A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Are Boneless Wings Really Wings?

Episode Date: March 11, 2020

In this episode, Josh and Nicole are defining what it means to be a wing and debating whether boneless wings are really wings or just glorified popcorn chicken. 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. Boneless wings, poultry innovation or marketing fraud? Today we ask the question, are boneless wings really wings? 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 brand new podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, where we take on the internet's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Scherer, and I've eaten too much fish and cheese this morning. I'm Nicole Handizadeh, and I made Rainn Wilson throw up one time by drinking one of my milkshakes. You know, he's a member of the Bahá'í faith. He is! I think he... isn't his whole podcast about that? Yeah, it comes up. You made a man-of-the-cloth vomit.

I sure did. Good for you. All right. So today we are taking on the question, are boneless wings really wings? Nicole, what is your stance? My stance is I think boneless wings are just glorified popcorn chicken. That's how I feel about it. I don't think they're wings. That's a hot take. Like, obviously there's no actual wing meat in boneless wings. Let's get that out of the way. But to me, that does not mean that they are not wings. I think boneless wings are wings and deserve to be called wings despite containing no wing meat whatsoever. How are we spelling the word wing?

That is a very interesting point. I think they deserve to spell it W-I-N-G-S. So I know what you're talking about. DiGiorno came out with a product that was pizza and wing. Wings is how we're pronouncing because it's spelled w-y-n-g-z yeah so it's boneless buffalo wings and pizza in the same box you could just pop in the oven which one what an idea I mean innovation at its finest I'd put them on top of the pizza slather and hot sauce so much innovation in this statement anyways the government

decided that they had to spell the word wings w-y-n-g-z and state very clearly that there is no actual wing meat in their boneless wings to avoid some sort of false advertising situation sure but i think i think the term wings doesn't mean what we think it means all right so to really discuss this we have to get down to like what is a wing you know yes which i mean if i say nicole what's a chicken wing what do you think it's a wing of a chicken i mean false that's what wrong no it is not and i mean this okay so if if i were to go up to you and say like hey the game's on let's let's go out for i thought we were doing this this is the wing of a chicken and this is the chicken wing

but what's that then is that also the wing yeah the whole thing's the wing chicken and this is the chicken wing but what's that then is that also the wing yes the whole thing's the wing this is this is the wing this is the tip that no one likes to eat and then i think this is the i just eat the tip that's where the phrase comes from just the tip that's what it's really cheaper no man it's this is all one wing but you can segment it into different parts so for you the wing is the flat the drumette the tip. And then when you portion them down, those are just their individual parts, but it is still the whole wing. Absolutely. So no matter what, to you, the entire chicken wing, that's just what it is.

It is what it is. It's an anatomical term solely. It is what it is. I believe that the term wings is more of a cultural term. I think it has specific meaning. I'm dead serious. I thought about this late at night at bed. I'm sure you did. I was laying down. I was drinking a diet coke in bed tossing and turning about this if i were to tell you like nicole the game's on this sunday let's go get some wings and if we went

there and you got like a bowl of soup with some chicken wings that have been braised in it you know that's not going out for wings i agree you know i'm saying you're specifically referring to a fried chicken wing tossed in some sort of sauce and there's a sort of you know a cultural meaning behind that sure you know so for me it's like a social yeah it's a big social thing you know you're probably drinking beer watching your buddies you're watching the game i'm not watching the game i'm on my phone while everyone else is watching just guys being dudes yeah just and nicole on her phone scrolling through instagram yeah liking everything in my path everything nicole follows every single person that i follow on instagram because every time i scroll through it is always like by nicole hendizadeh like by

nicole hendizadeh but this was before like we even like found out that i follow the same people as you that's how i knew this was by chance yeah this was just by chance you're like hey do you follow blah blah blah and i'm like yeah i've been following them for months and you're like oh my gosh you you like every picture i'm like yeah that's kind of the thing i do and then you also like pictures of uh hot girls that you hate i love all what do you mean i don't hate them i love them i want to be them i want to be them me too okay so for me the boneless wing yeah right it's it's roughly the shape of a wing-ish. It is about the same size. It's like a two-biter.

Like a good chicken wing is a two-biter. Take a flat of a wing. Sure. Everyone should be using this method to eat the flat of a wing. You nibble off the outside, and then you break off the smaller of the bones. And then you're left with just one clean like... Yes. And then you finish it.

