A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Are All Noodles Pasta?

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

Today, Josh and Nicole explore the difference between pasta and noodles. Are all noodles pasta and if so, are all pasta noodles? Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: http://youtube.com/@ahotdogisasandwich To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Did you hear that noodle the pug died? You mean pasta the pug. What? Because all pasta is noodles. He's dead, you monster. 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. I'm your host, Josh Scherer. And I'm your host, Nicole Anayadi. And we are internet chefs over on the

Good Mythical Morning and Mythical Kitchen channels. When we're not making Oreo Top Ramen, we're breaking down the world's biggest food debates right over here. Wow, that was good. Thank you. I like the way you said that. I've tried to stop looking at the script that we wrote so much. Nothing in this is scripted. I love looking at my computer. If it was scripted,

this podcast would be so much better. Oh my God. All the factual inaccuracies would be cleaned up. Are you sure? You know, people wouldn't be like, oh, Trader Joe's isn't owned by Aldi. It's owned by Aldi Nord,

which split up with the two brothers that owned Aldi. And I'm like, listen, and Aldi's an Aldi. Wow, really? That's not the point, Nicole. Sorry, I'm putting on some lip gloss. I'm listening.

Would you just put on lip gloss in the middle of a podcast? Yeah, it's a video podcast. I want them to see my lips be nice and shiny. But are you sponsored by this lip gloss company? No. It'd be nice if I was. None of that's important.

What is important is that Noodles the Pug is dead. Yes. He was our Oracle pug. The owner would lift him up and it would either be a Bones Day or a No Bones Day. Okay. And that's how I made millions on the stock market. If it was a Bones Day, I'd go bear. If it was No Bones Day, I'd go bull. I don't know what any of that means how I made millions on the stock market. If it was a bones day, I'd go bear. If it was no bones day, I'd go bull.

I don't know what any of that means. I do. I know the difference between a bull and bear. Do you? No, I actually don't. Oh, I do. But I'm not going to explain on the podcast because the main point of this podcast is asking, are all noodles pasta?

And this is a great question. This gets really deep and nerdy, which I'm really excited about because this actually came up. We produced an episode for Good Mythical Morning we did called international noodle taste test okay this was before my time i believe was this oh shoot was this before your time but i'd love to hear that because i vaguely remember keeping like five saute pans going by myself at one time and like having to flip them around okay we did international noodle taste test we're initially

going to call it international pasta taste test but then but then I stepped in. I was like, hey, pasta is, to me, strictly referring to the Italian canon of noodles. Whereas if you say noodle, that can encompass all forms of pasta. Tons of things from Asia, from the Middle East. There's dishes in Africa. We did a spaghetti jollof recipe, or maybe it's just jollof pasta from Nigeria. But we included things like penne noodles in there because i would call penne a noodle and then we got a ton of comments that were like penne is not a noodle noodles have to be long in strandy and then you got people from

italy in the comments being like no that isn't even pasta that's macaroni oh yeah so it opened up this huge can of worms and this is something I've been wanting to talk about for a while. Okay. And then we had to wait for like 130 of our better ideas for podcasts. I think it's a good idea. I mean, when somebody says noodle versus pasta, what do you think of? I have a very vivid image in my mind. What's it?

It is a dry bag, not a box, but a bag of yellow egg noodles. That's what you think of with noodle. It is. It is the first thing that comes to my mind. That, to me, that's a very Jew-y food that I grew up eating a lot. Is it? Like, we had noodle kugel, right? Not me, but you. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. For me, it's a very, like, Ashkenazi, very white, Eastern European Jewish thing. We would take these egg noodles,

and one, you can put them in soup. I had them in chicken noodle soup a lot growing up. I had it in, like, you know, mishmash soup? Nope. It's chicken noodle soup with matzo balls. Is that like a real name? Does it have crepe lox in it? Yeah, sometimes there's crepe lox in it. Yeah, yeah.

It's like you go to a Vietnamese restaurant, they have like dak biet. Which is just the house. Which just means like the house special. To me, that's like you go to a deli, you get the mishmash. Oh, cool. You've never had crepe lox before. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, so yeah, I think of noodles with that because my first exposure noodles is probably chicken noodle soup.

OK. So that's what it's in a can of Progresso, Campbell's Chunky, those egg noodles. But then you go to any Korean restaurant, Vietnamese restaurant, Chinese restaurant. There's generally a section for noodles. Which is separate from the soup. Which is sometimes. Well, sometimes there's a noodle section. There's a noodle soup section and then there's a soup section. Oh, yeah.

So I'm thinking of like your standard Chinese American sit-down restaurant. It's not a steam table, not talking Panda Express. We're talking about your local neighborhood joint. We can go in and their section of noodles might contain a noodle soup or it could be stir-fried dry noodles like chow fun or lo mein. And mein is Cantonese for for noodle but then in mandarin noodle is mien correct which is a trip because we think of you know chow mein as your dominant chinese steam table noodle point is the soups don't have any noodles in it the soups you might have sizzling corn soup sizzling rice soup egg flour soup hot and sour soup uh none of those

have nudes none of those have nudes in them but some of them have dumplings in it, like say... But a dumpling isn't a noodle. It's just a carb base. But then you go to Italy and then their dumplings, like ravioli tortellini, right? It wasn't just a wonton, a tortellini. Nothing, nothing. One's made of pasta and one's made of dumpling, but not noodle. So all noodles

aren't pasta? All pastas aren't noodles? No, let me tell you, pasta, in my mind, it's like you said, it's a strictly Italian or like European thing for me. Yeah. Because it's like an Italian word. Yeah. Right. And noodle is.

American? German. Oh, noodle. Yeah. Noodle. Yeah. I love my noodles. So it's Central European.

It's either German or Dutch. Typically, it'll have like a K in it. We made a German dumpling soup. We made a flattelsuppe, which is like a German soup. But it's a very German word, and it just means thing. Just like pasta means thing. Just like in Vietnamese, bun means thing. It means like starchy, cakey thing.

