like, as an adult,

you're free to do what you want. But like, when it comes to, you know, kids making decisions, there's a moral imperative, like so many other countries have passed anti-junk food advertising restrictions to kids. During Saturday morning cartoons, you can't advertise any foods that have over a certain percentage of calories from sugar. That's a great idea. Why don't we do that here? Frick. Because we value profits over lives uh is the general consensus on that gross but there are some people that like star wars or i guess uh disney now owns

star wars disney and the dole corporation in 2017 disney launches the unite for a healthy galaxy campaign with dole so they launched it in congruence with the premiere of The Last Jedi. And they took BB-8 stickers and slapped it on cuties. Love that. They took other Star Wars characters like Darth Vader or whatever and put it on some iceberg lettuce. And so they're actively trying to fight fire with fire and trying to brainwash kids in the right direction.

Is it great for us to you know want to have parenting duties put on the dole and disney corporations no but i think it might be you know not the worst idea at this point yeah i also think it just starts at home you know like just make your kid like do what my mom does my mom cuts to this day, a big bowl of fruit and puts it in front of me and goes, eat this, Nicole. It's good for you. And honestly, I used to hate it. I used to be like, no, why?

It's gross. I actually used to throw away all the fruits. I'm such a bad child. I used to take, my mom used to cut me apples and like carrots and cucumbers and I would just throw it in the garbage. But now I'm so thankful that she did that because I now know how important fruits are. Even if I know I don't like them, I'll still eat them because I know that she made it for me. So it starts at home. I'm all for it. No, no. If

cotton candy grapes make you happy, if more kids, if you can trick a child into eating more fruit by telling them that it is cotton candy grapes. There's also another one that just came out, super hype grape drop called gummy berry grapes. Oh man. So they're literally trying to make it sound like the word gummy bear, but adding the name of another fruit to trick kids into buying grapes. I am all for that. I am pro designer fruit.

I will spend $5 a pound, which albeit is not great for getting low income people to, you know, eat fruit and all that, but I will spend $5 a pound on designer fruits designed to brainwash children into eating more of them. That is my official party stance on this. I will not waver. More brainwashing kids, more delicious designer fruit that vaguely tastes like candy insofar as you're influenced to believe it does.

I'm going to go set up a tent outside of Whole Foods so we can get those red gummy grapes. Let's do it. I'll bring some beers. All right, Nicole, we've heard what you and I have to say. Now it is time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling around there in the Twitterverse. It's time for a segment we call... Opinions are like casserole. Everyone's got one and they smell like onions.

You're very proud of yourself, aren't you? We make me giggle. I hope we make you giggle too. First up, we got at SynthWise. Warm spaghettios with meatballs eaten by the chip full, specifically Kroger brand spaghettios and chipotle tortilla chips is greater than the sum of its parts.

Okay, one chipotle tortilla chips, they used to be of its parts. Okay. One Chipotle tortilla chips. They used to be better. I swear I cannot verify this, but I swear they used to be better and they would fry them fresh in the stores and they would put the lime, like fresh lime juice and salt in the bags and shake it. And so Chipotle tortilla chips used to be the best tortilla chips in the game. They've taken a hit recently, in my opinion, probably after the e-coli outbreak they're still pretty good i love the idea of a warm dip for chips like a warm tomato based dip so i can really see this working i've never done it also i may go

tostitos scoops instead of that and i don't particularly like spaghettios yeah but i like this idea i like this idea i think this is a great idea. I, for one, hate canned spaghetti. I think it's an abomination beyond the mental sphere of my brain. But, like, do you, man. And, you know, Kroger has really, really good, like, dupes for chips and stuff like that. So, I'm all for it. Oh, yeah. I ate, I've been thinking a lot about my relationship to pasta.

Yeah, what about it? I don't think, I don't, I don't think I like al dente pasta. Oh, that's okay. Every time I've eaten perfectly al dente pasta, with that slight kind of chew to it, I'm just like, you know, I wish this was more overcooked. And I don't think it's just because I have soft teeth. I think it's just a preference.