That's a good two-biter. Yeah. That's the way it should be done. To me, what separates popcorn chicken from a boneless wing is about a bite so popcorn chicken you should be able to throw two or three pieces in your mouth in one bite how big is your mouth do you not fear choking oh no someone's getting sick uh wash wash your hands everybody uh no but like if you think about popcorn chicken from kfc okay yeah it's also like taiwanese popcorn chicken that's all delicious yeah popcorn chicken from kfc you can take just a whole handful and cram it in your mouth with a boneless

wing a good boneless wing should be a two biter because then you get to double dip in the sauce and you gotta yeah so it's just an extra large popcorn chicken which to me does not make it popcorn chicken at all because if you take that too far if you go an extra extra large you end up with a chicken strip or a cutlet or a cut depending on the large shenit cell shenit cell shenit cell in farsi yeah love me some shenit cell so to me the boneless wing it's two bites it's fried chicken it's slathered in some sort of sauce or seasoning after the fact okay and you're typically the place that you go out to eat those you're probably drinking beer you're probably having a good time just guys being

dudes out there you're like oh the ref i can't believe he missed that call because we're all from some part of jersey that doesn't exist with that accent that was an interesting accent and so to me it satisfies my cultural definition of what a wing is and when you say boneless wing you're implying that there is something different about it yes but my issue is it's the actual cleaning of the bone is what makes it a wing for me that's like the the whole concept of eating a wing is the act of cleaning the bone and you know people comment about how how clean you suck off the bone meat you know so you think like part of part of the the ritual around the chicken wing has to be the bone 100 so once you put the word boneless in there, it no longer becomes a wing.

Absolutely. It's just a piece of chicken breast. That's it. I'm all about efficiency, though. I do not order a bone. I will order boneless wings probably one in every five times that I'm going out for wings. Because sometimes it's fun. You don't want the hassle.

You can just shove them in your face. You don't got to clean the bones. And so for me, I understand that. I ate the bones. you don't got to clean the bones uh-huh you know and so for me i understand the bones oh god i ate the bones i have uh mike i used to feed my cat chicken bones is that a thing i think i've read somewhere that you're supposed to do that but then like you can't it's not i don't abuse it i don't you can't feed your dog chicken bones because it gets stuck in their gi track and it can scar up their gi track i don't know about kitty cats though i'm not a kitty cat girl so i can't really comment on that cats love boneless wings so i i do get the confusion though if you were to think that a boneless wing would be a chicken wing that has been deboned which or lollipop or lollipops yeah yeah you take a knife

you scrape down the bone good lollipop wing yeah yeah so my thing when people are talking about like boneless chicken wing if you were to debone a chicken wing and then serve that at your restaurant that'd be okay but who does that no one and you know why uh is it just like the quality of the meat can't sustain being off the bone it's just hard yeah yeah i guess there's a labor cost involved for sure oh yeah absolutely so if you want to eat deboned boneless chicken wings That is not just a little breast nugget If you don't want to go through the hassle of cleaning bones Which I understand again I love a good bone in wing

I love getting dirty with it I like just shoving the whole thing in my mouth Bone in wing Let's go bone in some wings What's it called when it's like two words But you don't need to say the other word Because you already said it You know what I mean

You know whatever you like say a word that's not necessary like like uh like extra large jumbo like you don't need the jumbo redundancy yes a bone-in wing is redundant ah that makes sense i don't think it is oh no um um um oh guys what's the word neologism what the word? Neologism? What'd you call me? A neologism. Okay, so there are certain things like electric guitar. Uh-huh.

Every guitar, or sorry, acoustic guitar is the example. Yeah. Every guitar up until like 40 years ago, is that math right? Every guitar up until 60 years ago, to be safe, was an acoustic guitar. So there is no need to ever say the word acoustic guitar. Yeah. But with the invention of the electric guitar,

a huge innovation. It made great music. I see what you'reimmy hendrix oh my god i see what you're getting let me play that let me go for jimmy hendrix oh my god playing the upside down guitar you know at uh woodstock i almost said coachella that was good oh my god woodstock doing the national anthem you know playing voodoo trap like oh come on wow that was good yeah and so you know that neologism of electric guitar gave us so much innovation in music. And the same way that the neologism of boneless wing and bone-in wing has given us a beautiful innovation of the two-bite, delicious, chicken-pressed wing, not including wing, actual meat product, W-Y-N-G-Z. Do we know the first time that boneless wings were, like, featured on a menu? Like, are you

aware of like when that happened because maybe in the future it might be a thing where it's likely that boneless wings are a thing but right now i don't think we're at that point but we're hurtling towards it because and there's a lot of reasons why boneless wings are blowing up so much so buffalo wild wings i believe i mean they're the ones that are pressing this super super hard and wing chains are like faster growing than even frozen yogurt chains were in the early 2000s which is wild and so buffalo wild wings has had the boneless wings since 2003 but chicken wing prices are actually skyrocketing yeah i remember reading an npr article about how expensive they are we read npr articles we're very smart i don't listen to npr but i read it because i have the app on my phone oh i listen to it on my way to work and i just get depressed every day no no no i can't listen to oh no it's great yeah i can't yeah okay so uh boneless wings

chicken chicken breast which is what boneless wings are made from yes is now cheaper than wings because they're literally breeding chickens to have these giant engorged breasts giant chicken boobies their boobies are so big that their heads drag on the ground because it's really sad but it's the reality we're not talking about what what should and shouldn't exist we're talking about what does exist so right now reduction chickens you can literally make boneless wings so much cheaper than bone in wings and with the restaurant industry we know how hard it is the labor involved absolutely you know and people if they feel they're being overcharged they're tipping And with the restaurant industry, we know how hard it is for labor involved. Absolutely.

