A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Craziest True Crime Food Stories

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

Josh and Nicole are going into some of history's most insane food related true crime stories! Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: http://youtube.com/@ahotdogisasandwich To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Why is it always, did you hear about that triple homicide and never did you hear about the great Canadian maple syrup heist of 2012? This is a hot dog is a sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich.

What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. I'm your host, Josh Scherer. And I'm Nicole Inaydi. And we're internet chefs over on the Good Mythical Morning and Mythical Kitchen channels for those of y'all who don't know. And when we're not making stuff like Wagyu, Big Macs, and Mountain Dew Twinkies, we're over here settling the world's biggest food debates. Wow, that was so natural, Josh. Yeah, we're trying a new little intro there for those of you who have been here for a while. Seamless, honey. Seamless. Do people even know who we are, what we do? We haven't reintroduced ourselves in a long time.

Some people might know who we are and what we do, but I think the fact that some don't is kind of exciting. And also, I think we're allowed to reintroduce and reinvent ourselves. We've been doing this for three years. Have we really been doing this for more than three years? It feels like just yesterday you dragged me out of my prep and were like, hey, you want to talk about pineapples being on pizza for an hour? And I'm like, I ain't got nothing better to do. Yeah. And I was like, I wrote a 5,000 word essay that I'm

going to try and recite line for line in this podcast because that's how I think podcasts are done. It was really beautiful, but it was not right. We're here, Nicole. Reintroduce yourself to tell the people what's changed over your life in the last three years. Hi, I'm Nicole Aniety. I'm 29 years old. I recently got married about a year and a half ago to my lovely husband, David. We have two cats named Harvey and Missy. And life's been pretty wonderful. I've been promoted to senior culinary producer like what last year? Sounds like that mazel tov you did. And life's beautiful and life's great. And I'm excited for all the new things that we're going

to do this year. Hold on, Nicole. Let's go back to your wedding. What I love most about it is that you had a live electric saxophonist and also at least three different cultures grilled meat on sticks. Yeah, that was intentional. That was intentional. I was like, maybe we should do a veg. They're like, no! Nope, meat on sticks.

And, oh, my God, the fruit. The fruit display. You should have the gooseberries. It's all about the goose. Meat on sticks and, oh my God, the fruit display. You should have the gooseberries. It's all about the goose. The more exotic fruits you have at a Persian wedding, the higher your rank is in society.

I wish I was kidding. So today we are discussing what is the highest ranked fruit in Persian wedding culture. Nicole, Rambutan, how do you feel about it? False. We are talking about true crime stories that are somehow related to food. Okay, so we want to do this because this is not a shameless attempt at grabbing views. But true crime, it has been the most popular podcast genre for like, what, the last 10 years? It's interesting.

It's massive. And I've gone through my own true crime. I listen to a lot of last podcasts on the left, a lot of my favorite murder, crime junkies, great show called Fraudsters. So we both enjoy true crime, but we've never talked about it. Our own personal favorite true crime food stories. And there are a lot of them. And there's one that's particularly interesting to me because I feel like I sort of stumbled upon this myself a little bit through natural life events. So this is the great whale meat scandal of Santa Monica back in 2010. Wow.

Happened right in our backyard in Santa Monica. Two sushi chefs were not arrested, but they were convicted. Never served jail time for illegally selling endangered whale meat out of a sushi restaurant. Holy crap. And the way I found out about this, it kind of came around in a crazy full circle. I used to date a lawyer, right? Correct. Lawyers are into some weird stuff.

Let's get that out there. And what do you mean? When you got a lot of money to spend you're a high-powered lawyer like chasing like new highs all the time sure exactly and i didn't really know this we were hanging out it was like the spouse of a friend not naming any names here um but we were like having dinner together and we're talking about restaurants because you know i was a food writer and he goes yeah you know my favorite restaurant man it closed down unfortunately but it was called typhoon you ever been that sounds familiar it was like near the santa monica airport i think i did i have like really like uh crazy like lighting yeah it was like weirdly themed and it's kind of like sexy sushi of the 90s restaurant it was owned by earlier the restaurant

was also called like the hump it was like two any whom it was called the hump it was right like the hump and the hump of the hump of the whale and this all comes full circle later because as you already know they was selling whale meat and i remember talking to this high-powered corporate lawyer guy and he goes yeah you know they serve some uh some real interesting things there and i'm like oh gosh what are you talking about dude what kind of interesting is yeah you know they had these uh special like themed parties and it was like the eyes wide shut version oh my god that's exactly where like somebody trying to communicate this to me and i didn't think much of it um eventually i am uh writing about this new restaurant called ramen roll okay it was a rock and roll themed ramen sushi and gelato spot huh that made absolutely

no sense um and it was in part founded this is is in Culver City, it was founded by Adam Fleischman, who was the Umami Burger guy, but who had a kind of really strange break in reality where he started a website devoted to like quantum business mechanics and was trying to sell a weird sort of pyramid scheme thing. It never made sense. Anywho. And so this, it was him. It was the inventor of the video game Crash Bandicoot.

