A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Canadian vs. American Food ft. Renee Paquette

Episode Date: December 8, 2021

Today, we're joined by Renee Paquette, Ontario native, host of Oral Sessions With Renee Paquette, and author of the cookbook 'Messy In The Kitchen' to discuss Canadian food vs American food! 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. Just like the 1995 comedy classic Canadian Bacon starring John Candy, today we wage war with our incredibly polite Canadian neighbors. This is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich.

A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Ayer. And I'm your host, Nicole Inaidi. And today we're excited to be joined by Renee Paquette. Renee's a renowned television host and commentator,

celebrated for her star power at the WWE, host of her own podcast, Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, and can even be spotted in a 2010 Kelly Clarkson music video. She's also an Ontario native and the author of a new cookbook, Messy in the Kitchen, which makes her the perfect guest for today's conversation. Renee, welcome to the pod. Hi, guys. I'm so excited to talk some food with you. Hell yeah, let's do it. How do we do in the intro? We ask our guests to rate the bio of them out of 10 just so we can get better at it because we're always looking to learn.

Yeah, I mean, it sounded good to me. I feel like you checked off most of the you know there's i was also in a tom green music video um yeah that's really cool he made music yeah check the or you like it so far um yeah this one was called teachers suck and i can't i can't repeat the lyrics or i'll get kicked off the show makes sense makes sense okay so you are uh what I would say famously Canadian yeah is that an accurate I would say so I'm like proudly Canadian I think all Canadians are like obnoxiously proud like I noticed when I when I like text my mom something she doesn't really care she just responds with a Canadian flag for some reason it's like weird. But I do think there's like a real sense of patriotic proudness that comes from from being a Canadian. I feel like it's a nicer sense of

patriotism than we have in America, too. You know what I mean? Like it's I don't know, maybe it's patronizing for me to say as an American to a Canadian, but it seems almost like quaint. Like I hear the Canadian National Anthem and I don't mean to start this and come out of it, but I hear that. I'm like, oh, that's adorable. It's a nice anthem? Yeah. It is a sweet anthem. It is a nice anthem. Yeah, it's nice because, you know,

when we start off in English and then it deviates into French and then we circle back around to the English so like everybody's covered and taken care of. Oh, nice. But I became an American in March. I don't think I know the lyrics to the anthem yet. I should probably

get on that. To our anthem. Yeah. To the American anthem. Yeah. Man. You'll get there eventually. I'll get there. I mean, when you're not in elementary school, when do you have to stand up to sing it, right? I'm past that point, so I'll wait till my kid goes to school and then she can recite it back to me. Nice.

Speaking of being proudly Canadian, are you very proud of Canadian food? Because Nicole and I are, for lack of a better word, like dumb. I'd say like ignorant. Speak for yourself. I'm like kind of smart. We don't know a ton about Canadian food. We don't get exposed to it, especially being in California. I agree.

And so are you very passionate about it? What are your favorite things about it? I'm incredibly passionate about Canadian food. I miss Canadian food. I long for Canadian food. I feel like there was more of a thread of Canadian dishes throughout the process of me putting my cookbook together that, yeah, I didn't even realize how much it had kind of like seeped into my DNA. I mean, obviously growing up in Canada, but when you grow up in Canada, you don't think of the food as just being Canadian, but now living in America, I'm like, Oh yeah, we do have all these dishes. Of course,

first and foremost, the number one being poutine. Everybody loves them some poutine. If you're going to be, you know, stumbling out of a bar at 3 a.m in toronto there's uh there's many late night poutineries where you can have like so many different toppings um there's bad poutines out there as well don't get me wrong uh the poutine at mcdonald's that i had when i was i've only been to quebec and that was when i was 19 i went with my best friend and we went because we could legally drink in Quebec. At 18 you can there. Yeah, you can get wild in Quebec.

Oh, it's great. We had such a great time. Yeah, no. He got kicked in the head at a strip club and he got a concussion. It was his fault. By who?

By the dancer. She was very athletic and she had a long heel on. Notoriously the best strip clubs in the world are in Montreal. So a little the more you know banner

can go up there. Go out, support your local sex performers, folks. Be polite, tip well. Yes. And we had a great time in Quebec. And oh, but the interesting thing, let's jump into Canadian strip clubs. I didn't realize that it was very different because there are no $1 bills. No, our smallest denomination of bills is a $5 bill.

So unless you're going to like flick a toonie at somebody, which is our $2 coin, um, and that, you know, I mean, those kind of have a little bit of weight behind them. You don't want to like, you know, flick a toonie at somebody and put a mark on these beautiful bodies. Of course not. So slip a $5 bill, which is kind of equivalent when you do, you know, you, um, you look at, you look at the conversion of the money from American to Canadian. I think it kind of balances out in the end anyways. I remember being like a little sadder looking at my bank account. Just going like, ah, crap.

A little bit more than I wanted to. I've only been to Canada once. I went to Calgary for a wedding. Was it beautiful? Calgary is really pretty. It was gorgeous. Very green. And apparently there's a lot of cowboys there.

Didn't see not one cowboy. Oh, that's too bad. The Calgary Stampeders. Yeah, I did go. But I did go to Banff. And I had actually one of the best pizzas I've ever had at a bison pizza. Oh, wow. It was incredible.