Yeah, okay. Bun means thing. It means like starchy, cakey thing. Yeah, okay. So noodle literally means something that is made into a paste that is then sort of elongated into- Elongated. It can also mean like dumpling. But it really doesn't have a defined meaning. Do you know what pasta means?

Tell me. Paste. It means paste. Right? So it literally just refers to making a paste out of awesome out of flour right or out of anything and then stretching that into a dough similar with you know um uh the noodles in pho right it's called like bun pho are those vermicelli noodles uh vermicelli another weird thing this is why this is the nerdiest thing to me there's like five different vermicellis when I think of vermicellis.

There's a white one. There's a yellow one. There's a cut up fideo one. It's like all over the place. Do you know what vermicelli means? Tell me. Vermicelli is Italian, of course. It sounds very Italian.

Okay. And so vermicelli means little worms. And so it was like a southern Italian term for just a long strandy pasta. So you go to Italy and vermicelli can sometimes mean a like thicker than spaghetti strandy pasta. But then in America, you say vermicelli and you mean a very, very thin noodle. Yes. Sometimes you go to a Vietnamese restaurant. This is the thing that trips me out so much. So in Vietnam, there are several different terms for the types of noodles, just like bun pho, which is the thick rice noodle that is found in pho.

You get bun, as in like my favorite Vietnamese dish, bun thịt nông chảyọ, the like thin- Everybody knows what that is. Thin rice noodles with bone-in grilled pork and delicious shrimpy egg rolls. But you get that. You go to a Vietnamese restaurant, there's a section on the menu that might say noodles.

And then one of the subsections of noodle is vermicelli. So you go to a Vietnamese restaurant, there's a section that is named after a German word, noodle, and then there's an Italian subset of a type of noodle called vermicelli. And Germany and Italy have nothing to do with even like the colonial history of Vietnam.

I'm just letting you cook right now. This is fascinating. It's fascinating. I'm letting you exert out all your energy until you're ready to debate. I'm like a dog that you have to let run around in the yard. Listen, I've known you for what? I'm going to start pooping in the grass. Three, four years. I've known you long enough to when you find something you find yourself very interested in, I just let you go.

I let you go. And whenever you're ready for the interaction, I'll give it to you. Is there anything else I need to know about pasta and noodles? Weren't you going to tell me something about Marco Polo? You're like, Nicole, wait, I'm going to talk to you about Marco Polo. I was. I was. Have you heard the Marco Polo myth that that's how pasta came to Italy?

Faintly. Faintly. One of the reasons I wanted to talk about this in the podcast is because if you go over to the Smosh channel, you can watch my funeral roast. It was really good. Where they all read me to filth. Read me for filth, read me to filth. I think read me for filth.

For filth. They all read me for filth, but a joke that Arasha made, one that's the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. So funny. But she referenced me telling you, quote, where pasta actually comes from.

And as I was laying in that coffin, I was like, I feel like what she's referring to is the fact that pasta, even though people think it's Italian, actually comes from China. And that comes from the Marco Polo myth that in the 1200s traveled the Silk Road, went to Kublai Khan's royal court, ended up in, I can't remember what dynasty it was in China at the time. But basically like discovered that they were eating noodles in China and then brought that back to Italy. That is completely untrue. noodles in China and then brought that back to Italy.

That is completely untrue. Pasta, the development of taking starch, grinding it into flour, turning it into some form of noodle, some form of long strand. Cooking it in water or something. Those both developed recent archaeological history. In China, they think they found a bowl of noodles

made from millet 4,000 years old. Cool as hell that people did that. How did they find that? It was just on an archaeological dig and they examined the seed husks around it. It was just buried under... No way. Millet was able to withstand that?

Yeah, I guess it must have been preserved in whatever way. And they found the seed pods of it. God, I don't know. But millet is like a really hard grain. Yeah. And that was back before China cultivated wheat. A lot of people may think of rice as the dominant starch in East Asia and for, you know, a majority.

It was, but also long history of wheat noodles. So you look at the ingredients of like Mian, which is wheat noodle and spaghetti, which is Giada De Laurentiis' favorite noodle. And they're damn near identical, except for maybe some lye water that is used some alkaline water sure that's used in chinese noodles yes um anyways the greeks were also making their own type of pasta about 3 000 years ago they called lagane interesting so the ancient greeks also they were taking a paste that was made from ground wheat and they were elongating and they were boiling it they they were making a soup out of chickpeas and leeks in these boiled strips of pasta.

So interesting. And that's about 3,000 years ago. And then of course these things just they evolved divergently and then eventually they meet in about like 100 AD I believe was the first like Euro exploration into you know the kingdoms of China

and then they met and they're like oh my, my God, yo, you eat noodles? We eat noodles. How do we know a German word a thousand years before it existed? I don't know. But point is, language often fails us. Is that what we've learned from this podcast? I don't know, kind of. Like, do you consider macaroni to be noodles?

I mean, the thing thing is it's extruded and then it gets cut right yeah it gets extruded through a die yes now i'm sure there's people that were out there you know making their own noodles rolling it by hand whatever but the modern take of these noodles that are pushed through dyes calling them noodles instead of pasta products feels wrong you know what i mean i don't know that it does calling i don't know a radio tar or whatever it's called radiator like calling that a noodle feels wrong but at the same time how can i do that whenever there's like tons of noodles in like different countries that don't need to be these long elongated strips of of wheat or

durham or whatever and those things are considered noodles. So I'm kind of like an impasse from like a culinary standpoint. Like I don't think it's fair to call it noodles because noodles are long in my mind. When I think of a noodle, I think of something long, wide, flat, thin, whatever. But the thought of something being extruded, like a penne being extruded, and then that being a noodle just doesn't make sense to me so that's where my path you're writing a recipe for macaroni uh-oh okay nicole something's got unlocked my brain we're about to go down another rabbit hole i'm sorry did you i can't control this i don't like who i am all the time either feather in your cap and did you call yourself macaroni well i think that do you know the

origin behind that macaroni is like a well-dressed man, right? Yeah, it was like, you're like a stylist, you're peacocking out there as our hero mystery from the Matt Wilson's The Masked. Is that where it's from? No, I think they used the term peacocking though,

but yeah, to be a macaroni back then. That's where the song Return of the Mac comes from, of course. No, I don't believe that's true. I totally believed you. I was like, I love that song. No way. But no, the term macaroni predates the word pasta in Italian. And so macaroni comes from ancient Greek makaria,

which means something made from barley, which is to say grain. How awesome. Right? And so if you talk to the Sopranos, if you talk to Tony Soprano, he might call everything macaroni and gravy. Oh, well, I call everything macaroni.