Yeah, that's okay. You're allowed to like mushier foods. That's your prerogative, dude. I ate mushy spaghetti yesterday with some leftover canned crab and it was delicious. That sounds fancy. I'm a fancy boy. Okay. Ringo Stardust 37 says,

Weber's horseradish mustard on fresh baked chocolate chip cookies are the best thing my dad ever discovered. What? I don't, I don't, I do not consent to this kind of weird behavior horseradish on chocolate chip cookies okay you can okay so actually horseradish and wasabi in general works really really well with dark chocolate they they really really uh accent one another and it's similar to spearmint and peppermint in that like it kind of opens up your nasal passages and allows for more air to pass through so you can get the true essence of the chocolate but this is a word for chocolate chip cookies man this is this is stupid i don't know dude i'm i've never

tried this particular combination but i do agree like you said like it kind of opens up you know the olfactory senses and gets you to experience chocolate in a different way the best dessert i have ever had was at providence i was not paying there with my own money as a very fancy restaurant in la and the pastry chef comes out and she's like this dessert is simply called honey mustard and i was like okay cool so inspired like mcdonald's honey mustard she was like no i was on this pastoral hill in the roan river Valley. And I noticed that there were wild mustard flowers growing and bees would pollinate them. And I thought, you know, to replicate nature. But anyways, it was just like this kind of spicy mustard ice cream, whatever, with honey.

And like the combination of a horseradish mustard and sweet is actually really, really good. I've never had it in chocolate chip cookies. This is another part of the spectrum to that pastoral Rhone river valley thing but i really want to try this it sounds good all right at doctor 211 dipping doritos in mott's applesauce like salsa is a great snack and flavor combination it's sounds like a cheeto apple pie which you can watch on mythical kitchen oh wait that is true yeah this is essentially the same thing literally this though it seems like a scene from something like uh what was that will smith movie where he's fighting the zombies it's not i robot because that was about will smith

fighting robots uh i i zombie no i carly no no zombie land no no no world war z ryan's probably typing it slack right now no now i am legend i am legend i was gonna say bad boys for life you thought will smith fights zombies and bad boys yeah martin lawrence is a zombie in that movie is that like a deep cut analysis of it that i didn't get because i thought they were just two bad boy police officers doing anything they needed to do to take down the bad guys you were saying i was saying dipping doritos in mox applesauce seems like a scene from like i am legend where the apocalypse has happened and they're like remember chips and salsa all we got now is doritos and mox but not bad not bad

oh i take it yeah this makes sense to me in the way that cheeto apple pie makes sense to me and that it doesn't make sense but you can enjoy it razzle dazzle yeah says my guilty pleasure food is grape jelly and puffy cheeto sandwich on wonder bread the sweet of the jelly soft bread crunchy cheetos it's delightful i know it sounds gross but just try it josh nicole try it i love when people talk like that in in these comments because it's like they're really trying to get us to try it but they don't know that like the adverse will happen if you mention our names so wait you feel that way i feel the opposite i feel so personally connected to razzle dazzle that they mentioned us by name that i feel you know inclined to actually no it's because they're

trying too hard to get us to try it and i don don't need that in my life. Don't try so hard. Just say it with confidence. Say it with your chest. And you don't need to mention us by name. And we'll do it. No, Nicole, you're saying that the harder people try and connect with you, the more you push them away. That's right.

Do you think that's because you're afraid of your own emotionally intimate relationships? I'm just trying to talk about jelly and Cheeto sandwiches right now don't need to psychoanalyze your co-host um but all jokes aside this sounds good because i like doing trash things like this and wonder bread is like a clean slate you know you can do whatever you want to wonder bread so i approve wonder bread i don't know if there is a better cake on this planet than a slice of wonder bread i fully i don't know if you noticed this but on set the other day i was a hankering for something sweet and we had a loaf of wonder bread and i grabbed a loaf of one i grabbed a slice of wonder bread and i smeared duncan high no pillsbury white frosting on it and just ate it

and to me that is a cake. It is delicious. I love Wonder Bread. It's like scientifically developed to just make your brain happy with its texture and flavor. It's delicious. Cheetos and grape jelly, salty, sweet. I don't always agree with that combination or that logic, but I can see this really working. I'd enjoy it. I love throwing chips in a sandwich too. That was the height of culinary innovation. There's an episode of Boy Meets World. Did you watch Boy Meets World? Of course I did.