And then a sushi chef. There are so many buzzwords that you're saying right now. Bro, that's why I love this story so much. So you have Umami Burger guy who tries to start a weird business name cult. The inventor of Crash Bandicoot, who I think there's also a little bit of shadiness around him. And then sushi chef Kiyoshiro Yamamoto. And I was like, this name sounds familiar. Okay.

And so I Googles it. He is a sushi chef who was arrested for selling whale meat at Typhoon that this weird high-powered lawyer sort of intimated at me that was going down. And how it actually went down

is a full-on sting operation led by marine mammal activists who were answering to the director of the movie The Cove, the Oscar-winning documentary film about the Taiji dolphin drive hunt in Japan. So what does this have?

Okay, so dolphins and whales, where is the intersection? Oh, huge intersection. So basically, dolphining and whaling, the hunting methods are the same. Okay, okay. And they've been trying to sort of illegalize, like there's a thing called the IWC, the International Whaling Commission. They've been trying to sort of illegalize whale hunting because of conservation means. A lot of species are endangered.

But there's a lot of weird cultural factors, cultural and economic, of course. That makes sense. Okay. Because you have like aboriginal whaling rights where they're like, we've been hunting whales for thousands of years. Yeah, I'm on whale hunting TikTok. Or not whale hunting TikTok. What is it? Oh, like the Inuit with the...

Inuit. They're making maktuk. Inuit maktuk TikTok is what I'm on. Yeah, where they make the cured whale blubber and they eat it. Yeah, and they eat it with that special knife. It's very interesting. Yeah, so that's a little bit different than commercial whale hunting and commercial dolphining.

But commercial whale hunting, especially in Japan, I didn't realize this. This is going off on some tangents. Super tangent. But what else is new? General Douglas MacArthur, who was sort of in charge of the Pacific. He was in charge of the Pacific Theater for the American troops. And he was also sort of in charge of the American settlement in East Asia after World War II. Okay.

What is the Pacific Theater? Pacific Theater was like, so the war was happening on continental Europe. We'll get back to Crash Bandicoot. What war are you talking about? World War II. Okay. The big one. Okay.

So you have like, you know, everything going on in Europe, right? And then you also had like all these naval battles in Papua New Guinea, in Midway, you know, operations going on in Japan, basically fighting the Japanese Navy. Sure. So Douglas MacArthur, basically, we, we, we nuked Japan. This is all very reductionist. We knew Japan. And then MacArthur's there and he's like,

we got to figure out how to like stimulate the economy so we can get him back on their feet. Right. And I've got relations with them. And part of this thing was like commercial whaling, baby, do it. But whaling been a part of Japanese culture for a long time.

Anyways, where they were getting this whale, the sushi chefs, and they only sold it for $85, which I find fascinating. Well, inflation. Now, what would it be, like $95? I guess. I don't know.

It seems pretty cheap. But it was an endangered sei whale, S-E-I. Okay. And they were serving it in, they were serving whale bacon. They were serving whale sashimi. And you sort of had to, like, be in the know to get it. They didn't just put it on the menu of course because it was highly illegal and the way they were getting this whale

meat was through the japanese quote scientific research whaling so apparently there were um apparently there were exemptions in japan where you could still hunt whales if you just painted the word research on your boat and they would always get caught and they'd be like, oh, we're just collecting samples for research. And it was this weird loophole that literally everybody knew. Oh, my gosh. It was like, yo, not cool. But people didn't want to deal with it. So anyways, this sting operation is set up by the director of the cove.

And he has people reporting to him. And there are two young activists. Hold up. I wrote some stuff down because I wanted to remember all this. Okay. So there were two activists and they were sort of answering to this guy, the director of the Cove. I forgot his name. Luis Sijoyos, I think it's pronounced.

But anywho, so they were served whale during three separate visits to the restaurant. Then federal labs confirmed where the meat actually came from. Okay. So pause. Pause. Go ahead. Pause. So three separate serving actually came from. Okay. So pause, pause, pause. So three separate servings of whale. Okay. So how did they order it?

So this is an awesome part of it. So what they did is they effectively went undercover for months. They would go to this restaurant, they would get the omakase and they would increasingly ask for more exotic animals. And then in interviews with the two activists afterwards, they'd be like, I'm just so sad. I didn't want to eat all these endangered species, but I had to to finally get to the whale meat. And it's really wild that that was the thing.