You know what? I'm a big supporter of bison. I cook bison a lot. My husband loves bison. So he kind of got me into that. But yeah, cooking with bison i cook bison a lot uh my husband loves bison so he kind of got me into that but yeah cooking with bison is incredible i mean who just you don't just need like a lean beef give me some bison instead same same thing hundo p i say bison has like a lot of roots in uh the bodybuilding community i mean your husband's a pro wrestler yeah yeah is is he eating bison just to stay

jacked i guess so yeah because it's like a good lean meat when you want a different alternative and you don't just want like ground turkey or chicken breast or just having like, you know, some other kind of like lean red meat. Bison is definitely the way to go. So we have it at home quite often. However, we are about to go up to my father-in-law's house, and I think he's giving us some deer. So I have to know how to cook deer soon. Hell yeah.

Oh, Milanese. You pound it out real thin. It's a lean meat. Can't do a long cook. Tried to do venison osso bucco. Didn't work. Oh, wait, wait, hold on. I'm going to go back to ADHD.

ADHD is firing too hard. Wow. Canadian food versus American food. Okay. Yes, yes, yes. What we have done here, we have compiled a list of what we believe to be some of the top Canadian foods and some of their top American food. Okay. Yes, yes, yes. What we have done here, we have compiled a list of what we believe to be some of the top Canadian foods and some of their top American counterparts. And I think we can go through this list and just hash out a little debate on which has

the most merit. So I'm glad you brought up poutine. I would say the American version of poutine, chili cheese fries. Boo. I agree. Boo. Chili cheese. Boo?

Boo. Just immediate boo? Boo. It's an immediate boo for it. Nicole, boo her in Canadian. This is why? Boo. No, no, Boo Canada. They call Boo her in Canadian. This is why it's... Sorry, Boo. It does not meet on the same playing field as poutine

because poutine is all about the cheese curd. It's the curd. You can't just have shredded cheese. That does not cut it in the poutine world. You need to have like the squeaky cheese. You know that poutine cheese. You can use like the curds from Wisconsin or something like that. Like that will put you in the right wheelhouse.

But it has to be those curds that get like those big, chunky, pull apart, stringy cheese bits smothered in that hot brown gravy. Why the hell can we not get cheese curds in America? Because that's – I don't know. Like you said, you have the Wisconsin curds. That's the only thing. But even then, no grocery store will actually have it. Very hard to find.

It's a delightful product. It is. They're lovely. Lovely. Culver's, the fast food chain that's from the Midwest. Heard of it. They make fried cheese curds at their thing. I think A&W also does that, the fast food chain.

Oh, hell yeah. Fried cheese curds. Because we've struggled. We've tried to make poutine on the show. And we'll use some low moisture matzah we cut into cubes. It's not the same. And we'll like kind of even lie and be like, cheese curd like product. And people are like, those aren't cheese curds, hey, Bob?

Don't zoom in. It's a cheese curd. Yeah. It has to be the curd. When I was working on my cookbook and I had to obviously put a poutine in there. I have like my what's called the regular ass poutine. And then, uh, and then I had the clam chowder poutine because I wanted to have like a hybrid of like, I couldn't just do like one poutine. I had to have two. Um, so I did a clam chowder version, but I could actually find cheese curds at my local grocery store. And I was

living in Las Vegas at the time. So they can be found. You can track them down. Nicole, do you have any particular affinity for chili cheese fries? I got some thoughts. Let me tell you the truth. I would prefer to eat poutine. Poutine? Wow. Oh my God, no, you said it like beautifully.

You said poutine. Oh my gosh, there I go. Girl. Yeah, poutine is like, it's like a sexier food than chili cheese fries. It's brown gravy. What do you mean it's sexy? Gravy is hot and sexy and velvety. And salty. Yeah, I like gravy, fries, and cheese. That makes sense

to me. I've never been a chili cheese dog or fry girl. Never like knuckles deep in a plate of fries like that. I don't like that. Poutine is much better. Okay, honestly, I kind of... I'm on Canada. I'm with Canada. You're on Team Canada. Don't defect to Canada. What do you mean? I'm defecting to Canada when it comes to french fries. You go to Banff once and

suddenly you're a Canada. Wait, are you anti-poutine? I actually am. This is the thing. So many people think that I would love poutine. And I have an affinity for all the foods that are like poutine. I love fries smothered in things, you would think. But for me, there's something about the brown

gravy, the cheese curd, and the fries. The flavors aren't complimentary enough, and I don't even think that all foods have to have complimentary flavors, but to me, it's just like fatty salty on fatty salty on fatty salty, and so we both grew up in Southern California, and we have what are called asada fries, where you go to a taqueria

and they top the fries with the shredded yellow cheese that just a taqueria and they top the fries with like the shredded yellow cheese that just melts into plastic. Yeah. And they top it with carne asada, guac, tons of salsa. Sour cream. And for me, that's just like, it's exciting. You're talking about a sexy food, Nicole.

Okay. That's a sexy food. Well, I didn't even think about that. But now that you did that, I guess poutine is number two and the carne asada fries are numero uno and then chili cheese fries can suck it. I only had carne asada fries once and I got them chili cheese fries can suck it i only had carne asada fries once and i got them from del taco where does that rank oh rough uh i think that's gotta come to la and try it with us that's the mcdonald's that's the mcdonald's poutine of uh like california

honestly the way that i look at it though is like i've never met a fry specific like a potato or a fry that i don't like so no matter which way you dress it up i'm going to eat it and enjoy it to some degree but like i was saying earlier there's the poutineries where you can add like montreal smoked meat to it or you can add you can add those those like typical nacho flavors on top of it add the guacamole the sour cream um i don't know. Cut up a hot dog, throw it in there. Add more salty, fatty things on there. The options are endless. But I am more of a traditionalist when it comes to my poutines.