There's an episode where Corey's dad, like they were supposed to go to a baseball game, but then like things came up at work and they had to cancel. And it was like this very special episode where it was like, sometimes you got to make concessions in life, you stupid idiot, Corey. Then his dad like pulls him out of school the next day to stay up late to watch a baseball game and he makes a sandwich with chips in it and that was like him showing his fatherly love oh that's really cute i just go to bay cities and put my chips in my sandwich yo god that sounds so good right now yeah i'm on a bay city sandwich can we go to bay cities before we go to work you're closer can you pick it up i'm serious if you let me come a little bit later

to work i'll get you a sandwich. This isn't part of the podcast. This is just me and Nicole coordinating our lunch. This is being fat. Actually, just order it for delivery right now. We're not doing anything. Oh, no, I'll go get it. We'll finish the podcast. Finish the podcast.

Okay, okay, we got it. Get me a godmother. Okay, sure. Spicy godmother. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. At BC Crow Goth. I love them, but sloppy joes are just beanless chili sandwiches.

This is what I like to call the chili equivocation paradox. It's something we've talked about many times on the podcast, that the word chili no longer means anything because it has been so far bastardized from the idea of chile con carne, the original Mexican Tejano recipe for it. And so if bastardized from the idea of chile con carne the original like mexican tejano recipe for it and so like if you take something like cincinnati chili which is a little bit sweeter a little bit more vinegary i can see how you would think sloppy joes are beanless chili sandwiches but i don't believe that that's like i i think sloppy joes are american uh larb

sandwiches right you can you can spin this i larb larb so much you know night market makes a hat that says i larb larb what okay well i guess we gotta get that hat so i can add it to my really really cool restaurant merch collection that i'm trying to accumulate have you noticed that i you know julia just got me a genghis cohen hat oh my gosh uh david just got me a Genghis Cohen hat. Oh my gosh. David just got me an In-N-Out t-shirt. It's so funny. Me and Nicole's love language is just novelty restaurant merchandise. That's so true. Yeah, I love sloppy joes too, but not any ground meat in flavor sauce can just be considered

beanless chili. No, but this does make sense to me because that's all a sloppy joe sandwich is. Remember that one time I opened up a can of manwich and i expected to find meat in it sorry about that oh yeah you had never eaten have you ever eaten a sloppy joe before that or have you just never had manwich before but when you think about it that's what that's what chili is it's manwich plus meat i mean ish like but manwich is it's super vinegary and sweet there's like a ton of sugar in it but i guess there is like tomato and onion and bell pepper and spices so like i can see how you would think

it's being the chili sandwiches i don't necessarily agree that said just putting chili in a bun with nothing else on it is really delicious totally it's good stuff let's see what's next. Logan underscore Carlson 26. All sauces are condiments, but not all condiments are sauces. Remember when we said all, what is it? All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. This is that same conversation. And, you know, I agree with that statement because condiments, you're right. You know, a sauce is a condiment, but a condiment is not a sauce. A condiment can be right you know a sauce is a condiment but a condiment

is not a sauce a condiment can be you know like a dry have you ever dukkah spice uh egyptian that is i consider that a condiment but that's not a sauce because it's dry i agree with that yeah it's like salsa seca like it's like you know anything that can uh add flavor to a food yeah sumac sumac. Sumac's a perfect example, too. But I don't know if all sauces are condiments. Because would you consider, like, marinara sauce to be a condiment? It could be.