It was like in, what's the Matthew McConaughey, Tom is a flat circle, everything you've ever done. Interstellar? No, that wasn't Interstellar True Detective Oh sorry It's like in True Detective where he goes

Oh I'm so sorry I don't know Matthew McConaughey quotes off the cuff what do you think this is? You know what I love about them high school girls You know I actually

heard that quote many times this weekend I thought wait about high school girls are about because I said it I say it about

rookie wide receivers in the NFL I go you know what I love about rookie wide receivers in the NFL. I go, you know what I love about rookie wide receivers? I keep getting older. They just stay the same age. And that's a reference to a lot of highly productive young wide receivers in the NFL. Okay. So they would increasingly ask for more exotic animals and they would serve other endangered.

Why are you laughing? Because what they did, it's hilarious. So they would eat other endangered animals to get to the whale meat yeah i don't know if it was like how endangered they didn't they didn't document any of the other ones because these people are very focused on whale and dolphin and so what they did eventually whatever that's called erasure and i don't like that i agree with that well this kind of gets into the whole thing for me about speciesism and which animals we care about and which ones we don't obviously some are actually critically endangered that decrease biodiversity in the planet, and that's bad, whatever.

But if you just think one animal is cuter than another, Ergo, you should not eat it. There's a lot of cute animals. You ever see Babe, Pig in the City? Nicole, that was a metropolitan pig, and we're out here eating sausage. That's fine. Okay, I have one other question before you continue. How would they test to see that they ate whale meat? Was it poop or mouth?

No, neither. So what they did is they just pocketed it, which as somebody who's been thrown out of a sushi restaurant. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You mean to tell me they order like an omakase menu and they go like this? Yum, just put it in their purse. Like some sort of magician from like third grade? You ever go to an all you can eat sushi restaurant? Yes, of course. You know how they charge you for leftover rice? Yeah. You have to eat everything on your plate or else they charge you menu price for whatever you didn't eat. Yeah. But like, but like omakase is one piece and

people watch you eat it. I know what I'm saying is I've've gone to All You Can Eat Sushi and we ordered way too much. And then I tried to ball all the rice up and put it in my friend's purse. And they caught us and they kicked us out and they made us pay for it. No, but you don't understand. Like, that's whatever. You're just like, latte dine. Like, that's fine. Like, when you're doing all you can eat.

Yeah, omikase is intimate. Omikase, like, the chef, like, even though they're chopping, they, like, watch you eat it. Yeah, I know it especially the one thing that's the most illegal this sushi chef he didn't do it right I agree with that I listen this is not a condemnation of the sushi chef

nor the activist I think everybody was just doing what they wanted to do no no no I'm just saying if someone orders the illegal thing on the menu and you don't see them eat it that's your fault see them eat it, that's your fault. Yeah, I agree with that. That's your fault. They did not cover their bases.

You should cover your bases. You should cover your bases. If you're serving illegal whale meat, well, there's another funny detail about covering their bases. So eventually, right, they put it in their pocket and they get it tested at a lab. They confirm it is indeed this endangered species of whale. This is so stupid. I'm so mad. And then they didn't just like, you can't just call the cops and be like, hey, LAPD, there's whale

meat afoot. Yeah, I imagine. So what they did is they contacted agents from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and they didn't just like, you know, send in agents or whatever. What they did is they went undercover. To confirm. Yeah, to confirm. And so they went there and they ordered the omakase, and apparently

they watched Chef Yamamoto, they ordered the whale and then Chef Yamamoto goes to his car and grabs a plastic wrapped thing of meat and starts serving it up. If you are at an omakase restaurant, if you are at any restaurant and you see the chef

go to their car to get just like a wrapped bloody package, probably just don't eat it. Hey, maybe he was on an episode of pip my ride and exhibit put a freezer in the back of his car yo dog i heard you're a high-end sushi chef that serves illegal whale meat so we put a whale dry aging fridge in the back of your 2006 prius exactly yeah i guess so uh and anyways and that is when they made their move and so nobody actually served jail time uh yamamoto was sentenced to two years probation and a $5,000 fine and 200 hours of community service.

The restaurant was fined like $30,000. Oh, beans. And then the chef just continued to work in sushi restaurants. And who knows if they are serving, you know, what they're doing these days. We hope they're clean. We hope they've learned. We hope they've reformed. We all hope criminals do, you know.

Second chance at life um but to me this is just a personal favorite absolutely uh hilarious that's a good true crime story here's a quote from one of the undercover people okay it was so heartbreaking to eat an endangered animal but i knew that i was doing it to save the whales we were there eating for four hours i felt so full and sick four hours of omakase that's a long okay see it's like if you're undercover in like uh in like the hell's angels it's like oh you gotta beat up a guy to like you know earn your keep this is like oh we had to prove that we were down with omakase by eating all these endangered eels or whatever this is crazy four hours is a long time to spend anywhere

other than work. I have a feeling that they just wanted to, they wanted to jam on some endangered species and then had regrets afterwards. That's what I'm thinking. You know?