You know, and people, if they feel they're being overcharged, they're tipping less. And so the cost of boneless wings to produce compared to bone in wings, to me, that's leading to better labor conditions for restaurant workers. Boom, Nicole. Oh, I'm sorry. You want to see people go hungry? To be honest, Josh, I just think it's total and complete false advertising to tell people that they're eating boneless wings. But in reality, it's just cut up chicken breasts. It's wrong to lie to the general public.

I'm not saying that the general public does not distinguish the fact that boneless wings equal chicken breasts. I just think it's a way to sell more chicken to more people. The breasts, specifically. I just think it's whack. That's such a crime. I just think it's whack. To want people to eat more chicken, Nicole. I mean, that's fine. That's such a crime. I just think it's whack. To want people to eat more chicken, Nicole. I mean, that's fine.

Big titty birds. I think you should just sell them as chicken bites, popcorn chicken. I think the name can change to what it is. Super small schnitzel bites. I don't know. It's plausible for the actual product to change its name but still maintain its integrity. You know, I think calling it boneless wings just absolutely depletes it of any sort of integrity.

Not to say I won't eat one happily. Of course. You know, tossed in some mango chili sauce. Hell yeah. But I just think it's disrespectful to lie to the general public just to make more money for a cheaper cut. I can see that.

But I think the way that language evolves, I think that one day the public will be it's like again nicole i hear your argument i'm not a bad guy you're not a bad guy whoever said you were a bad guy i enjoy sitting across from you most of the time this is pretty fun yeah i we there's a lot of gases that escape my body sometimes but other than that so i mean the same argument can be made with veggie burger though yeah and there's a lot of people who say that you know you shouldn't call it a burger unless it contains meat. You should call it like a flat sandwich disc made from hemoglobin and soy protein.

Heme. Heme. We talk about heme a lot. Heme is the ingredient in Impossible Burgers that makes the Impossible Burger. And it's just called heme. It makes it bleed. And that was their marketing strategy. It was like, oh, we'll give it a cool, I forgot the name of it, but they're like, we'll give it a cool i forgot the name of it but they're like we'll give it a cool name like heme

sorry i don't think it's false advertising i think there are ways around it like almond milk is another great example a lot of people say that almond milk is false advertising because they think that the term milk exclusively means dairy milk dairy milk another one of those wasn't that a lobbyist thing that they were fighting about? It was a huge lobbying thing, yeah. Same with the chicken wings, right? Yeah. That's a whole lobbyist thing too.

But also the chicken lobby is like trying to get them to be able to be called wings because of how, like, so it benefits the chicken lobby to have these giant bazonbo chickens that are dropping the price of chicken breast, therefore boneless wings, because all you can get are two wings per chicken yeah i i understand that but do you really want the government in your food like that josh the government's been in our food regardless but like that much i i'm fine with that fingers in my chicken boneless fingers i'm sorry we start talking about the patriot act no no no no but i mean literally the government has been defining what foods are and aren't for so long.

Sure. My favorite is the Miracle Whip and mayonnaise thing. Yeah, that's a fantastic little food tidbit if you want to talk about it. Yeah, Miracle Whip. It's essentially mayonnaise. Anyone who eats it, they use it exactly like they do mayonnaise. Sure. But at some point, the big mayonnaise companies sued saying that they were watering it down too much.

Instead of Big pharma big mayo big mayo is coming for us all they've had the cure for man uh mayonnaise dressing disease i don't know but so they literally forced congress to step into the supreme court i don't know how government works we talk about chicken all day for a living but they literally force like a judge to step in and say okay okay mayonnaise officially includes uh egg yolks and 65 percent oil by weight or something yes yeah and they found that the miracle whip was adding too much water making a little bit cheaper and so now they have to call it sandwich spread and so that's kind of like a funny little story but then that stuff does get like a little bit insidious when there was the company just mayo which was making a vegan eggless mayonnaise so better for the planet i guess i don't know not using eggs uh

and you know healthier a little bit no cholesterol all that and then mayo stepped in and sued them saying you can't call yourself mayo even though it was better than a lot of non-vegan mayos and they stepped in and sued him and said there's no egg in it it can't legally be considered mayo so the government they're going to be in your food regardless i but i don't want them in my wings and telling you what wings are and aren't like you can have mayo the government can have mayo i don't care doesn't matter to me but calling chicken breast a wing is unfair it's just not right it's not you want like a chicken doctor to come in and define it anatomically. Just being like, if it's not... Chicken doctor? Do you mean a veterinarian, Josh?