You call everything macaroni. Well, in Farsi, every pasta, short, long, medium, doesn't matter. It's all macaroni. Yeah. All of it. And that comes from

the south of Italy because Italian was not a unified language. Still in Italy, there are parts that you can go to where people do not speak the same dialect at all. You could say the same in America you know I um you go to the deep south you go to Cajun country you find people that speak different dialects but yeah in Italy it's a much much much

more recent unification history I had no idea so there's regions where I remember talking to somebody who was like yo I work for with a dude from like Lombardy and like I'm from Sicily and like we don't understand each other that That's wild to me. 100%. And so macaroni is a southern Italian word coming from Sicily. So they use that to mean like any type of pasta. Somehow in America, macaroni and cheese,

popularized supposedly by Thomas Jefferson, but macaroni to us means elbow noodles. Yes, it does. Elbow noodles in Italian is gomiti. Gomiti. Gomiti. What does that mean? Elbow noodles in Italian is gomiti. Gomiti. Gomiti. What does that mean? I don't even know what gomiti means.

I know my favorite very bisexual coded Italian rock band, Monoskin. Oh, yeah. We love Monoskin. They have a song called Lividi Sui Gomiti, and I think that's their best work. Honestly, their latest album is not good. They used to make real music. Il Teatro d'Iro, volume one. Great album.

Check it out. It's before they won Eurovision. And then it was all downhill from there. Are you going to talk about Eurovision for 14 minutes without interruptions again? ZT e Buoni. ZT e Buoni was a fantastic song. You know, and then all their stuff's in English now. They even had Tom Morello on a track recently.

Oh, cool. Yeah, it's cool until you listen to it. I don't know. Måneskin, come on the show. I don't really listen Manuskin that much. I don't know Manuskin. Come on the show. I don't really listen to Tom Morello either. I do eat a lot of pasta. Okay, so. But I don't eat a lot of noodles.

You're making a macaroni and cheese recipe. Yes. What do you say when you're like, now add your blank to the cheese sauce? I do say noodles. You say noodles. I do say noodles. And why do you say when you're like, now add your blank to the cheese sauce? I do say noodles. You say noodles. I do say noodles. And why do you say noodles? Why do you use any word? But this podcast has created an impasse in my mind because I just don't think it's fair for all noodles to be categorized as pasta.

Not all noodles are pasta. But all pasta is noodles, I guess. All pasta is noodles. But I don't want it to be. All pasta is noodles. Uh-oh. I don't think all pasta is noodles. pasta is noodles, I guess. All pasta is noodles. But I don't want it to be. All pasta is noodles. Uh-oh. I don't think all pasta is noodles. Like, orzo is not a noodle.

Ditalini isn't a noodle. Couscous isn't a noodle. Do you know where the macaroni in Persian comes from? Nope. Yeah, but it's just like, that's just what you grew up. It's just general. It's just a general term. But like, so if you're eating penne, you're being like, hey, that's macaroni.

Yeah. Can you tadig any macaroni? Oh, Yeah. Can you tadig any macaroni? Oh, yeah. Have you tadig multiple macaroni? I can tadig just about anything. That is the most hardcore Persian flex. I can tadig anything. I can tadig.

I'm actually really bad at making tadig. But one day I'll be so good. I think when I'm a Persian mom, I think I'll be the best tadiger in the nation. I just got to wait. Do they have like a national or international tadig championships? I'm going to start it. I'm going to start that stuff immediately. How do we like is Twitch big in Iran or do they have like a national or international tadig championships i'm gonna start that stuff immediately how do we like is twitch big in iran or do they i've mentioned probably banned yeah probably banned um well my my question is josh could you ever if all noodle

if all noodles are pasta no not all noodles are pasta okay well that's the title of the podcast yeah but let me know all pasta is noodles all pasta is noodles. All pasta is noodles. And I'll explain why. The name of the podcast is Are All Noodles Pasta? But now you're saying all pasta is noodles. And my answer to that title, Nicole, is not. Again, this is the most complicated thing in the world. So not all noodles is pasta.

I agree with you. I agree with you. Pasta? Okay. No. I recant. Noodles is. Is it when I say

the icon do you forget noodles the pug is a false idol he's not Christian he is dark magic do not listen to him he's dark sided

he's dark sided I'm a god warrior what I was saying yes Josh have you ever had like acorn acorn starch noodles no

mung bean noodles yes right but I'm saying many times mung bean noodles oh mung bean noodles yes right but i'm saying many times you have like uh they call them in in hawaii like wiki wiki noodles like the glass noodles that are very thin never been to hawaii point it you should go oh my god it's so fun okay why have you never been i just didn't have the opportunity are you like are you like i had somebody say that to me once about hawaii and it was really upsetting they, are you like, I had somebody say that to me once about Hawaii and it was really upsetting. They said, are you poor?

No, they didn't. They were like, you've never stayed at the Kauai Hilton before or something. And I was just like, you're my boss and you pay me 30 grand a year and I have crushing student loans. No. You don't, you don't ski. You don't go skiing. I'm like, bro, what the hell?

No, I do not. But where do you operate? Yeah. Like, what are you talking about? Sorry. You were saying. Point is, there are noodles that are made from so, so, so many things that are not flour. Right.