I mean, I appreciate the work and the effort that went into it. But four hours of a cost day? Give me that. I will. What are you, a diplomat? I hate you.

If y'all have any leads on any food crimes going on, I will absolutely go undercover and eat anything you need to and that's a fact if you think there's like you know endangered turtles being sold you're a true hero at some french restaurant I'll go I'll go eat my way through that entire menu to ingratiate myself with them you know just give me a give me a little corporate card you know give me that little corpy card and I'm down I'll eat it all four hours that's nothing for me I'll do a 12-hour meal.

Oh my gosh. Imagine 12-hour meal. No thanks. No. What's the longest like contiguous meal you've been to? I don't know. Like Shabbat dinner at like my grandma's house. That's like it.

You've never gone to like one of those tasting menus that's just like a six-hour? No. I don't think I ever will I have other things to do I did once at Providence It's a two Michelin starred spot I didn't pay for it Because it was a media dinner

How long was it? It was like six hours And it was twelve glasses of wine Which is pretty sick What would you do What would you do If Providence was selling whale meat? I

Listen I'm not morally What would you do? I'm not saying I'm like Josh this is true crime This is crime that really happened It's true as nothing I'm not morally what would you do I'm not saying I'm like Josh this is true crime this is crime that really happened it's nothing I'm not a snitch I will not snitch on anybody for like anything if I because snitches get snitches no because it's like not your business like if something this so this kind of comes up if you just like witness if I see somebody getting like beat up on the street I will rush in that's good because there's danger right like I'll do that

it's like something bad, something materially bad is happening to somebody. If I see somebody shoplifting at Rite Aid, I'm not going to say anything. Yeah, I know. Nobody's getting hurt. I wouldn't do that to her. You know?

And so that's my just general moral. So no, if somebody's serving whale meat, I'm just like, I wouldn't eat it. You know? But I don't know. To me, it's very silly the way that we distinguish what is legal and what's not. The farming practices are so bad as they are.

Yeah. It's just to say. Your story was great. Thank you. But boy, oh boy, do I have another one. Oh, hit me with it, Nicole. Okay. So this is the story of doppelgangers and dessert.

Okay. So back in the day, a 42-year-old woman in Brooklyn poisoned a woman who looked just like her but was about like 10 years her junior. And she put a Soviet – it's specifically a poison that was used by the soviet union she baked it into a cheesecake hell yes found her doppelganger served it to her how crazy is that um that tends to be a relative listen not to reinforce not to reinforce gender rules here statistically that tends to be a pretty common way for women to kill people. Okay, yeah. Like, when I was doing research on this, I'm like, oh my gosh, Phantom Thread, I love this.

Wait, what's Phantom Thread? Have you seen Phantom Thread? No. I missed it. Does that happen? Wow. Did you just spoil Phantom Thread for me? Spoiler!

Oh my god. Spoiler! Phantom Thread! I still haven't seen Marvel Avengers Age of Ultron. I still haven't seen Phantom Thread, And I'm planning on getting to both. Josh, there's just slight poisoning happening in Phantom Thread. Damn it. Now I know.

That's going to ruin the whole thing. It's going to ruin the whole thing. Wait, why did she kill him? Why did she? You seem like such a, like, I don't know, like a, what's it called when someone loves to watch movies? Cinephile. You seem like such a cinephile.

I'm a cinephile. I go to the theater. And you seem like a PTA fan. I'm Paul Thomas Anderson. I don't think I've seen. What's the PTA movie that came out? Buggy Nights. Oh, I've never seen that.

Licorice Pizza. I saw that one. That's the only one that I've seen. And there was not a single pizza in the entire movie. Nor Licorice. Let alone Licorice. Do you know that there's an actual Licorice Pizza in the Valley? Yeah.

It's a record store. Do you know? Because Licorice Pizza is a it's a record it's a record yeah it's a record store do you know because licorice pizza is a slang for what it is because you know like records are like they're they're the shape of the pizza oh yeah they're the color and have the striations of black licorice yeah oh my gosh that's so crazy again had i known this i would not have spent 20 to see that movie but josh i thought it was about just a young enterprising chef but in licorice on pizza. Go ahead. Her name was Victoria Nazriova which means that she's definitely Russian.

I just want to know how she got her hands on what is it? Fenzepham. Fnazepham? Fnazepham. Yeah, Fnazepham, man. Yeah, it's a

it's a trank, right? It's like a really powerful Yeah, it's a really powerful tranquilizer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, I don't know what it is. Like, it doesn't say necessarily but she just had a lookalike.