I don't know. A chicken doctor's a vet. I don't know. I'm just saying. But you think it should be a pure anatomical definition. Absolutely. Yeah, I do. I can see that point.

So let's talk about... We talk about what we think boneless wings are. Let's talk about what they aren't. Because there's a lot of people... This is a phrase been going around the internet. Boneless wings are just nuggets. No. I disagree with that. We both agree

that we disagree on that. I agree. I think a chicken nugget is a mashed up chicken plus some other ingredients to make a patty of sorts that you cut it onto cute little dinosaurs

and shapes and you fry it. That's what a nugget is. I don't think a boneless wing is a nugget at all. It's just a piece of actual breast that you're frying.

Yeah, it's nugget-esque in shape. Sure, in shape, size, density. But it's not a nugget at all it's just a piece of actual breast that you're frying yeah it's not it's it's nugget-esque in in sure in shape size sure but it's not a nugget has to be like processed in some way yeah for sure yeah god i want some dino nuggets right now dude me too you know what do you remember the names of the uh the mcdonald's shapes it's a boot it's a bell it's a ball and uh but but but bazon bazon the burking used to have the shape chicken nuggets they were And, uh, b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b- Sizzler buffet. I used to just load up a base of the dino nuggets and then I would put gravy and macaroni and cheese on when I was a small child. When my parents came to America, they used to go to Sizzler a lot. This was before I was born. They used to go on dates to Sizzler. The one in K-Town

actually. They would drive up to the K-Town one. The Sizzler in K-Town is the most important Sizzler of all time. To the American experience. Is it still there? I think it might be shutting down. Oh my gosh. And only you can save time. To like the American experience. Is it still there? I think it might be shutting down. Oh my gosh. And only you can save it. Is it the last Sizzler ever?

Might be. All the ones in Burbank. Sizzler, they had a great buffet. That sucks. You know, their steaks, were they great? No, my Nana loved them for $9.99. You get a sirloin. They were steaks.

They were steaks. Edible. They were edible steaks. You went and ham on some dino nuggets. It was fine. I love the Sizzler. Yeah. They got the best, they got the coldest Diet Coke in the game.

Okay. So boneless wings are not nuggets. Nuggets need to be processed. We agree with that. I think the National Chicken Council also agrees on that. God bless the National Chicken Council. God bless the National Chicken Council. All right.

So chicken tenders and strips. Because there's a chicken hierarchy to me. To me it goes popcorn chicken is the smallest. Then you got boneless wings next. You got nuggets that are kind of over here on a different branch that are processed then you got chicken tenders which also could have an anatomical definition because the tenderly chicken is a specific yes but the likelihood of people making chicken tenders out of the tenders is slim to none because who's going to take off the actual tender yeah i understand your point when it comes to that.

Right? Wait, you understand my point on that but not with the wings. It's because it's still attached to the breast. So it's still a part of the breast. But you're not saying chicken breast strips.

You're saying these are chicken tenders. Yes. Short for tenderloin. Yes. I think that it's just since it's a part of the actual breast, it's like behind the breast, it still is a part of that part of the chicken.

The wings attached to the breast too, Nicole. But there's bones. But there's this bonzes. But there's the bonzes that make it different. It's the importance of the bones that really matter. We also didn't talk about what our favorite chicken wing is. Oh my God. Wingstop Cajun.

Oh my gosh. Wingstop Cajun because they put the buffalo sauce on it, but then dust it with spices. Yes. I'm a big buffalo wing fan. Just I love buffalo just frank's red hot and butter yeah love that stuff are you i'm all about it are you drums no flats flats yeah drums you need to date someone who only eats flats i mean only eats drums so you can have all the flats you know excuse the thing most restaurants which i find funny and i think this is a key part of it too like i don't consider drums to be part of the wing which is strange i know i get it it's the whole shoulder sorry buddy forearm don't agree with you on that one but to me like the chicken wing is the flat i think drums are as much of an imposter of a chicken wing as boneless wings are

if someone asks you what's your favorite part of the wing they ask you drums and flats they never ask you drum flats or boneless what bye okay shut up no you just shut your mouth you just shut your mouth the big bazonga chicken you just got nay-nayed josh but i my problem with with the with the drums is that you could get like it's essentially the leg, right? It's an arm leg. Here's the thing. Most animals, I'm about to expose. Guys, Josh just said it's an arm leg.

I'm about to expose how ignorant I am. Humans, let's look at our anatomy, shall we? We got arms, the top, the top ones. We got legs. Them's is the bottom ones. Sorry. Messing up the sound. I broke it.

But animals, lots of them, they don't got arms and legs, right? Their legs is very similar. You look at a cheetah. This is going somewhere. Hold on. You look at a cheetah. Its top legs and its back legs are roughly the same. They're mostly legs.