I respect that. And I think because of the French and British influence, like in Canada, they take more care with their fries too. That's nice. Which I really believe in. We should get the pronunciation thing out of the way because I launched in a full eight hour rabbit hole on Twitter asking for people from Quebec, from France, and from America to pronounce the word poutine in their native French cadence. And you made me listen to it with you for a short period of time. Because I had no idea that in Quebec they pronounce it very hard like poutine. Yes.

And then an American-born French speaker says poutine pretty hard. And then in France, it's somewhere in between. And so do I say poutine? Is that the correct? I just say poutine because if I'm saying poutine, it's like, calm down. I'm not a French-speaking woman. I mean, I do speak a little bit of French, but it is not my native tongue. So I could slap a little poutine on there, but like, who am I trying to impress?

So I just keep it poutine. In Toronto, if you're ordering it, you just ask for poutine. If I was in Quebec and I was like a couple cocktails in, I'd call it poutine. Incredible. It's like, it'd be like carne asada fries. Instead of like, listen, white dude, it's carne asada. You can just say it. Say it normal.

Same thing. You're at Del Taco. Yeah. Okay. I would be willing to give, I mean, Canada poutine is so iconic. Yeah. You got to have Canada the win on poutine. I'm going to give it to them because they deserve it.

Thank you. We're not keeping an official track, but let's say it's 1-0. We referenced Canadian bacon, the movie, where John Candy wages war on Canada. Great film. Love John Candy. I think it got like barred from release in America did it there was something about it it grossed like zero dollars anyways go watch that movie sometimes Canadians like we're big on like our own little inside

jokes and either people just don't get it sometimes we just do it to laugh at ourselves I think that movie is quintessentially that I love that also the greatest piece of Canadian media to ever come out, one of the greatest sports movies of all time is Goon. Oh, you talk about Goon so much. I am absolutely obsessed with the Jay Baruchel.

Anyways, Canadian bacon versus American bacon. Renee, can you enlighten us on what the hell Canadian bacon actually is? Because we have our Canadian bacon in America, and I don't think it has anything to do with the bacon in Canada. It's different. So when you get, you call it pea meal bacon. So it's pea meal bacon in Canada. We don't call it just Canadian bacon. It has like this like cornmeal crust around it. It's just a leaner, it's more like a slice of ham. It's like if you, it was just like a ham bacon hybrid, but it's leaner than a regular bacon

it's not stripy like regular bacon um and it's it's more cylindrical did i say that right yeah yeah thank you um but uh yeah it's it still is like that salty you want to heat that baby up it's great on a breakfast sandwich like it is breakfast sandwich friendly it's already an english muffin shape you've already got that circle down she's really selling it it's great no it's very very good um but yeah it does kind of throw me off because i find if i order like canadian bacon or buy it at the grocery store where i'm in america it's just thick ham kind of which. It's fine, but I want that pea meal with that little bit of that cornmeal crust

on the outside. I never knew I needed a cornmeal crust on my cured pork products. I don't know if it's just because I'm hungry and I haven't eaten any food outside of the weird protein bars that we have in the kitchen. Sorry about that. You host a food podcast and you're slimming protein bars?

There's cinnamon toast crunch protein bars, though. Oh, okay. Yeah, so it's like a little foodie, you know, like a little treat. Too little. Just like a little treat. But like pea meal bacon, that sounds really good. I just want to eat that between two slices of bread. Also, what we call Canadian bacon in America, one, we have a propensity to just take whole animals and like shove them in a blender.

Sure. And then like pipe their meats into little molds. I mean, we kind of do too, but yeah, Canadian bacon or female bacon is more of a purist form. There's actually a really great market in Toronto called the St. Lawrence market. And they do these like insane, uh, Canadian bacon breakfast sandwiches. Actually Anthony Bourdain, uh, whenain, when he did one of his episodes in Toronto, he went there and had it. And I'm sure the lines are still very, very long to get these St. Lawrence Market breakfast sandwiches because they're just incredible.

Maggie, what's our show's travel budget? Do we have a travel? Because like, Bourdain had the Travel Channel budget. Do we have 60 bucks? Okay, we'll take a Greyhound to Reno. Perfect. I am not getting on a greyhound with you

it's gonna be the last thing i want to do okay do you do you have you mentioned the term stripy bacon earlier is that popular in canada as well oh yeah of course what do you call it just bacon just regular bacon but then so female bacon you don't use the term canadian bacon at all female bacon yeah it's i'm like i'm not i feel like i hope i'm not lying but yeah last i remember being in canada ordering breakfast there it's been a minute but it's like your options are like bacon turkey bacon sausage pea meal bacon so yeah it would be female bacon we don't call it canadian bacon it doesn't yeah that would be like redundant yeah we should say renee is not uh a spokesperson for all of canada canadian culture is not a monolith of course you know diversity of opinion diversity

opinion but she's here i'll wave that flag i will wave that flag but the second somebody comes at me for it i'd be like oh okay maybe i was wrong i don't know here you go yeah um i i love streaky bacon as some people call it that's a a British thing, right? Yeah. Yeah. I do like like American style bacon. But something about pea meal bacon sounds really attractive. Yeah. And I want to eat a lot of it. I'm thinking about the taste of streaky bacon in my mouth right now and thinking about the taste of this fictional, mythical pea meal bacon that I've never had.