She just casually had a lookalike. Maybe she was a spy. Do you think she was a spy, Josh? I was hoping you'd know that as the host of the podcast. I don't know. It doesn't specify that she was a spy or anything, but she stole her passport, her gold ring, cash, and employment card back in Brooklyn in 2018. So this is like a relatively new story. How would you kill someone?

I don't think I should say that on this podcast. Why? It's only a problem if you're going to do it. I'd choke them out. There is there have been a fair amount of stories about people tampering with others food and not not realizing the severity of like the crime. Yes. Like they're like including a student and a high school just like spit into their teacher's coffee and they're like, ha ha. Funny joke. And they're like, oh, this is like battery.

Like, oh, my gosh. Like, you can't just do that. There's this crazy story about a caterer and the bride of a wedding drugging her whole entire wedding party by putting marijuana in it. That is my favorite true crime story. Talk about it. It is the most insane story. So this bride, she's like, oh, let's do a funny joke with the caterer. She's like, I want everyone to just get totally plastered at my wedding. with the caterer. She's like, I want everyone to just get totally plastered at my wedding.

So she infuses the olive oil, the honey, and I believe some other appetizers with marijuana. And marijuana is a sin. And if you do it once, you will get addicted. And then people start calling the police like, I feel like I'm dying. And then they're like, what are you talking about? I feel kind of weird of weird also the bride said that she put weed in my chocolate or something yeah and then the caterer got arrested and the bride got arrested rightfully so dude yeah you can't you can't screw around with people's food especially at speaking of wedding food you can't do that stuff um i think one uh uh marijuana when you infuse it so cannabinoids are fat soluble, right? So if you're, this is for scientific.

I wouldn't know. I have no idea. This is scientific right here. If you happen to be making edibles, what you need to do is you need to heat the fat up to a certain temperature. That extracts the THC from the cannabinoids. That binds the fat molecules. That's why all of these infusions are typically made with oil and

butter and all that. However, if you don't control for heat, if you don't control for volume, if you don't control for time and dosing, like you're never going to OD and die on weed. But you will have a really, really terrible dissociative time. You can like like psychosis and stuff, right? Yeah. I mean, like anybody who's had a terrible, terrible edible trip, you know, hypothetically out here, it's like not fun and it can last for days. Oh, my God. trip you know hypothetically out here it's like not fun and it can last for days oh my god and so like messing around with people's food like that you know at least now with all the the legalized stuff it's like it's dosed out it's at least a little bit controlled yeah yeah there's

like a little bit of like standardization that goes into the process when you're running a catering operation and if you're just making your own infusions and tinctures and you don't know how much like oh my gosh like they're like how how much, I got invited to some weed dinner and I was just like, I don't want to go because if you are infusing like lasagna, one, by the time you eat the lasagna, it's going to be 45 minutes until you're actually stoned. So it's like, why do I want to get stoned after I eat the lasagna? It doesn't make any sense to me. Totally.

But any whom, like trying to control on that because you're like, well, I need to add a little bit more infused olive oil. Oh, onions are sticking a little bit more olive oil oh it tastes really bad with this let me put some yeah let me balance it with some more like that to me is just so very very silly yeah and so yeah i think the fact that weed is getting legalized more in states now you get people like this caterer who are like ha ha ha fun joke listen this is a harmless thing to play with listen i get it i've been to weddings with bud tenders before. Yeah. And that's fine,

but like that's on your own volition. Like you walk up. Yes. And they offer it to you. It's not just put in like your salad dressing the way that this was.

It's very scary. It is. Can't trust everybody. It is. How about pink sauce? That's a good recent food crime. Is it a crime?

It's not a crime. Did they go to jail? No, they did not go to jail. Their products are in Walmart now. But what they were doing, and I don't know if there were ever any charges brought up, but they were like mailing sauces direct to consumer. Yes.

So for those who don't know the story, there's a chef on TikTok who started making a violent, not even a violently pink condiment. It was pretty violent. It looked like Pepto. It looked like Pepto Bismol. It was crazy looking. And they claimed it was mostly a mixture of mayonnaise and dragon fruit and spices and stuff like that. I don't believe that for a second.

They showed themselves putting dragon fruit powder into the thing. But you think it was just food dye? On the commercial level, yeah. Why are you spending on dragon fruit? Yeah. Also, dragon fruit? Doesn't have much of a taste. Wouldn't taste good.

Also, dragon fruit. Like, I saw videos of it being poured on fried chicken. I'm like, hmm, mayonnaise, dragon fruit, and fried chicken, huh? Doesn't make a ton of sense to me. All right. But any whom. So they go viral for this pink sauce and a lot of people reacting equal parts, disgust and delight and all that.

And they eventually start selling it in the bottle. And they had videos of themselves like at a bottling facility. But none of the details added up because people were taking. The caloric details? Yeah. They had a nutrition label on it that looked like a real nutrition label. And then they would say that there were like 444 servings in like a 12 ounce bottle. And each one had like nine calories.