Hold on. Birds. What are they? How do they fly? No one knows. Chickens can't fly. They have this big open song. Wings are arms.

They're just legs. They're just legs. They're mini legs. If you cut me up to eat me, Nicole, if you butchered me down and you took my shoulder and my hip, essentially the same relationship of a drumette and a drum. Are you talking about ball and socket joints right now? A little bit. What I'm saying is a tiny chicken leg could pose as a drumette. And I have a problem with that.

You're eating tiny chicken legs, and to me, that's not a wing. That is as much not a wing as a boneless wing. Why am I gripping the table? It's like I'm ready to lunch. You're very impassioned right now. And I'm so sorry. I appreciate you trying to get me to understand that but i really wasn't having it so uh you know calling it arm legs and leg arms uh cheetahs you lost me at cheetah i'm gonna be completely you think you could beat a cheetah in one-on-one combat not out in the field hold on

hold on not out in the field not out in the field but in the octagon absolutely not but wow do i love mma fighting oh yeah you're a big mma oh my gosh i just got a fighter uh i don't know i just like watching two men attack each other because here's the thing cheetahs cheetahs are a lot smaller than you think i'm not saying i would fight a cheetah i'm saying i think it's the teeth that scare me i think the teeth would scare the crap out of me no you gotta worry about the claws it's about it's about and you know they're their projection you know how they just like they can climb things they climb trees you know cheetahs climb trees, but they're more straight line speed. Are those leopards or jaguars? You put them in an octagon. They'll climb on top of the octagon.

But I'm saying, man is a lot more cunning than a cheetah. I can use my, they're like 60 pounds. Have you ever seen, I'm a 205 pound, I've done CrossFit for a couple months and I think I could beat a cheetah

in one on one combat. Have you ever seen a National Geography freaking book when they, you they you know creep up yes antelope and what i've learned is that cheetahs are cowards because they hunt in packs get one alone in the octagon put some gloves on it and i'm taking that what does this have to do with chicken what well you're the one who brought up cheetah legs all right speaking of wing classifications we have these little fact sheets here that we almost never use but i love that we

have them but there is a really interesting thing here uh usda classifications we have these little fact sheets here that we almost never use but i love that we have them but there's a really interesting thing here usda classifications wings shall include the entire wing consisting of three segments with all muscle and skin tissue intact except that the wing tip may be removed which is the third segment uh they use a moil i believe to remove the wing tip mazel marvelous mrs mazel wing drumette consists of the humerus the first segment of pou poultry wing with adhering skin and meat attached. This is the interesting part because we always call them remets and flats.

Those are the two parts. Drums. No one's saying the et part. Remet. It sounds sexy to me. Remet. It's French. Sexy little chicken.

It's from France. I studied abroad in France. The wing portion, which is what they consider the flat, the USDA, consists of a poultry wing with adhering skin and meat attached except that the remet has been removed. The wing portion, which is what they consider the flat, the USDA, consists of a poultry wing with adhering skin and meat attached, except that the drumette has been removed. The wing portion may consist of the second segment only or the second and third segment.

So to me, if you're calling one a wing drumette, right? Sure. You're giving it another name. You're calling it a drumette. It's like you're kind of shoving it off to the side. And then you're calling the other one just the wing portion. you're calling it a drumette it's like you're you're kind of shoving it off to the side and you're calling the other one just the wing portion to me it sounds like the usda believes that wings are only flats and that drumettes are not they're kind of a false swing in the same way

that legs are just butt arms uh i think you don't know i think you don't know what you're talking about butt arms uh no one wants to put the word portion on their menu it sounds medical and weird and sterile i think that's why no one's gonna put wink portion on their menu and i think that's that's that that makes sense you know what yeah to go back i think we can solve this by just doing your fix you mentioned earlier i didn't get to comment it was it super small schnitzel bites super small schnitzel bites super sammy's super small schnitzel bite shack serving super small schnitzel bites formerly known as bonus wings with uh sally by the seashore or as jimmy o yang friend of the show calls them little white

meat lies jimmy that's unfair i agree jimmy all right so to wrap this all up yeah what do you believe are you are you changed at all after this experience right now i'm kind of i'm standing where i stand they're not wings i'm sorryings is a purely anatomical term to you. Absolutely. You need a chicken doctor to tell you that. It's fine. It's a veterinarian. I believe that the term wings denotes more than just the actual anatomy of the chicken.

I think it's a cultural ritual that we do. And I think boneless wings are actual wings in the sense that they are two-bited fried chicken pieces that you get drunk and eat with your hands. To me, that is a wing. You want to go to Buffalo Wild Wings after this? Yes, sir. Okay. B-dub-dubs. Nicole, we've heard what you and I have to say, but now it's time to check out what other

wacky ideas are floating around in the Twitterverse. It's time for the segment we call... Opinions are like casseroles. Like casseroles. The Mughal Empire says, whenever I get animal fries, I need them to sit out. I like them better cold.