And in their respective languages, they have separate names for them. And I like that. I agree with that. I agree. And I do generally agree with honoring different languages by calling things by their name sure however i understand i only know the scene with the peach um however i also understand that if you are a restaurateur in america who is from korea who is from thailand wherever and you're trying to sell your goddamn food and so you call it you meet you reach people where they are yeah

right so we talk about we've talked about thai curry before right i was just about to say like the noodles that are in thai curry the yellow one that i really like so that's a hell noodle like you know curry it like comes from hindi or uh one of the the many dialects they're in but that has been anglicized it was actually kadi which again hindi is written out in its own characters so how do you even anglicize that but curry was like a British colonial Indian term that then Thailand was like oh y'all like

spicy fragrant stewed things great we got those they were called but like screw it now it's curry we're trying to slang some damn curry yeah no it makes sense we're trying to make money we're trying to feed our family so a lot of Asian restaurants have adopted the term noodle again a weird German word that is very that is so readily understandable in english

because we have so many things like that you know we have macaroni we have all these italian noodles we have instant noodles of all varieties of course and so you go to an asian restaurant and so you go to vietnamese restaurant and you see noodle and you're like well are these thick or thin and then one person was like i've seen at the american grocery store y'all sell something And so you go to a Vietnamese restaurant and you see noodle and you're like, well, are these thick or thin? And then one person was like, I've seen at the American grocery store, y'all sell something called vermicelli. We have boon. And so screw it. Which is an equivalent.

Boon is now vermicelli, you know? And so you're constantly sort of languages evolving all the time. You're constantly chasing around the changing definitions of to meet people where they are to say what is most readily identifiable so you're trying to tell people to dump their uh what is it gomiti right you're trying to tell people to dump their gomiti into their velveta sauce in a recipe no people don't know gomiti so you're gonna say noodle you're gonna say macaroni you gotta do what you gotta do to sell the product exactly you gotta make people want to click and want to do it and i think it's it's kind of cool to see these you know melting pots and how we end up

with all this cross-pollination of languages right and how you end up with uh the reverse could be true in in guatemala you have like tortas de chow mein have you seen this no it's a popular guatemalan sandwich it's probably popular in parts of mexico too but i've only had it guatemalan spots okay where they take chow mein became popularized in the instant noodle form. Okay. You can go to like the Latin section

of grocery stores in LA and you can find a pack of chow mein. But there's a like brand of packaged chow mein that is very popular

in Latin America. Okay. And in Guatemala they started stir frying up the noodles putting it in like a bolillo and then making a torta de chow mein.

And so now chow mein, it's spelled C-H-A-O-M-E-I-N. Oh, fun. And so you get this like weird cross pollination. Yeah. And so, you know, that's not a noodle, that's mein, which is a Cantonese word,

not Mandarin. Mandarin is mian. Sorry. How do you feel about like the interchanging of different kinds of noodles from different countries? Like what would you do? What would you do if we were, you we had to do like a an episode and then it's like oh

i didn't buy the right noodles the only thing i have like if i i want to use like chow fun yeah but i can't use chow fun because i didn't buy it in time would it be horrible would it be wrong if i just put some capellini in there you know what i mean yeah yeah what would it like like if all if all noodles if all pasta it like like if all if all noodles if all pasta is noodles and if all noodles are pasta why can't you interchange it oh you can and i'm and i'm 100% for that do you really feel that way but what about different sizes of noodles like putting penne there okay there are so many so like bun pho like yeah refers to the actual like cut of the noodle right it refers to the actual, like, cut of the noodle. Right? It refers to the thickness of a very specific kind.

There are so many pho spots you'll go to that, and again, these are owned by Vietnamese people. And I hope I'm not just misrepresenting this, but this is what I've been told. So many Vietnamese restaurants that will just put different kinds of noodles in their pho. They're still made of rice. And most people don't know the difference. And they don't care. Is it the thickness and thinness that just varies? Yeah.

So sometimes there will be, like, the noodles would be in Boon, the vermicelli. Yeah. You know, instead of the slightly thicker like bun pho. Sure. And that's whatever. Like it doesn't please me as much. You know, I don't love it as much. But also, again, it's like you're trying to get as close as you can with the stuff that you got.

Yeah. There is a really famous article from the really famous in my circles, Oberlin College. You know Oberlin College? Never heard of that college before in my life. I think. What's Oberlin College? Lena Dunham went there. It's kind of known as like the, when conservatives talk about like, you know, cultural Marxism,

they're talking about Oberlin College. It's gotten this stereotype. There was once an article that was written about how at their dining hall, they had like a bun mee or something and it had like American pulled pork and the bread wasn't right. And bun me actually means baguette and they didn't use that and all this. And it was a person talking about how that's cultural appropriation. Okay.

It might be true. And it's not my place to really say. Okay. The thing that I will say is you're not talking about somebody making like a massive profit. You're not talking about a chef who is opening up like Rick Bayless who's making millions of dollars off of selling Mexican salsas and positioning himself as the king of Mexican food. You're talking about a dining hall chef at a university who's probably making $13 an hour just trying to make the best food he can. And when I was in college, they made a pad thai with spaghetti and ketchup.

Okay. Right? And when I was in college, they made a pad thai with spaghetti and ketchup. Okay. Right? Certainly not the best pad thai you've ever had on account of had spaghetti and ketchup. But the ketchup was meant to mimic the tamarind paste that would be used in pad thai, right? Valid. And obviously, they didn't have the thick rice noodles, so they did spaghetti. And it was better than just eating spaghetti dumped with red sauce on it every single night at a dining hall because, you know, the chef's working on a budget. And so for me, it's not always going to be perfect.