And I want that pea meal bacon in my mouth. Could you imagine just like being a person that doesn't eat bacon? That makes me so sad. There's like so many people that do that. Like what a ruse of a life. No way. Yeah, I know.

We are both disappointing our Jewish parents by eating bacon all the time. Yeah. So you're preaching to the choir. I understand. Sorry all of our Holol listeners. We love you. I'm trying to like, this is,

can you guys see it? That's the female bacon. Can you see the cornmeal on the outside? I sure do. It looks like a honey baked ham, like fell into a pile of dried leaves. She's thick with three C's. She's thick. I'm willing to give a win to this female bacon, mostly because Renee's so passionate about it.

I didn't even know I was passionate about it until you brought it up and here we are. You struck a chord. I love it. I love it. of corn i love it all dress chips versus let's say barbecue okay let's say can you explain what an all-dressed chip is and why the hell it's called all dress so i will say this very confidently all dress chips are the best chips you will ever have in your life it's swing hard it is um there's not much sweetness to it it's like a like an 80 20 savory to sweetness but it's like a barbecue salt and vinegar um i don't know like almost like a little bit of like that ketchup

chip knot i'm glad that you said all dressed instead of ketchup as well like i love ketchup going back and forth but all dress chips to me are my jam i can find them occasionally at grocery stores here in america as well you might be able to get them in california because i know i could find them in in las vegas no problem um yeah it's almost like i can't think of what that other like je ne sais quoi is that makes the all dressed the all dressed. Because I think on like the front of the package, it's like there's like a vinegar bottle, maybe like some Worcestershire sauce. Beautiful pronunciation. Thank you very much. Very elegant.

Thank you. It kind of covers the spectrum of flavors which is like very pleasing on the palate i feel like your tongue is walking away very happy like you don't just have like a all-dress chip and yes we like ruffles makes the best one but when you're in canada i was gonna ask there's all the other brands that have them as well whether it's like humpty dumpty i don't think lays does an all-dress chip um but we have another brand called president's choice which is um done at loblaws it's like their own brands like their own grocery store but they have the best flavors as well but they do like loaded versions of everything so you can get like loaded

all dress so it's like really packing a punch wow chips are my passion chips are my passion one time we had um old dutch ketchup chips here and it like ruined me for like all of it. My mouth is watering thinking about that because I remember the flavor of that so vividly. The old Dutch one.

They're the best. I'm like salivating. The glands are moving right now. Me too. I feel like I'm drooling right now. Yeah, the old Dutch ketchup chips are incredible. Hot fire flames.

Oh my God. Yeah, I think Renee said it best when she mentioned the barbecue crossed with the salt and vinegar. Like that's what the all-dress reminds me of a little bit. Yeah. But with some more savory aromatics in there. I've had a few all-dress chips and I like it, but I'm just not a salt and vinegar chip person.

Oh, really? Never have been, never will be. People try to get me to like it. I just don't like it. The amount of times I've seen you eat pickles from the jar straight up. Wow, interesting. That's because i love sodium oh my god honestly bloat my face up with all the sodium i don't care i want it all

yeah you just need like a salt lick like a horse just kind of hanging from a little beanie in front of you if it was if it was all dress Salt Lick, I could easily be convinced. Yeah. I was going to say, are you trying to go in on a new business venture? Especially if I have like one glass of wine, give me all the sodium. Oh my gosh. I love sodium. It's so funny.

But I don't know. Like my heart and soul just enjoys the flavor of a barbecue chip more. I could eat a bag of barbecue chips. I don't know if I could eat a bag of all dress chips Interesting this is where we flip What's your favorite brand of barbecue? Kettle Kettle brand

Because they're thick and they have a lot of foldies And I love a good foldie Those are like a mesquite barbecue aren't they? I think they have like a regular barbecue one too But whatever it is the orange bag I think Is like the dinky dink Oh wait there was a new barbecue that i just had hold on i gotta look up what it was i think it's the bourbon one

i think you're right kettle brand is one of those few brands that i'm like i love this i want to make out with kettle brand chips the entity is how much i love those freaking chips they just are so much better than every other competitor yeah the backyard barbecue is the dankness they also have a bourbon barbecue and now now they recently have a classic barbecue as well. Also a Korean barbecue. Have you guys had, there's the Cardi B Lay's chips that are cheddar barbecue, and they are awesome. They're very good. I've heard they're really good.

Huge fan. The wrap snacks, right? Yeah, they're awesome. What do you feel, Josh? Are you BBQ or are you all dressed? I'm too candid on this one. I think all dressed to me, it strikes the perfect balance

between the amount of sour, the amount of sodium, and the amount of onion powder that I need in a chip. And I wish all dressed were more popular in America. They should be more popular. I think we need to make that.

P meal bacon, all dressed chips, and we need cheese curds ready and available. Let's cross everything across the border. Let's ship them all down. My mom will make us all care packages. Hell yeah.

Get your mom on the show. Where's your mom at right now? What you doing? She just went back to Canada. So she's busy. All right. Moving on. We got both Canada and the US, obviously very multicultural places.