I don't like congealed fries like that. It's not my gig. I love congealed fries like that. Animal fries especially. No, no, because when they sit out, here's what happens, is that the cheese coagulates around all the fries and then you get to pick it up like a brick and eat it so it's like this raft of french fries mongol empire i absolutely get what you're what you're putting down you are correct no not for me if there was

a way to have them hot and congealed that's what i want maybe that's our next big project hot congealed animal stuff guys i'd be done with that i think it's the coldness that turns me off a little bit of agar agar powder in there yeah we got some work to do okay lily mayor five says my old roommate maintained that all noodles were interchangeable q ramen made with italian fusilli um this is actually a really really interesting one i don't know if i could use ramen noodles in place of fusilli or fusilli in place of ramen but uh i don't really i think it's kind of wrong i think there's a certain kind of noodle that each culture has and i think you can use it but also like i don't know i don't know this one kind of is confusing me a little

ignorant bombastic i don't appreciate this no i mean there's a big thing in italian cooking where like different sauces go at different noodles yeah bucatini and amatriciana sauce goes together but also i i got mad recently because i ordered from a pho restaurant that i think was maybe owned and operated by thai people okay and they're pho like pho literally ordered from a pho restaurant that I think was maybe owned and operated by Thai people. And their pho, like pho literally refers to ban pho, which is the cut of the noodle. And so it's like a little bit wide of a rice noodle. And they serve these Thai nam nu, I think is the noodle. I don't know what nam nu is.

They're just like these kind of like really thinner, a lot more tender. And it just didn't have the same experience at all. Yeah, I think the noodle is a part of the experience of a whole dish. So unless I try fusilli noodles in my ramen, I can't really tell you. But maybe, maybe, maybe. Play around with your food all you want. But I do not agree with the premise. All right, Robin Nabat. Jewish tongue at a deli is better than corned beef.

If you don't believe me, try it. I have nothing but respect for corned beef and pastrami. However, Jewish deli tongue is fire. It's so good. It's so good i love tongue um at persian weddings there's like a section of like meat carving sections and there's like a really long line for the tongue section all the time it's the best part in my opinion it's the best part of the cow i agree tongue fantastic it's so tender without being fatty like that's the thing you get corned beef pastrami you get like a lot of fat on sometimes phenomenal no it's incredible it's like the filet mignon of the of the cow's face yeah next time you come over for

shabbat i'll make food with beef i'll make horesh with beef tongue you want to do that actually that'd be really cool great you can come um robin about also again because i mean oh yeah multiple of their opinions have angered us yeah robin about also said uh egg salad sandwiches are gross af i think you're're talking about gross gas station ones, but if you make your own egg salad sandwich and you are the master of your own domain, it's a delicious sandwich. I'm down with an egg salad sandwich.

I get why someone would think it's gross. It's not the most visually appealing sandwich, but I love it. If you lean into the ugliness of an egg salad, it is beautiful. It's delicious. I'll eat an egg salad sandwich from a 7-Eleven. I'll take the little wilted piece of lettuce out and shove it in my face. I an egg salad. Sure. It is beautiful. It's delicious. I'll eat an egg salad sandwich from a 7-Eleven. I'll take the little wilted piece of lettuce out

and shove it in my face. I love egg salad sandwiches. My brother won't eat egg salad though because I used to make it so much when I was a kid and it would stink up the whole house like eggs. And so he doesn't like it. But no, egg salad sandwiches, fire. All right, at future flat says,

ravioli in a, sorry, there's some, okay. Ravioli in a can not cooked. I thought he was saying ravioli in a sorry there's some okay ravioli in a can not cooked i thought he was saying ravioli in a can is not cooked and i was gonna say that is a factual inaccuracy it is quite cooked it has been cooked for six hours too long not warmed uh no they're saying they eat ravioli straight out of the can not cooked i okay here's like acid reflux waiting to happen i don't think i'd like it but now imagining you know cranberry sauce when you dump it out of the can it stays in shape and you slice it that's iconic yeah i want to try and do that with ravioli in a can like dump it out and then use a knife to slice it like a ravioli terrine we got some agar agar powder we'll see what we can do we got that one on the docket and we got

in and out congealed fries okay next we have uh reddit Edits. Hot dogs and grape jelly are heart. Yes, I agree. I understand. I've never had it, but I do understand why it would be delicious. Sausage goes really well with sweet things. So why not hot dogs and grape jelly? I like it. You teach me a lot about Persian dishes.

You know, you grew up eating a lot too. So a dish that I grew up from my culture of a, I don't know what to call it. White. The term, yeah, like white trash doesn't seem politically accurate anymore. We can call it a white trash food.