Yeah. But like I really respect people who try and don't do it from like a crappy place. They don't do it from a place of like I'm trying to explain this culture to my own gain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to feed people good food, man. Yeah, I think I think college. game yeah yeah yeah trying to feed people good food man yeah i think i think college i've seen a lot of pictures of like college dining halls and like this isn't sushi or like this yeah and it's i do believe that they're not trying to like troll people in colleges i think they're just

trying to do the best that they can instead of like a food show like we're trying to troll people but um but yeah i just think it's so interesting how everybody has a noodle that they love like for example we use something called reshta which is a wheat noodle in in something called ashresha which is a very famous stew the thought of using angel hair or fettuccine in that makes my blood boil though oh fair yeah i wouldn't do it i just wouldn't even make the soup at that point you know what i mean like i just wouldn't even do it but at that point. You know what I mean? Like I just wouldn't even do it. But I. Resh has like that thick noodle, right? That has like a substantial chew to it.

It's like a thick weedy noodle. I just couldn't imagine like subbing it out like so classically. But in some cases, I think you can sub it out. Yeah. Like there are like if you were to use spaghetti to make chow mein, right? It's not the worst thing in the world, is it? No. use spaghetti to make chow mein right it's not the worst thing in the world is it no but when you're looking at the like uh you know mian versus spaghetti like the difference in ingredients is

truly truly a little bit of alkaline solution yeah it's not gonna be the best chow mein you've ever had yeah right um but that said if you don't know where to buy those noodles and you don't want to make them from scratch obviously and. And you're trying to introduce your family, say, to a different food that you've never made before. That's right. Use spaghetti.

It's very, very close. You know what I mean? So many mommy blogs have like spaghetti in place of chow mein. And honestly, it works. And spaghetti is cheap as hell because we produce so much of it

and it's traveled the world. And you see spaghetti has ended up in different cultures, right? You go to Dominican Republic they eat a spaghetti that they'll put olives in and it's a big beach food for some reason spaghetti on beach you go to Japan even you have spaghetti napolitan sure yeah right um Philippines spaghetti with banana ketchup sauce which is beautiful that's right and so like you get all this to to me, pasta noodles

are the biggest cross-cultural food pollinator. You're right. And literally because it evolved in at least two separate instances thousands of years ago, thousands of miles apart, could have also been perpetuated by the Arab world as well.

Highly possible. By the Persian empire. That's what's up. But point is, it's like literally the one unifying food, I think, across all cultures.

And I think it's beautiful. Whether we call it pasta, whether we call it noodles. Yeah. I think it's just use whatever word that more people can actually understand.

It's so, it's just a good base. It's the best base around. It's like a tortilla. Yeah. Noodles, tortillas, breads,

all in the same family. Carbs. Carbs are the secret unifier of the world. We would have world peace if more people ate carbs. Gwyneth Paltrow, you got to start eating carbs again. Does she not eat carbs? She eats like paleo. I just watched the thing.

She eats paleo, which is no, there's still carbs in it, but it's like, you can eat like potatoes, but you can't eat grains because they're like paleolithic because they were cultivated by like human like agriculture yeah but also like wild wheat surely existed and people were grinding up i don't know none of this makes sense carb it's it's funny when people are like i love carbs it's like yeah you know who else loves carbs every freaking human being on thousands of years of human history eat more carbs this is the point of the podcast eat Eat more carbs, eat noodles. Eat noodles, eat pasta, and eat them with people you like. Even with people you don't like.

Maybe you'll like them after you have some pasta with them. Did we learn anything? Is there any information we can even take away here? I think you just are very passionate about it and I loved learning from you today. I really absorbed like 70% of the conversation

and you were great. I learned a lot from you. Thank you for being such a good teacher. I'm sorry I mansplained noodles at you. No, you didn't mansplain. I learned a lot. I mean, I do look, I mean, I know what noodles and pasta are,

but I think you really dive deep. And personally, I just appreciated it. I will say that I think all long things is noodles, including pool noodles. And that is the noodle that we didn't touch on, Nicole. The history of pool noodles is that. All right, Nicole. All right, Nicole.

Josh, you were so close to the microphone. I don't think I'm that close to the microphone You're literally Kissing the microphone R.I.P. headphone users I feel like I could announce horse racing Seabiscuit 2 electric boogaloo R.I.P. headphone users. I feel like I could announce horse racing. Can you just...

Can you just sit back a little bit and do that again? Opinions are like casseroles. Hi, Josh and Nicole. My name's Allie, and my fiance, harrison and i listen to your show a lot and i was just sitting here eating his mom's seafood chowder out of a bread bowl and i thought is a soup in a bread bowl a sandwich i don't think so but i would love to hear you debate it and if harrison's listening, hi, Harrison. Love you.

Hi, Harrison. Love you too, buddy. I love you. Anyways, soup in a bread bowl, a sandwich. Of course it's not. It's a dumpling. It's delicious is what it is. It's a soup dumpling.

It's a soup dumpling, but reverse. But reverse. No. No, it's a soup dumpling. It's a soup dumpling. Yeah, it's a soup dumpling. It's a soup pie. Oh, that's what it is, a soup pie.

It's a large format soup Oh, that's what it is. It's a soup pie. It's a soup. It's a large format soup dumpling. One to be shared. Well, I think a dumpling has to be cooked inside of the wrapper. We already talked about this and I don't think so. Hmm. Can I get a divorce from Nicole? How do you get a podcast divorce? We're not married.

We're not married. Well, whatever. You're getting married. I am married. I think soup pie. I think soup pie. It's a crust that's filled with things. For me, it's a soup dumpling. No, because pies are also baked. I I am married. I think soup pie. It's a crust that's filled with things. For me, it's a soup dumpling.

No, because pies are also baked. I like to eat... I will say something. I will say one thing. What? I like to get a very starchy, thick soup, fill a bread bowl, let it come to room temp so it thickens, and then I can eat it like a sandwich. And that's the real message.

If you put some gelatin in it, I'd be D. No, man. I'm D for that S. Hi, Josh and Nicole. This is Sam from Santa Cruz. I'm calling you with an angry opinion. And that opinion is they should stop making the new kind of chips and crackers.