And every Canadian person I've talked to, which is to say, too, there's that dude, Early Pete on TikTok. We love Early Pete. OK. And then that's it. He's the only Canadian I know. But Donair apparently is very popular. And the thing that is uniquely Canadian in the way that, you know, certain taquerias are uniquely American and Californian in the way they've been influenced. So, Renee, can you tell us a little bit about Donair? So Donair, it is very popular in

Canada, but it's more popular on the East Coast of Canada. So if you're going through New Brunswick, if you're in Nova Scotia, you're going to find like beautiful, amazing Donair on like every street or like every corner. I am not from the East Coast, so I can't speak to it as passionately as I can about the all dress chips and poutine. Our big thing in Toronto is like the East Coast, so I can't speak to it as passionately as I can about the all-dressed chips and poutine. Our big thing in Toronto is like the street meat. Like our hot dogs crush a New York hot dog, crush a Chicago hot dog. They're very, very good. But I mean, yeah, with the doner, yeah, just give me that shaved meat that's hanging in the window.

Slap a little tzatziki on there. It's excellent. It's very in the window. Slap a little tzatziki on there. It's excellent. It's very, very good. Is it primarily Turkish immigrants? Because I know doner is a Turkish word. I think so, but I don't know. This is one that I'm not confident to really go to bat for

and say it's full origin story. I'm not sure. Yeah, well, it's interesting. Like if you come to California or Los Angeles specifically, a majority of the sushi restaurants are owned by Korean immigrants. That's true.

Who have like really put their own spin on it. Interesting. And it's kind of created a, you know, microculture within itself. I'm willing to talk about, though, Toronto hot dogs versus L.A. hot dogs. Because L.A. hot dogs are something we're both very passionate about. Danger dogs. What is the typical Toronto hot dog? Like what makes it tick?

So here's the thing. Again, I did not know that toronto hot dogs were superior until i lived in new york and everyone's like oh new york hot dog tra la la get some nathan's nathan's can suck a big one am i allowed to say that on this show yeah you can say suck a big one you can use as many gross sexual euphemisms as possible definitely can't say the f word great um. So I went and had Nathan's. I was like on Coney Island. I'm like, oh, this is going to be great.

And it was like this like rinky dink little hot dog. It was like steamed in a tiny little bun that it didn't fit in. I want hot dog to bun ratio to be like ballpark style. I want it to be like sort of a mixture between like a bratwurst and a hot dog i want that to meet in the middle and i feel like that's what toronto street dogs do for you interesting what's what's the topping structure like what what it typically goes on like in chicago if you put ketchup on a hot dog you get stoned in the street like what's the toronto so i i'm sort of a traditionalist in that like just want ketchup and mustard, but it's like a regular hot dog cart where they've got all the fixings there, whether you want to add some banana pepper, some chopped onions, some sauerkraut.

I sometimes don't even mind a little cheese, like just like throw a little cheese whiz on that bad boy. Hell yeah. is on that bad boy hell yeah i like that quite a bit too but i'm not opposed to adding like a little bit of spice too maybe like some little like pickled jalapeno chunks like nothing too crazy but something that's like a little bit more of a mild little snap to it i would like that nicole you want to give her the rundown on the la danger dog talk to me is it a dodger dog or a danger dog because i say danger dog no dodger dog is specifically at the dodger stadium dodger dogs are the worst hot dog in one mlb to the world they are zero percent beef so dodger dogs are terrible i always go to jeff's gourmet which is a little kosher hot dog section but that's just me because i don't want i don't want all the date the dodger dog yeah but no they don't like the our version of a hot dog

cart so after you go out clubbing or to a concert, there's like a bunch of carts outside. And then, um, it's a bacon wrapped hot dog with a bunch of peppers and onions that are, uh, like being sauteed on the griddle in the bacon, in the bacon. And then, um, it's a beautiful bun that they just crack open.

And I think mayo, ketchup, mustard. And then sometimes they put on like jalapenos. Yeah. The grilled, the grilled jalapeno to me is they'll just serve it with either a whole grilled jalapeno or sometimes I feel like you can tell where the vendor is from based on the chili they're using.

Yes, you're the one who brought this up to me. So I was eating a street dog the other day, and they had chile huero, which are the softer yellow peppers. They're still really spicy, and they're just cooking those in the bacon fat. Some will do serranos. And it's like people don't think of hot dogs and they think of la but for me i'm like listen i've had all the street carts in new york i don't care they're all boiling the same hot dog water yeah yeah and then you get this just all the vegetables cooked in the bacon fat like you said you you leave any event in la and there are just 12 carts mobbing

around they're all just cooking them on a big sheet pan. And to me, L.A. hot dogs are one of the most underrated foods. And they have roots in the Sonoran dog. Wait, what's the Sonoran dog? Oh, give it the run. So Sonoran dog. It actually is more popular in Arizona, in cities like Tucson. But it comes from northern Mexico.

They take a bolillo roll, which is like a big soft French roll. And they cut it in the middle. Then they put a scoop of pinto beans on the bottom then the hot dog goes on top of that and then it's just no holds barred uh forgive the wrestling terminology when it comes to the toppings it's like cabbage uh pico de gallo salsa verde avocado crema wow all that crushed chips right yeah i think crush chips are more of a south american thing my bad but it's i wouldn't put crushed chips on it now i'm down it sounds great yeah so there's a really great um there's a great hot dog stand in vancouver and i don't know if they're just in bc or not but it's called japa dog and they're japanese hot dogs and they are insane so you get them with like the tobiko

you get um some sesame seeds crushed on there um some of the um the sea uh seaweed what am i trying to say the seaweed flakes whatever that was called uh nori nori the nori for a cook yeah you get like the nori crushed on there but these are kobe beef hot dogs and they've got you know a bunch of different toppings even if you want to have like the crunchy tempura on top of it like you're killing me these hot dogs we gotta get hot dogs for lunch oh my god i dream about these hot dogs they are so damn good i need a freaking hot dog so damn good oh i forgot about those until we just started talking about them and now i'm like how can i get a flight to bc right now all right all right as as we approach the end of uh this feudal war between america and canada let's do like a little lightning round let's just start like listing things off um we didn't come up with a good verses with this but we just don't know

what the hell a nanaimo bar a nanaimo bar nanaimo bar nanaimo bar. Nanaimo bar. Nanaimo bar versus what do we put up against it? Almond Joy. Almond Joy. Screw it. Mounds. Oh, I've got to go