And people were just like, what is going on with this? They just hired someone from Fiverr probably. I know. And was like, hey, can you make me a label? And they're like, yeah, for sure. That's the only way I could ever. Like from someone who understands research and development and like actually developing these things and talking to food scientists. It's just like so many alarm bells are just going off in my head.

Like there's no way that this was like verified or standardized or anything like that. No. And there's there have been other stories in this like direct to consumer. I'm going to sell you food that I've just made myself. Yeah. But doing it like a really high level high level yeah like pink sauce is probably the best example and now they're in walmart because controversy just gets more eyeballs and so now they're selling it it's not even pink though now it's like it's like a it's like a beige it's like a white beige it makes me sad how have we not gotten pink sauce yet i think we need to

make our own pink sauce but like why not blue sauce i was just say, let's do it, I already know how to do it It's gonna be menthol flavored It's gonna be like a mentholated, like dentine ice flavored sauce, but you put it on steak I was thinking a little bit more of like the blue algae seaweed route No, I think it should just be like toothpaste though, I think

Go on, we all got, you know that bright blue toothpaste with the sparkles in it? Sure, that's my favorite. No, it's the Listerine Crest. It's my favorite. Why wouldn't you just put that on your food? Because I have standards and want mayonnaise with it. Oh, yeah.

That makes it an aioli, don't you know? You know, one of my favorite true crime stories was when I was a kid and like I would just like my mom would just have like true crime daily going on. Yeah. And then she would like go and like wash dishes and i would just sit there and watch and there was this one video that was like bread squeezers and i'm like what and they're like if you've seen this going down in the halls of your local grocery store make sure to call the police or whatever and it was videos of people taking loaves of bread and squishing them to the point where it would like like it would turn into mush and then it would throw it and then they

were just like to what end like they were just like being menaces to society and they were like they were just trying to disturb the peace i don't know and then they would they would literally squish and throw and just say oh i was testing for freshness and then i would just watch it and then whenever i'd see my mom like i would go to the grocery store with my mom and i would see her squeeze the breads i'm like mom don't do that you're gonna go to jail so that's my personal true crime story that's my personal true crime food story um one of my favorites ariana grande oh licking the donut ariana grande licked a donut in Temecula. What was Ariana Grande doing in Temecula? Very unclear. But she said, I hate America

and then she licked a donut. And that's a crime. Did she get arrested? No, I don't believe. I think if you just offer to pay for the donut, that's probably not a crime. But I remember that. There was also an NFL player. Hold on, I have to look this up. I think, I'm not going to say his name to not perjure myself. Just say NFL player.

Yeah, it was absolutely Golden Tate. He played for the Eagles. Yeah, Golden Tate. Go Birds! So he had, hold on, Nicole, stall them for a second. Okay, so back in the days, there was like this crazy story on Snopes.com where they would put bloody syringes into bananas, so no one was allowed to bring bananas to school.

Yeah, so what happened is Golden Tate, when he was a rookie on the Seahawks, tried to go get a donut from a spot called Top Pot Donuts, but they didn't open until 7 a.m. and he was there. In Philadelphia? No, no, this is when he was on Seattle. Oh, sorry. Yeah, he had a good little run with Philly. But anywho, at 3 a.m., he and his friend broke into

it and then just stole maple bars and then walked out. And then he got interviewed for it and they asked him why. And he just said, they're irresistible. It was kind of a foolish mistake that won't happen again. But if you ever want some maple bars, that's the place to go. He just loved, Nicole, he just loved the donuts so much. How much notoriety did that place get?

Probably a lot more. Like it could have been staged. Who knows? I'm not out here. Golden Tate gate staging the donuts golden Tate golden Tate first name Tate last name yeah great football name should have been Tate golden

I don't know I don't have to tell you it's golden Tate you need to go change your name now I would have just he's out of the NFL you know he had a good career what is he doing now oh I don't know golden Tate if you're out there dude stealing more donuts from local purveyors, probably. Honestly, great, great round runner. Tough, tough across the middle, you know, but he can still stretch the field.