Would you consider alfredo sauce? But I don't know if that's necessarily true. If it's used primarily as an ingredient in cooking, I don't think you could, like, reasonably call it a condiment. The Supreme Court definition of reasonable is varied and vast. Go, but you go. I feel like I can. No, you can use it as a condiment. The Supreme Court definition of reasonable is varied and vast. But you go. I feel like I can. No, you can use it as a condiment. You could use you could use marinara sauce as a condiment for a eggplant Parmesan sandwich. You could use Alfredo sauce as a as a bread covering. This is how I think of it. If I can put it in a sandwich as a spread,

I consider it a condiment. Okay, hold on. But think about put it in a sandwich as a spread, I consider it a condiment. Okay, hold on. But think about the eggplant Parmesan sandwich example, right? If that eggplant Parmesan sandwich does not have sauce in it already, is it an eggplant Parm sandwich? No, but I'm just saying the addition of the cold marinara sauce or hot marinara sauce adds to the sandwich aspect of it. okay but hold on hold on hot dogs is it still a hot dog if there's no ketchup on it it is yes so what i'm saying is the the sauce is an integral part of an eggplant parm sandwich it's not something you would add on top like ketchup on a hot dog the condiment does not define the sandwich it ampl amplifies it. But I'm saying an eggplant parm sandwich

is defined by its sauce, making it not a condiment. Well, you know, we can deconstruct this a little bit. What is an eggplant parm? It is fried eggplant, cheese, and sauce. And if I want to add more sauce to it to make it more of a condiment, what if I swap out the marinara sauce and I put Alfredo sauce on it?

So you're saying that there can be endemic sauces and condimentary sauces for sure whatever endemic means okay okay i don't exactly know what it means you know i got i got um in-house suspension from school once where like they just made you sit in a quiet room for 10 hours to think about what you did i just like forgot to bring a note from i would i would fake six so many many times from school that I just started writing my own notes and forging them and all that. I don't recommend doing that. But anyways, I, so I studied like an SAT vocab book for like 10 hours one day. And that's where all of my vocabulary comes from. I don't know what endemic means, but I probably read it when I was 17 at

some point. So funny. All right. At ShuaCore. I'm also from SoCal, so I have no cultural reason for this, but I have an unusual addiction to adding roughly a quarter teaspoon each yellow curry powder, garam masala and cayenne to my chicken top ramen. My wife laughs at it. Please justify me.

I think this is really interesting because so masala, like curry powder doesn't exist in India, right? Like the term masala is just the term for spice. Spice blend. And so all curry powders, I believe this is correct.

Desi followers, please jump in and correct me. All curry powders are technically masalas that are different mixes and all that. Yeah, there's garam, chaat, bunch, like X, Y, and Z. There's an endless number. When I left for college, my best friend Deep gave me, and I believe his mom gave this to me as a gift a bag of something called sandwich masala oh yeah that is really it's really popular in india just to like add as a condiment which i guess is a good thing like literally just sprinkle it on a sandwich and so i would like sprinkle it on

egg salad sandwiches and it's delicious that's cute this person's taken like multiple different very heavy indian spice blends and some cayenne for extra heat to your chicken top ramen i bet it's really delicious garam masala to me though tastes like well at least a lot of the pre-packaged stuff you get almost tastes more akin to like pumpkin spice i was just about to say that yeah yeah it's totally a very warming um very very intense spice blend i would toast it before i put in my ramen actually i would just put a put a little bit of oil and just toast it up just to really awaken the spices. And then I would add it to my top ramen. But this is a good take.

That's called a tadka. I just read a really great article by Nick Sharma about making tadkas, which is where you infuse the spices into an oil before you cook. And it's like the reason so many Indian dishes taste so great. So yeah, make a tadka.