Mounds. I like Mounds. I think they're great. Most people hate them. I think they're great. I love them. Real maple syrup versus Mrs. Butterworth.

Come on. Get real. Real maple syrup all day long. Give me the corn syrup. No, sometimes I need the corn syrup because of the way it seeps into the pancake or the waffle. I need it. Sometimes the maple syrup just like sloughs off and I'm like, what the F is going on?

Yeah, it can be a little thin and runny if it's not done right. Like I don't want a runny maple syrup. But having like actually cracking out, like going to like a maple tree and like dropping that and like some snow and getting some maple candies now okay that's a flex maple candies that was a big flex huge flex i will get i want to try that so bad like right now that sounds like so much it's really nice tim tim hortons versus duncan tim hortons all day long no question they made a buffalo chicken donut and i wanted to try it because it looked gross and i wanted it oh my god i didn't get to that i want to try that cheesies versus cheetos what's the cheesy oh yeah cheesies are our cheetos same thing um god i didn't even think of them as

being different so that being said i've not had a cheesy in a long time so i'm gonna have to go cheetos on this one because i'm i just bought those not long ago and man, did they hold up. I've tried a Cheesy. Actually, Jen, who is from Canada, brought them and they were good. They're cheesier than Cheetos. I forgot about Cheezies. Cheezies are really good. She was from Edmonton. I don't know.

If I said Yeg, does that mean anything? Yeg. I don't know what that is. I don't know. I thought it was a slang for someone from Edmonton. I hope I didn't do a slur. I don't know. We cross it was a slang for someone from Edmonton. I hope I didn't do a slur. I don't know. We cross our fingers now. All right. Finally, Drake versus Ice Cube.

Oh, Drake. Defend that one. Drake. No question. Okay. Wait, wait. I have one. I have one.

Celine Dion versus Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga. Nice. Yes. Y'all are crazy. No, no, no. Celine, she won Eurovision. Who?

Celine Dion. She won Eurovision? I don't know. Isn't she from Switzerland originally? She was born Eurovision? I don't know isn't she from Switzerland Originally? She was born in Canada I don't know what the hell I'm talking about You don't know what the hell you're talking about man I feel like there might be some truth to that I feel like there's something with Celine Dion in Eurovision

Maybe I don't know what that Whole story is but maybe I'm also having like a little buyer's remorse on just like Instantly throwing out Drake Yeah I feel that We all have regrets about it I like said it and then it sunk in There's remorse on just like instantly throwing out Drake. Yeah, I feel that. We all have regrets about it. I like said it and then it sunk in and I was like, wait, can I redo that one? I think I want to go Ice Cube.

I do love me some Drizzy. I do. I got to say today, Nicole, it was a good day. See? All right, Nicole and Renee, we've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the Twitterverse. It's time for a segment we call... Opinions are like casseroles, eh? I threw in a little A there because people are from Canada and they also say Canada, not Canada.

They say Canada. Depends on where you're from. But yeah, that's like a West Coast Canada thing. Canada. Yeah, I've heard it. I know what you're talking about. Am I erroneous for saying bud? No, that's accurate.

Yeah, the bud is very accurate. I'm bringing that to California. That's the thing. I want to import pea meal bacon and all right, bud. Pea meal bacon and a Molson, bud. Let's go. Oh, God. I drink so many Molsons and I tried to order a Labatt Blue and people laughed at me because

they're like, that's not real Canadian beer there, bud. Gotta get a Molson's. Gotta get a Molson's extra dry. All right. We got at unknown and ireful. I don't know if it's a hot take, but a major food type that's uniquely Canadian is Chinese food. Interesting. Interesting. So, I mean, I feel like Canada is so multicultural,

especially, I mean, I can really mostly speak for Toronto because that's where I'm from. But Toronto's Chinatown is amazing. There's just so many great shops, Kensington markets right there. So it was like really cool, like vintage clothes and really great food. Also, um, you know, adjacent to that, there's the Vietnamese markets, um, where they have like incredible pho that will like rock your world. Um, but yeah, I think like the, the late night Chinese order for me, there was one spot I'm going to draw a blank on the name of it, but I would always order this sweet beef and it was like candied beef jerky almost. And it was just incredible. Sounds incredible. But I mean, I love Chinese food. I don't really care where it's coming from. I feel like you can't really screw that up. Give me some really great noodles. Give me all of the carbs and again

hit me with that sodium i love me some sodium all day man sister yeah so i mean america has its own like chinese american food like orange chicken is the big west coast thing for sure that we all love but i'm staring at a dish right now uh on the old computer screen called quebec style chicken noodles and it appears to be soy sauce chicken and, and just straight up elbow macaroni. Oh, I've never had that. Elbow macaroni is a thing. That's a weird choice there. Yeah. Is that a, is there any Canadian link to the elbow macaroni? Not that I can think of. Very interesting. I don't know. I mean, I think when you just, that seems like almost like a little lazy to me. They're like, well, I was going to make mac and cheese, but instead these are the ingredients that I have. So I'm just kind of working with what I got. And it