It's my culture. I can say it. You take little smokies, essentially a hot dog. I think I know where you're going. Continue, continue. You put it like in a crock pot with, is it equal parts

grape jelly and barbecue sauce? I think so, yeah. Also meatballs. You also do the same thing with meatballs too. Yes, your people do that. Yeah, my people it's a long-standing cultural tradition we do it on religious high holidays so yeah grape jelly on hot dogs grape jelly and mustard is also very good on scrapple oh we've had that before it was delicious that was a dankity that was really

really good it's like jewish chopped liver scrapple yeah yeah there's just cornmeal in it right yeah that's the only difference really It's crispy when you fry it up. Really yummy. Lovely. All right. We've got at M. Flemmily. That's right. That's Emily Fleming from the Taco Bell.

Hey, Emily. We love you. Onions are rude. You're rude. You're rude, Emily. Yeah. Bye. What are you doing?

Coming here, talking smack on it. You're like the people who are just like, no offense, but she's like super judgy. It's like, you're judging her. You're judging her right now. We just had onions like a while ago. Like we were just eating bagels with raw onions before we did this. Wasn't it you who came into the kitchen and was like, you were like, Josh, pop quiz. What's the most important vegetable in a kitchen?

Yeah, that was me. I said onions, right? Yeah. And I paused and I was thinking tomato because tomato, I love tomatoes. Those are the options I gave you. I was like, it was tomatoes, potatoes, and onions. And I think we collectively agree that onions are the most important vegetable. It's a root vegetable, but like it's the most important for sure.

It's great. Yeah. Aromatic. I'll eat onions in any form whatsoever. Okay. At Thol Chok says, In-N-Out is highly overrated. Bye. It's delicious.

The meat isn't that good, but the veggies really make up for it in my opinion i i i agree no okay here's the thing i love in and out i grew up eating it i think it is fantastic i think the produce is incredible i think the meat is a lot better than most fast food i do think it's overrated in the sense that it's so so so highly rated by people because you know these people coming in from out of town and being like, I tried In-N-Out and it wasn't the greatest thing in the world because everyone told me it was the greatest thing in the world. What gives?

Like, nah, dude, it's a fast food hamburger that's like pretty dang good. And that's all it is. So in a way, I do agree that it is overrated, but also very good. Just people rate it too high. Okay, at Unstable Resolve, I absolutely hate herbs, especially when you can see them just give

me salt and pepper nicole do you want to guess the culture and ethnicity of this person it doesn't matter no there's no not at all i think it's important for people to have an open mind when they eat things uh probably half of if not three quarters of the things you're eating unstable resolve is full of herbs you just don't recognize it because you're eating, unstable resolve, is full of herbs. You just don't recognize it because you're just eating it. Like, just be open-minded. Don't just shut down like that. Don't be that person.

Look, I get it. Milk is too spicy for some people. Some just can't handle it, and that's cool. No, I get it. That's all I'm saying. Stop. Okay. No, I know people who have sensitivities to herbs,

and I just like, I have no time for it. I have no time for those people in my life. Okay. Me either. But honey, well go to counseling. Elizabeth Decourt says dipping pizza crust in soda. Uh, pass. Josh, you can take this one. Are you in a pizza crust eating

contest? Like the way Joey Chestnut dips the hot dog in the lemonade to choke it down like do you have trouble look look if you like to do it that's totally cool um no i will try it i will give you the honor of trying it can i imagine it tastes good maybe my question is what soda have you not i'm guessing coke i'm guessing coke yeah yeah all right uh at ruby.jacobson23 butt of bread greater than any of the middle pieces no but my mom loves the butt of bread i i have worked my butt off in my career so that i know butt of bread i literally work my butt of bread off i work hard so i don't have to ever

go back to eating the butts of the bread i will get to the end of the bread and i will throw it away not only that i throw away the penultimate butt. Oh my gosh, I know the penultimate butt. That's a little harder than the other piece of bread. I know all about that piece. I'm only eating center cut tenderloin filet mignon of breads these days. Not in my house.

Ezekiel bread, my mom eats the end piece. She literally saves it because it's her favorite part. I don't know why. I'll turn it into breadcrumbs if I'm feeling feeling resourceful never feeling resourceful like that uh bc simmons 04 says milk belongs nowhere near cereal putting milk on cereal is an abomination what are you putting on it orange juice you weirdo what are you doing i don't understand you having lucky charms and water what get out of here i do like raw uh raw grape nuts i like my grape nuts raw or on yogurt i like a medium rare i think if you eat your grape nuts raw you're just like oh i'm a foodie why did i say that raw cereal i get what they're saying a little bit in the sense like

you would never uh just take a bowl of doritos and pour hot broth over it. Somehow my mind is going to this, you know? So if you're, if you're someone who enjoys crunchy cereal as like a snack, I get it. I suppose I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. All right. At Rafa underscore S R H S spaghetti. And then they kind of define what they describe as spaghetti. Spaghetti to them, tomatoes,