Yeah. And then add your top ramen to it. That's dope. And also don't let your wife make a tadka. Yeah. And then add your top ramen to it. That's dope. And also don't let your wife make fun of you for it. Stand up for yourself. Yeah. Don't make fun of people for food preferences unless it's funny and unless we're making fun of you

and then it's okay. That's our job. That's our job. Kaylee Cat underscore XO says, I love salsa and a dash of sour cream to make it more creamy mixed in my mac and cheese. Hey, mac and cheese is like Wonder Bread and cheese is like wonder bread it is a blank slate do whatever you want to it and it'll probably be good just don't be weird about it like this is

acceptable a little bit of sour cream a little bit of salsa go wild that's awesome but whenever it starts to get like really weird like i don't know putting like i don't know what's a weird thing to put in mac and cheese raisins yeah raisins if you put thing to put in mac and cheese? Raisins. Yeah. Raisins. If you put raisins in your mac and cheese, it's questionable. If you put apricot jam, I'm going to look at you funny. This is good. Apricot jam in mac and cheese. Hold on. Hold on. That sounds pretty good to me. No, no, it doesn't. Apricot jam would belong on a cheese plate. Why doesn't it belong in mac and cheese? Because I said so. Fair. Yeah. Salsa and sour cream and mac and cheese. That sounds really great. Sounds lovely.

Okay, at Charles III, I feel that the LA restaurants featured in YouTube videos are mostly overrated. My girlfriend and I take little road trips and while the experiences are good, the food rarely blows us away. We found some faves. Can you recommend any good eats? So I remember going to my first ever restaurant

that I saw like featured on television. And I was like, oh my God, this restaurant featured on television. And I was like, Oh my God, this restaurant was on television. It must serve the best food ever because that's what television and media does. It selects the best things possible. And then I went there,

it was a place featured on diners, drive-ins and dives. And it was like just a normal coffee shop in fountain Valley. And I got an omelet and I was like, yep, that's a regular kind of crappy omelet from a kind of crappy diner. Most food just kind of tastes the same in a way. And also the like, yep, that's a regular kind of crappy omelet from a kind of crappy diner. Most food just kind of tastes the same in a way. And also the idea of hype, like you said, it's overrated, not because it's bad.

The food could still be good, but you saw a YouTube video about it. So it rated it very highly in your mind. People say that hunger is the best sauce. I find low expectations are the best sauce. Go into every meal like it's going to suck and you're going to be blown away. I find low expectations are the best sauce. Go into every meal like it's gonna suck and you're gonna be blown away. I agree with that sentiment. I've always gone to places that I've had such high expectations that I end up being let down. I think that's a fantastic way to think about it. Go into it without any expectations. Just because it was on TV doesn't necessarily

mean it's good. It just means that they got a pretty good break. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Had a good publicist. If you, what's the one restaurant you steer people towards when they come to LA? I don't know. All restaurants are closed right now. I can't. I mean, in the, in the pre COVID times when restaurants were thriving, if someone said, I have one place to eat in LA, where do you tell them to go? This is going to be so bougie of me. Should I just say it? Oh, you gotta say it. But you already talked about Louboutin. I'm sorry. Uh, it's the Nomad Hotel. Really? Yeah. I think it's fantastic food and I

think the service is phenomenal and it's beautiful and it's, I just really enjoy it. I enjoy the whole atmosphere. I went, I got wine, I got cocktails, I ate, I laughed, I cried. It was great. Nicole, I hate that answer so much i'm sorry you have no idea how much it hurts my heart i told they're from nicole it's a new york restaurant but they do such a good job here okay what do you want me to say capital burgers you're entitled to your opinion i'm sure they're fantastic i've never been though they did have a food truck where they served like a 12 truffle hot dog and that was really freaking good dude yeah good stuff uh i would i'd probably tell people to go like go to gala getsa yeah that's a good one get wahaq and food they have really good like mezcal program too and it's

something that's very unique to you know la and it's like a really historical restaurant but no you go go get a bougie $90 roast chicken in that hotel you bully you're a bully and on that note thank you for listening to a Hot Dog is a Sandwich. We 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 nhendizadeh with the hashtag OpinionCasserole. And for more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube. We launch new videos

every week. And of course, if you want to share pics of your dishes, hit us up on Instagram at Mythical Kitchen. We'll see you next time. Nicole's going to be rocking the Louboutin heels am i pronouncing that right louboutin oh yeah

louboutins oh yeah