tasted fine enough. So they kept going with it. Respect the game. Respect the hustle. All right. Next up, mbarlow092 says, Montreal style bagels are superior to New York style bagels in every way. I think I'm going to have to agree to this one. Montreal bagels. I'm not really sure what makes them so much more superior um but I yeah last time I was in Montreal I brought some home for my husband um they were actually stale by the time I got them to him after flying I think I went and did like a tv show and then came home and we still smashed all of those bagels um something about the way Montreal does it because you the thing too is like when you go to Montreal,

it's like you have to have the Montreal bagel, but you also have to get the Montreal smoked meat. So if you can combine these worlds or hit up that fresh lox on a bagel in Montreal and like you've never had anything better than that. Like that really thin sliced, amazing smoked salmon. I'm so hungry right now. I've hearing a lot about montreal style bagels and it makes me want to just get on a plane i have a thought i have a thought process on why montreal style bagels the three foods that

renee mentioned the bagels the lox and the smoked meat all ashkenazi jewish traditions yes speaking as an ashkenazi jew his family is from just the winters of latvia and all of our family dishes are like wait what was the word you said what was what what was the word you said before jewish uh ashkenazi so like the the eastern like the eastern european jews what we would call like a white jew okay uh whereas nicole your family is yeah i'm sephardic so i'm from iran okay okay you gotta separate the different kinds. Slash Mizrahi. I get confused myself. It's confusing.

But my theory is that the Ashkenazi Jews felt so at home in Montreal, they were able to do their best work. Nice. They were like, this is cold. It's like Latvia or Russia, Siberia, that I am in my natural environment to be able to make the best bagel possible with no distractions. Nice. No distractions from flying to Miami. That's a storyline I'm willing to buy i like that it sounds making up

it sounds like that could have been how it went down that's lovely making up ignorant histories yeah i do so much locks in my house i go to costco and i go ham on the locks the most the most jewish thing you can do in southern cal Southern California is buy a ton of locks from Costco. I grew up with it in the freezer, dude. Locks is the best. It's funny because when I was pregnant, I got a sweet tooth and I never have a sweet tooth. I am savory all day long because that used to be my regular, like, especially in a hotel. If you can order a room service with locks, like, good luck.

That's my kind of day starter. But then when I was pregnant, I was like, i guess i'll just have like peanut butter or like i don't know like a strawberry cream cheese it really made me deviate from my regular bagel wow yeah so i gotta i gotta get back in that the locks game back in the locks game oh yeah all right we got at caladas no idea what this means garlic fingers need to be worldwide. How are they not? Renee, how are garlic fingers not worldwide? I don't know what that person's talking about. Garlic fingers.

We need to Google garlic fingers. Garlic fingers. I mean, that just seems to me like when you're cooking and your hands smell like garlic for like two days after. Dude, no. Okay, so here we go. This is an Atlantic Canadian dish. It appears to be a type of Turkish bread that they bake cheese and garlic onto, and then they cut it into strips, and they serve it with doner,

and it's called garlic fingers. Oh, my God. So it's kind of like crazy bread, but, like, better? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This reminds me of, so we live in a really big Armenian area in California, and there's a lot of Armenian doughs that are similar lot, there's a lot of Armenian doughs that

are similar to pizza. So a lot of Armenian people open up pizza shops and they'll call their traditional dish like a kachapuri or a jarski is what it's called. And they'll just be like breakfast pizza. Cause it kind of has pizza dough and there's an egg cracked on it. And so this is like, yeah, this is like the Canadian version of breakfast pizza. That's rad. Yeah. That sounds great. I mean, I've never had that, but if I did, I would lean way into it. That sounds excellent. We got to go to St. John's.

Yeah, St. John's is beautiful. Is St. John's a city? Yep. What's St. John's? St. John's, New Brunswick. It's in the movie Goon. What's, oh, sorry. You guys are saying too many words

that I've never heard before. All right. Jason underscore MCM underscore says, Coffee Crisp is the best candy bar and canada is being selfish hoarding it all to themselves i agree i love me some coffee crisps so my dad my dad comes down to visit from toronto uh every october we had to skip the last one or two due to covid so he just came this past trip. But apparently you cannot get coffee crisp in Toronto right now either. So he actually had my uncle in Edmonton

bring me down. So I have like giant cases of like full size coffee crisp, but my dad normally brings it down at Halloween. So I get the little Halloween size ones, which then it's called coffin crisp. Very adorable. I live for that stuff. I live for that cheesy stuff. It's pretty cute. I like it too. I love that stuff too. Um, so yeah, coffee crisp is good to me because I'm not a huge chocolate person. So it's nice. It's like these airy light, you know, lightly coffee flavored wafers with a very thin coating of chocolate so you're not like being inundated with too much chocolate you ever had a coffee crisp i have no idea what these things are i've had a coffee you've had a coffee i don't know but it's happened and i've oh you

want to know where i had it there's a store in los uh it's uh what is it called buzz what is that what is the candy store rocket fizz Rocket Fizz Rocket Fizz has like international candies and stuff and they had coffee crisp and it was so damn good I think you can maybe even get it at World Market