What's that? They're not going to make anything better than a wheat and a ritz in the cracker section. And they're not going to make anything better than a wheat and a ritz in the cracker section and they're not going to make anything better than tortilla chips in the chip section i don't want anything made out of i love sort of quinoa crunch or some red lentil snack they're not like they're less carbs or more protein or whatever and they sure don't taste better he's correct correct. So what's the point? Let him cook. To take advantage of suburban moms who are trying to be healthy by eating

soy burgers instead of lean ground beef. It's ridiculous. It's a waste of time. Thank you. What this man is proposing is a sort of post-history. It's beautiful. The idea that people have that liberal democracy is very controversial,

liberal democracy is the end all be all of governance systems and this is the most it will ever be. So anything, you know, that comes afterwards,

it is just a regression. We're post history. Okay. I don't agree with that statement, but this man agrees with that, but with chips.

And crackers. There's no more innovation and crackers. No, I think there's innovation and crackers. What's the best chip or cracker innovation in the last 10 years? My favorite is raincoat crisps. The hell is a raincoat crisp? Well, you Google it, baby.

What do you mean Google it? Just tell me what it is. I'm just upset you said you wanted to get a divorce from me. We're not even married. Why would you ever divorce me? Raincoat crisp? Yeah, they're delicious. Raincoast.

Raincoast. Oops, I've been saying it wrong for seven years. What else is new? I pronounce words wrong sometimes. Oh, no, they're the crackers. They put the cranberries in it and stuff. I don't like that. Yeah, they put the things in the crackers.

I've had that. There's like figs in it. No, give me a good cracker. Those are worse. That's a regression. No, it's not. You asked me my opinion. I know, and I'm telling you that that's-

My opinion is wrong? Oh, my God. Oh, they're so bad. They're so hard, too. They're so hard. They're the best. Have you, and I'm telling you that that's... My opinion is wrong? Oh my God, they're so bad. They're so hard, too. They're so hard. They're the best. Have you ever had a piece of cheese with that? Yeah, it obstructs the cheese.

Oh my God, no it doesn't. You obstruct me from living my life, Josh. You want to talk about obstruction? I'm not taking the raincoat crisps, as you call them, out your hand. I can't believe you want to get a friend divorced. This is the meanest thing you've ever said to me. You said some mean things. You know veggie straws? Speaking of taking advantage of suburban white moms.

Veggie straws? You know what the veggie they're made out of is? A corn? Potato. It's a potato chip. Look up the actual ingredients. They're like colored green. There might be a little bit of spinach, a little bit of tomato.

The veggie in it is a potato. It's a guy calling Lay's vegetable chips. It's nothing bad. Nothing. You know what's the best cracker? A club cracker. I love club crackers. There's no cracker better than a club cracker,

but I do like rain coast. Is that how you say it? Rain coast crisps. I think crackers peaked with transubstantiation. Why are you using big words in this podcast to piss me off? It's when Jesus turned the flesh of his body into communion wafers. Well, communion wafers are the best. They're so good.

I've never had one before. I don't think I'm allowed to eat them. I'm not allowed to eat them, yeah. I accidentally ate one at a Catholic wedding. I didn't know I was supposed to. Accidentally on purpose? I was in the bathroom when they explained the rules, and I came back, and I saw everyone lining up for crackers, and I ate one.

And it was good. And now I have the hunger for it but I don't know if I'm allowed to eat them. Also, the Pope officially ruled that gluten-free communion wafers are not indeed the body of Jesus.

This is crazy. That's a real thing that happened. Why are they so white? I don't know. They're just like, because Jesus... They look like styrofoam. Because they believe

Jesus was white? I don't know. They're such white cookie, like crackers. They're such white little discs. It's crazy to me. They're such white cookie, like crackers. They're such white little disks. It's crazy to me. They're white, like stark white.

Animal crackers. Science peaked with animal crackers and that's where we land on. Animal crackers are cookies. I'm trying to think of a chip innovation that I've like enjoyed

over the last 10 years. Takis have been around for a long time in Mexico. We just kind of like imported them. 3D. Doritos 3D, like Bugles 3d like bugles i mean i like bugles they're fine i wouldn't call that like an innovation but like all these newfangled ones

with the lentil crisp popcorners popcorn i hate pop love popcorn kettle corn flavored popcorners that's a chip innovation keep those in my house and they are less carbs and less calories than a dorito i like the lentil one i like the ones that have like the lentils and like oh tara chips are my favorite though tara chips Chips are good. You get the taro. They're fun. They make you feel good. They're beautiful. There's a brand of chips called Food Should Taste Good or something like that. It's a really annoying brand, but they have like sweet potato

tortilla chips that were nice. I'm into it. I'm into the chip innovation centers. Yeah, keep it going. I love the energy though, dude. Love the energy. Yeah, same. Hi. Hi. I'm Veronica from PA. Hi the energy. Yeah, same. Hi. I'm Veronica from PA. Hi, Veronica.

Personally, I think mustard is not as bad as everybody says it is. I would definitely eat a spoonful of it, but I mean it's my opinion. You can get mad at me if you want. No, stop. You're making up false situations in your head that we're going to get mad at you.

I'm not mad at you. I understand you because I used to be a really staunch mustard hater. I didn't know that. Until my taste buds changed because taste buds change. Yeah, you hit puberty and your taste buds change. No. Wow. They change every seven years or something.

They start growing hair on my tongue. You have a hairy tongue? Yeah. Why? I don't know. I don't ask questions. I just shave every morning something start growing hair on my tongue you have a hairy tongue yeah why i don't know i don't ask questions i just you have hair on your tongue and that well when i hit puberty i they said you grow hair in places you didn't expect and then there was a place that i expected in the place i didn't expect oh my gosh what color is the hair are you asking if the carpet match? No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I love, I like mustard now. I used to not like mustard, but now I do because I appreciate the flavor and the tang and it adds a lot of dimension to foods.