bell pepper and onion sauce with mayonnaise on the side is an improvement i think the way that they're describing this it could work but i'm thinking of like a really like like thick cut vegetable like almost like a ratatouille with it could actually work but not spaghetti noodles i think if it was a short noodle like a rigatoni rigate or a penne i think has a more likelihood of working more so than like a long spaghetti giada over here the spaghetti spaghetti the penne rigate so you're gonna grab your parmigiano reggiano she speaks perfectly fine english too i don't get it uh mayonnaise and spaghetti yes uh pasta salad like macaroni salad we're i was eating macaroni salad in here yeah a couple days ago and

you saw the joy on my face we were like all emotional yeah i was mixing my rice with my mac salad putting the katsu sauce on it from the hawaiian barbecue i love pasta and mayonnaise uh any sort of like pasta salad's great i don't see why a long noodle because i want to be able to slurp the mayonnaise off of that bell pepper in the spaghetti that's what i want a good mayonnaise slurp that is what anyone wants in life uh colorado crummins says a quarter pounder with cheese can hold up with any gourmet burger pretty much any time i order a burger at a restaurant i realize it's not even good as mcdonald's i might have less cancer in it, but I don't really care about that. Okay. First of all, I kind of agree with you on the good burger part.

McDonald's will always taste like McDonald's no matter what. McDonald's is McDonald's is McDonald's. Is it as good as a gourmet burger? Maybe. I don't know. But I think what matters is you're used to the familiarity of it more so than the quality of it. You just taste it and it sends you back to a place of comfort i don't think it like levels up to gourmet burger but i think it's a place of comfort for you when you eat it isn't that what we're all after nicole just seeking that place of comfort in food uh sometimes your quarter pounders slap especially since they started

cooking their beef at mcdonald's now because that was the thing where they just got the beef like pre-cooked yeah just kind of warm it in a drawer yeah just have the old warming drawer they're all the warm just pull it out mom found the warming sorry it's me and then now there's actually someone they're cooking it so the new fresh cooked quarter but it sounds like i'm doing an ad read i'm not i'm just i'm like i'm actually proud of mcdonald's coming together and banding together all their franchises to do this. I think the Quarter Pounder has created an incredible hamburger. What else do we got? What else do we got? At Olita underscore pole dance says in Russian, have a nice day.

No, Olita pole dance, you have a nice day. I hope you're out there getting a workout on that pole. Hey, do you want to take a pole dancing class? You know, I've always wanted to do one because I don't have any upper body strength but i feel like you'd be great at it i have all the upper body strength but but none of the um the the hip swing sexiness so it's fine you do the you do the arm strength i do this creating like a giant megatron of pole dancing i really want to go to a class i think it'd be so fun. Okay. Okay. At Candinally Kimmy says, I dip Oreos in water. Why? Is it a...

Do you not have milk? Are you lactose intolerant? Lactate. I drink lactate. I've never done it. I don't know. Maybe you get a cleaner flavor. You get more Oreo flavor.

I'm trying to get... I'm trying to really... Did you know I'm lactose intolerant? You eat so much dairy all the time. I know, but I have lactate i drink i've never done it i don't know maybe you get a cleaner flavor you get more oreo i'm trying to get i'm trying to really did you know i'm lactose intolerant you eat so much dairy all the time i know but i have a bunch of cream cheese but i like i take my lactate to it but actual milk fucks me like i can have like cheese and ice cream like that's fine i ate my lactate pill fine but if i drink dairy milk i am gone i know no one eats more dairy than lactose intolerant people which makes me feel bad for the celiac i want what i can't have but i eat it anyways it's so sad to me when someone's like i'm allergic to gluten but no i'm like actually allergic to gluten i'm not just the people who say they are they're like pleading with you and you're like i believe you i trust you and all these people are like i'm lactose intolerant and then give me a brick of

cheese and a fork. Just sucking down sour cream with a boba straw. Pretty much. I'm going to pay for this later. Stop. Stop doing it. No, it's good. I like cheese, man.

Yeah, like coconut cheese. Cheese is my family. Cheese. No, it's not the same and you know it. It doesn't have the same melting point and it doesn't taste as good. So stop trying to change me, Josh. God, I love cheese too. All right. On that note, thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Check us out again next week when we ask, is cereal soup?

That's a good one. If you want to be featured on Opinions or Like Casseroles, you can hit us up on Twitter at MythicalChef or and HandyZada with the hashtag OpinionCasserole. For more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube. We launch new recipe videos every week and a new premium show on Tuesday. And if you want to see with your eyes what you heard with your ears here today, check us out on the video version of the podcast tomorrow on youtube.com slash mythical kitchen. See you next time. Bye. I had fun.