in their international oh that's good that's good to know I think I dig on Smarties and Maltesers I get down with those those are the only ones

that I really like oh my gosh I've not had Smarties in forever Maltesers all day but I like the American Whopper I could not taste the difference love a nice malt ball uh i do too i yeah me too all right uh here's gonna

renee part of the tagline of your book yeah here we go plug it me plugging it without even being brought up uh is drinking copiously so i'm curious about this because i have no idea what it means at pamela7 and ice wine is phenomenal i don't care if you claim you don't like wine, you'll love it. So ice wine will rock your world. What is ice wine? It's very, very sweet wine. Usually they come in like smaller, like skinnier bottles than regular wine. But it's just, it's served cold, obviously it's ice wine, but it's very, very sugary. So you want to talk about getting like

a gnarly hangover do not go too hard on the ice when you got to mix it up throw throw those molsons in there you got to bounce back and forth do not stick to just one or uh you'll have like a week long hangover if you just stick to the ice wine yeah you hydrate with the molsons in between ice wines oh nice yeah yeah that's that's the move know that game. Is ice wine like super kind of like purple and almost tastes like a Welch's grape juice? Is it Concord grape? Kind of, yeah.

It is, yeah. It's very purpley and just like so syrupy. I've not had it in a long time. It's funny. I was like, so when we just moved

to Cincinnati, I was like clearing out my fridge and I had had a bottle of ice wine in there from ages ago. And I was like, oh my goodness, I should probably toss that now. No one's going to be drinking that. No one actually drinks ice wine either, by the way. Like I don't, maybe like, I don't know. I

think if you like, I think the people that are drinking like boxed wine at home might have ice wine as well. Well, part of our Jewish faith insists that we drink a product called Manischewitz, which is, it sounds like it's basically ice wine. It's Concord grape wine that is kosher. And like literally, since we were seven years old, you grew up like drinking little sips at the Passover table. We had the grape juice version. You guys were partying

hard. Hell yeah. We were going hard. So I feel like that's more Jewish-Canadian crossover. We're not so different, Renee, you and I. Here we are. Last opinion will be you underscore that's underscore gross beaver tails are just churros that someone ran over with the truck beaver tails are fantastic um they are it's like i mean it's a bear claw basically right i've seen them before they're like it's yeah it's like a squished like cinnamon roll

or something kind of it's like i'mished like cinnamon roll or something kind of. It's like, again, I've not had a beaver tail in ages. We used to go, this sounds like very Canadian, but we would go to my aunt and uncles in Ottawa and we would go skating on the Rideau Canal. And when you are skating on the Rideau Canal, you can stop because they've got beaver tails. They've got like the little like hut set up along the way. And it's been probably two decades since I've done that. But that would probably be the last time that I've had a beaver tails they've got like the little like hut set up along the way and it's been probably two decades since i've done that um but that would probably be the last time that i've had a beaver

tail um but yeah it's it's a it's like a nice warm sugary pastry they're very nice we call these elephant ears oh okay well but like uh they're served at like state fairs and places where we didn't grow up oh like you like retin Like Rhett and Link in like North Carolina. They're like, oh yeah, those are elephant ears. Oh yeah. And they're great.

That sounds like that could be a thing. Yeah, that sounds accurate. I like these because they're a boat. They're a boat for delicious sweet things. They are a vehicle. Yeah, it's a vehicle for,

yeah, you want to add some more syrup on there, a little powdered sugar, you want to slap a little whipped cream on there. Dealer's choice. Good old fashioned American Mrs. Butterworth syrup

as we all agreed is the best. And on that note, thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. If you want to hear more from us here in the Mythical Kitchen, we've got new episodes for you every Wednesday. If you want to be featured on Opinions Are Like Casseroles, you can hit us up on Twitter at MythicalChef or nhendizadeh with the hashtag OpinionCasserole. For more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube where we launch new videos every week. And of course, if you want to share pictures of your phenomenal Canadian dishes, hit us up on Instagram at Mythical Kitchen. Check us out on YouTube where we launch new videos every week. And of course, if you want to share pictures of your phenomenal Canadian dishes, hit us up on Instagram at Mythical Kitchen. Renee, thank you so much for joining us.

You're obviously very passionate about your home country of Canada. We will learn the national anthem if you learn ours. I'm going to listen to it after this. Done. Done and done. We'll have to circle back. I would also just like to tag on that if you guys are being tagged in Canadian food, I would like people to tag me in that as well because I would like to be a part

of everyone's Canadian culinary journey. So tag me at Renee. Wait, what is my Instagram? Renee Paquette, it's just my name. Tag me at Renee Paquette. I almost just gave like my full email address thinking that's what it was. Oh yeah.

No, please. I mean, tell people where they can find you, what things they can buy. We're all trying to get people to buy things. So tell them where they can buy your things. Yeah, buy my things. Listen to my things. You guys can buy my cookbook.

That is on, you can get that on Amazon at Barnes & Noble. Just search Renee Paquette. It's called Messy in the Kitchen. My guide to eating deliciously, hosting fabulously, and drinking copiously. I have my podcast, Oral Sessions. That drops on Tuesdays and Thursdays everywhere that you listen to podcasts. And I also have my XM radio show with Misha Tate called Throwing Down with Renee and Misha. That is Mondays on Fight Nation Sirius XM.

Hell yeah. Renee, you rule. Thanks so much for stopping by. Thank you so much, Renee. Thanks, guys.