I think yellow mustard, like American yellow mustard is like a very abstract, not bad. I still love it, especially on a hot dog. Yeah, sure. Makes me want a hot dog real bad. But I think there's a lot of other mustards out there that like actually

accentuate flavors more I've been using a lot of that Zatarain's Creole mustard you look like the 4th of July I think it's really good but there's

saying you don't like mustard is like saying you don't like hot sauce there's so many different varieties from so many parts of the world you know

strong horseradish Dijon lovely little honey mussy I love all mustards now busting on that honey musson it's know it's strong horseradish dijon lovely little honey mussy i love all mustards now busting on that honey mussin it's great it's delightful what does that mean i don't know busting on that honey mussy trevor said it i don't know what it means trevor's never said that sentence before in his life don't justify it that's where i got it from justify your bad behavior i can't believe you want a friend to vote. Irreconcilable.

Nicole and Josh love the show, everything about it. Just wanted to share my way to goldfish. Add Valentina hot sauce. To goldfish? Try it. Ooh, I can see that. I understand that. I like that. I'm into that.

You know, you just pour it in the bag and you go shake, shake, shake, shake. Then you eat it and your fingers get a little bit sticky and it just slides on down and you do it again tomorrow. You know what my favorite thing is about Valentina hot sauce is how big the bottles are. What do you say? Sticky or stinky? Sticky. It's kind of like

xanthan gummy. The way that it drips out. It's got a thickness. It's got a thickness to it. I like that thickness of the Valentina hot sauce.ina is a thick no it glugs out of that what I was it glugs out of the bottle because I'm used to you go to like uh like a marisco truck yeah yeah I don't know if people know this but all the best shrimp in LA comes out of trucks yes that's true you go to the marisco trucks you gotta get there before noon on like a Saturday and it's great but they'll have like a giant thing of Valentina hot sauce yeah and you just glug it on your food the thing i don't like about it is that it's so big and it's glass and

it might slip and fall and that's my problem i love that i have a mini i have a regular size valentina that i get from the 99 cent store like all the time and i always use i love the texture of it it's so gloopy yeah valent's great. It's got that tapatio, like a lot of that dehydrated chili in there. Not much sweetness. Yeah. And also a big fan of soaking chips or crackers. Always.

In things. Always, always. Not garnishing, but soaking. Always, always. Big soaking guy. I love soaking. Google Urban Dictionary soaking and how much you love it.

I'm into soaking it with hot sauce. I was into soaking before. It was cool. Soaking's not cool. It's always cool. Soaking's timeless. It's like a diamond Soaking is timeless. It's like a diamond.

Hey, hot dog is a sandwich. I love your podcast. That was a really intense voicemail to listen to. That's right. Thank you. That's right. My controversial food opinion is that dates, diced, pretty small, belong in tuna salad. The little bit of sweet makes it a little bit of salty is the perfect balance. And people think that I'm super weird for that. But it's the best way to eat tuna salad. The little bit of sweet mixed with a little bit of salty is the perfect balance. And people think that I'm super weird for that,

but it's the best way to eat tuna salad. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Where are we in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia? Where are we right now? Are we in Moorish Spain? Are we in Granada at the Alhambra? Where are we, Nicole?

Are you feeling this right now? Yeah, my eyes are closed and I'm feeling it. The warmth, the salt spray, the Mediterranean. We don't know if we're in Tripoli right right now we don't know if we're in the aegean the adriatic we don't know what's going on but we know we're eating dried fruit and preserved fish i put sometimes tell me what you do i'm sorry i need to pretend no tell them about the tuna salad sometimes i like to put like craisins so this makes like total sense but um yeah but like it depends on the date you can't you gotta use the is it neglet is that the one that i like deglet deglet not the medjool

you can't firm or medjool if you put the medjool it just disintegrate and it'll turn into the same you need are we still moving or fun yeah i'm moving around with the deglet dates you need you need to just use the deglet. Talk to me about it, Nicole. You need to use the deglet. Yeah, I'm using that deglet. Is this us becoming friends again? Yeah.

Oh, I'm back. I don't want a divorce anymore. I'm getting worked up about this tuna salad with the deglet dates. I'll tell you what I do. I'm going to take those dates. I'm going to dice them up. I'm going to put a little bit of red wine vinegar on them. Pop them in the microwave for 30 seconds.

I'll hydrate the dates. It almost makes like a pickle. I do this with my dried raisins. I do dried raisins and not just raisins. No, but then you wet them. You wet the dried raisins and turn them back into grapes. Rehydrated raisins. Yeah.

Hydrated raisins. How do you juice a prune? You don't. You dehydrate a plum. You call it a prune. Now where do you get the juice from? You've dehydrated it. That's all I'm asking.

How do you make prune juice? You guys ever eaten a prune? How are you juicing it? Prune juice? Well, you blend it. That's not juice. That's all I'm asking How do you make prune juice? You guys ever eaten a prune? How do you juice in it? Prune juice? Well you blend it That's not juice That's a prune smoothie You blend it in your strainer

That's not juice It can be What are you talking about? It can be I don't understand Could we do a whole podcast About prune juice? Just about what is juice?

No but What is Why is prune juice? And what is juice no but no what is what is why is prune juice and then we can we can just drink like 16 cans of prune juice we're not gonna talk we're just gonna drink prune juice throughout the entire thing i like prune juice it's gonna completely avoid us later and it's gonna be great i'm into prune juice i'm gonna feel so skinny what does this have to do with dates dates and prunes are the same thing they're in the same family it's like noodles and pasta hey we should record a podcast on noodles and pasta we did do we have more opinions i think i'd like i'd rather have dates and chicken salad

oh that makes sense you know craisins and tuna maybe i like craze i mean dates and tuna makes sense a little bit you know nobody knows where the term cranberry comes from i don't know if that's true i just said it i just said it again i think no there's something in linguistics that they call like the cran this is recorded for people to listen i know it's upsetting how little of an expert we are in some things you're so funny josh someone google this though it know, it's upsetting how little of an expert we are in certain things. I think you're so funny, Josh. Someone Google this though. It's something, it's called like the cran,

they use the term like phoneme or some linguistic term. Phoneme? Look up cranberry etymology. We're going to go down this rabbit hole. What else, you listening at home,

what else are you doing right now? Honestly. Honestly. You know? Okay, there's, yeah, there's, there's, you know, indigenous names for it.