Really big fan of your play style. Josh, what did we learn from today's podcast? I think what we learned today, Nicole, is that Jeffrey Donner, right? Really big, true food crime guy. And that's the one that we deliberately skipped. Yes. I was thinking of maybe dipping my toe into like the cannibalism side of this. Well,

yeah, there was the Canadian. There's, I know that I'm not a big murder guy. I like cults and I like weird crime capers. I love all this like murder, cult, like,

like stolen identity, like lying to feeble old men. I like that, but I don't like the, I don but i don't like i don't like the butcher i don't like the murder of it all that's the one species i don't think you should kill and eat is humans and probably a lot of other ones just don't don't quote me on that specifically humans you say should not kill and eat them okay yeah if they if they want to be eaten consensually that's whatever if they die but you shouldn't kill against their consent if you want

to hear us talk more about cannibalism on the podcast leave a comment. There is a Canadian serial killer who was grinding people into sausage and selling it and they only found out because there was a hepatitis outbreak

from the sausage mate. I do remember this. I'm sorry. It was just a baby burp. Just a baby burp. That was a daddy burp. That was a baby burp. Just a baby burp. That was a daddy burp. That was a big burp. All right, Nicole.

We've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out there in the universe. It's time for a segment we call... Opinions are like casseroles. Good stuff Did you do the Ho-ah Hey

I did it too Ho-ah Natural singer We should have done The metal thing Where they just go like Wah No that's like

80s hair metal But like If you go to like Newcore Wah No no no It's just like Wah

And they like make it It's like a cat vomiting Okay Let's listen to our First opinion Kind of like Korn Hey Josh and Nicole My name's Faye And I wanted to it's like a cat vomiting okay let's listen to our first kind of like corn hey josh and nicole my name's faye and i wanted to touch base about arugula why is it not more loved lettuce is so

unsuperior whenever you compare it to arugula it's got a nice lemony taste and it's just the bomb.com so i don't know what are your thoughts? Did their phone vibrate? Faye, Faye did not say where they're from. Did they? Because that's interesting. So they said, why is arugula not more loved? Because it's better than lettuce. It is.

I love arugula. Wait, hold on. I thought we were post arugula. If we're talking coastal elite culture, Nicole, of which we are part, we are in Los Angeles. Yeah. You grew up in the hills of Beverly. I was below sunset. I was not that well off.

Point is, arugula was, you could not avoid arugula like seven, eight years ago. It was a huge, huge, huge thing. Rocket. Every like, you know, $16 burger restaurant was putting some sort of like truffle burger with dressed arugula on there. The burger that changed everything, a restaurant called Father's Office. That's right. You can trace the burger revolution to theirs in 1999.

It has dressed arugula on it. Arugula was always seen as this kind of like fancy, cool, European type thing. And then I feel like it's somewhat dropped off in popularity. And now I feel like the cooler thing to do is to like make a little bit of a fancy wedge salad on like, oh, this is heirloom iceberg lettuce. I disagree. I think it's fancy pink radicchio.

And that people are doing the radiques now. Yeah. But no, I love arugula. I always have it in my fridge. I'm the only one who eats it, though. That's so funny. What do you use it for? Everything.

I put it in my scrambles. I make a little salad. I dress. You'll cook arugula too? who eats it though that's so funny what do you use it for everything i put it in my scrambles i make a little salad i dress you'll cook arugula too sometimes i mean just warm it through with like my eggs yeah so like slightly welts you still get a little toothiness i love its pepperiness i put it in sandwiches a lot i think it's delicious i don't like though um i love lettuce i love crunchy crunchy lettuce i love yeah i love butter lettuce i love romaine's fine iceberg lettuce i love crunchy crunchy lettuce i love yeah i love butter lettuce i love romaine's fine iceberg lettuce i just eat a lot of because i really love like iceberg lettuce i think iceberg has a deceptively deep flavor it's this kind of like nuttiness not deep grab some iceberg lettuce

and i'm not talking to think the fancy iceberg this is from the smart and final no shade the smart and final is walking distance from my apartment um. Tell me more about your exact location, please. Oh, great. Yeah. So the corner of Pico and Sepulveda. It's a building called Linea. Oh, my God. I'm moving.

Don't move there. Like none of the... Strike that from the record, please. You move there for the amenities and then none of them work? Like what are we doing? Amenities don't work. None of the grills. All the...

Anywho. Point is, I love iceberg lettuce. I love very crunchy lettuce. What I don't like are flat leafy greens. I like them. All the, anywho. Point is, I love iceberg lettuce. I love very crunchy lettuce. What I don't like are flat leafy greens. I like them. When you eat them raw. To me,

it's like your teeth have to grind them. I feel like. That's okay. I feel like a, what are they? Ruminant. I feel like a ruminant.

The animals that have to chew food and then they swallow it and then they vomit it back up to re-chew it. That's how I feel. Chewing cud. Yeah, Nicole's chewing her cud

over here. I was going to say something dirty. But anywho, arugula. What were you going to say? Fantastic. Tell me later. I was going to call you. Never mind.

Arugula is very fancy. I think it's had its moment in the sun. I am glad that, to me as a society, we're post-arugula, and I never necessarily want to go back. I'm here for the iceberg, baby. I like arugula, and I'll eat it all the time. Thanks, Faye. Also, great name, Faye. I love Faye, though. We need more Faye's in this world. Great name, Faye. I'm here for the iceberg, baby. I like arugula and I'll eat it all the time. Thanks, Faye. Also, great name, Faye. I love Faye, though. We need more Fays in this world.