Cranberry? No. That's not true. That's not true? names. Cranberry? No, that's not true. That's not true? Yeah. Cranberry. Is your phone, is your laptop on? Yeah, someone's slacking me, but that's fine.

Um, okay. This is a fun podcast. I'm having a great time. Nicole, entertain them. I learned so much about Josh talking about pasta and noodles and I'm learning about cranberries. What else will I learn today? Who knows? What's the most interesting

thing I ever told you? Today? Today? Yeah. The most interesting thing you told me is that Marco Polo's myth was not true.

I thought that was really interesting. That's great. Okay, so in linguistic morphology a cranberry morpheme also called unique morpheme or fossilized term is a type of bound morpheme that cannot be assigned an independent meaning and grammatical function, but nonetheless serves to distinguish one word from another.

So you look at something like a blackberry, that's a berry that looks vaguely black, right? Blueberry, blueberry, berry that's kind of blue. Nobody knows where cran actually comes from. Like the word cran. Yeah. So like what does cran even mean? It might just be a misinterpretation of another word. Well so the term crayon they think has just gone extinct

they used to use it for something and it's just gone extinct but we still know it because it's only existing in the term cranberry. Okay. Well thank you so much Are we done? No! I had so much fun. I want one more. I want one more

please. I'm sorry I wasted all of your time on the cranberry morphine. Lukewarm is another one. Oh, wow. That's a voicemail. Anyway, hi, Josh and Nicole. That all worked up. Big fan of the show. And my opinion is that people rag on Arby's way too much.

Rag on it? In the fast food game, their fries are undefeated. Better than McDonald's,ald's even no not better than mcdonald's instead people need to be dogging more on burger king everything about burger king is just straight up mid all their patties taste like shoe leather their nuggets are barely even nuggets and their fries are awful all right thank you that is my opinion bye you are welcome that was so impassioned i love that um let me tell you about arby's my dad's favorite restaurant is arby's mom and dad's first

date was at arby's and um david and i have spoken about this whenever he is a father his first meal will be at arby's that's very with my dad and his dad with my dad and his dad they're all gonna have a little arby's date it's two generations isn't. Two generations of Persian Americans eating at Arby's in Los Angeles. And there's only like one Arby's in LA. There's only one on Sunset. And it is. It's good. It's awful.

Well, the food's fine. The manager there chased us out of the parking lot once. The manager and I are friends. We weren't even like filming. Nope. I'll tell you a story. My dad was in the hospital. He had stomach issues because he loves Arby's.

And then he says, can you get me Arby's? And I said, sure. So I go and I tell the guy, I'm like, oh, yeah, my dad. I talked to the manager. I'm like, you know, my dad's and i said sure so i go and i tell the guy i'm like oh yeah my dad i talked to the manager i'm like you know my dad's in the hospital and he gave me a free cookie he called the police on us well he gave me a free cookie fine calling the police on us doesn't negate your free cookie and your free cookie does not negate that my dad ate his arby's and he was so happy i love arby's their their meat tastes like paper that you've soaked in

beef broth i'm into it i'm into it. Their food is good. Genuinely. The onion bun with the cheddar sauce. You put a little bit of that horseradish mayonnaise. An Arby's beef and cheddar sandwich is one of my favorite fast food items. Have you had the gyro before? The what? The gyro?

The gyro? Gyro? Gyro? Gyro. I said gyro, right? Gyro. Gyro. Gyro.

Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyro. Gyiro. Giro. Giro. Giro. Giro Ono. Giro Dreams of Sushi. Did you have the gyro from Arby's?

Yeah, I love it. It's great. It's okay. I'm totally fine. Whatever. Jesus Christ. Oh my God. French dip's bad.

I don't like that. You just gotta get a beef and cheddar. And a curly fries. And a curly fries. The best fast food fries in the game. And an onion ring. If you like curly fries. And then a Coke.

They still got those potato patties with the jalapeno and the cheese in them. I don't know, but what I do love, my parents' house is filled to the brim. You know how you have like a condiment drawer? Yeah. Horsey sauce and Arby's sauce. Just tons of it. Arby's sauce is so close to just pure corn syrup. It's crazy.

I don't even love Arby's sauce in things. I put a ton of Horsey sauce in it. Horsey sauce is good. Arby's discontinued the potato cakes. Josh, I'm sorry. Rag on Arby's. Rag on Arby's all you want. It's crazy. I don't even love Arby's sauce in things. I put a ton of horsey sauce in it. Horsey sauce is good. Arby's discontinued the potato cakes. Josh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Rag on Arby's all you want. Burger King, I don't know.

I enjoy Burger King. The original chicken sandwich. It's my least favorite fast food joint. Nicole, they got a chicken sandwich, but it's long. Don't you understand? I understand the humor of that, but I'm not there to eat for jokes. I get it. I do agree, though, that Arby's, people need to stop ragging

on Arby's. I think it was all Bill Oakley's fault. It was a Simpsons episode. Oh, the twins? The twins reference. They're like, I'd rather eat at Arby's. So I blame him. Thanks a lot, Bill Oakley! Thanks, Bill! I don't know if you wrote that joke, but I just imagine you did with the Arby's reference. Anywho, on that note...

Oh, God. Hold on. Let me set up for the outro, Nicole Thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich We got new audio-only episodes every Wednesday And then a video version Every Friday What happened? What is going on with you?

I almost choked on my tea You never drank tea before? Nicole, is that a chai tea? I'll read Nicole's part. If you want to be featured on Impendidula Casseroles, give us a ring and leave a quick message at 833-DOG-POD-1. Is that what I sound like? Yeah, you sound like Chris Kattan.

For more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube, where we launch new videos every week. We'll see you next time. Nicole, give them the theme music. A hot dog is a sandwich and you know it's true. A hot dog is a sandwich and you know it's true. A hot dog is, a hot dog is, a hot dog is a sandwich and you know it. Hit it with the baritone.

Hit it with the baritone. There it is.