I'm going to name my son Faye. Hey, Josh. Hi, Nicole. This is your podcast. I'm a middle school student in St. Louis. Yes, St. Louis. Oh, no. I'm sorry. We always make fun of our pizza. I have an unpopular opinion here. I love ketchup on sandwiches.

Specifically, sandwiches with cheese. Okay. Tell me what you think of this. Oh, please. Now I feel terrible for talking smack about St. Louis. You should. I always tell you to think about the children. You never think about the children.

I never think about the children. I'm sorry. And then there were negative repercussions. This young man called us saying, why are you talking smack about my city the children. I'm sorry. And then there were negative repercussions. This young man called us saying, why are you talking smack about Mass City, fam? I'm sorry, buddy.

Now he puts ketchup on his cheese sandwiches to go. First of all, great opinion. I love, I love, my earring fell off.

Weird, gross. I love putting ketchup on my sandwiches. Underrated, great condiment for sandwiches. I think it's very silly that we accept, well, some people don't accept ketchup on hamburgers and hot dogs, but most people do. We accept that as a society. But then you get this young, impressionable man from St. Louis, which is a great, fine city.

And truly, everything we've said about St. Louis, we're just joking. Yeah. All pizza. I've never been, but I'm sure it's great. Yeah, even the pizza. It's not my personal thing. What state is St. Louis, Missouri? Oh, my God.

Missouri? Yes, it's in Missouri, dude. It's eastern Missouri and then Kansas City is the major city. What the hell do I know about Missouri? Jefferson City is the capital of Missouri. I don't know how to tell you Missouri is like a fine big state. I've never been. I've never been.

But any whom, everything we say is in jest. St. Louis pizza is not my personal favorite, but it's a perfectly fine and valid style of pizza that a lot of people enjoy. Ketchup on sandwiches. It's a great time. I put ketchup in just a simple burrito of lunch meat, ham, cheese, and eggs today. And that's a fantastic. I put the ketchup in the burrito because I didn't have time to dip. Yum.

Oh, I think ketchup is a great condiment. I've said this time and time again. It is a very complex sauce. It is sweet. It is umami. It is acidic. It is a very complex sauce. It is sweet. It is umami. It is acidic. It is well spiced with warm spices. And I think it makes a great sandwich condiment. And I think the salty cheese offsets the sweet ketchup. Hi, this is Noel from Seacoast, New Hampshire,

excuse me. New Hampshire. And I have an opinion that pizza is not a pie. It is a tart. Think about it. Thank you. A tart. Okay. Oh, my gosh. What's a free-form tart called again? A galette.

It's a galette. It's a galette. It's a galette. I could see this. So tart is interesting because if you were to Google translate what tart in French means, they'd say pie. But pie to me, especially a sweet fruit pie is a very uniquely American dish. Sure.

Obviously, you get the term pie all around in Britain and every Commonwealth country and stuff like that. And, you know, they're mostly savory. Yeah, sure. In America, we think of pie as sweet. So pizza pie already is kind of like starting at a weird disadvantage. But tart. It is a pie. Sorry. of like starting at a weird disadvantage. But tart. It is a pie. Sorry. I don't believe it's a pie though. I think they

said that because they needed an easy way to communicate what pizza is because in like the 1950s it wasn't very common. Tomato pie. I accept New Jerseyans calling it tomato pie. Well he's from New Hampshire. New Jersey. It's like how we give aboriginal cultures whaling rights. We give New Jersey the right to call whatever they want, whatever they want, so they just leave us alone.

We don't want to interact with the people from Jersey. You're so shady. I'm kidding. I spent some time in Ventnor at the Jersey Shore and had a lovely time. I had the crab fries. Ugh, so good. I've never been to New Jersey, but I think I would thrive there. Something about the hair, the nails, the camaraderie, the family.

New Jersey's a very Big diverse place as well I would do great in New Jersey Big Indian population In New Jersey A lot of Jews Italians I would do great there

Black folks White folks It's a nice place You think I'd do good there? What? You think I'd do good in New Jersey? Yeah did you just put on Like a sort of fake

Half Jersey accent No You're like Do you think I'd do good there? No I'm speaking I am trying to get your attention You always have my attention Yes I think you would do well In New Jersey Thank you Yeah it'd be good mob life Jersey accent. You're like, do you think I do good there? No, I'm speaking. I am trying to get your attention. You always have my attention.

Yes, I think you would do well in New Jersey. Thank you. Yeah, it'd be a good mob life. That's a stereotype from the Sopranos. It's not real. You are the 40th person to say that to me. Thank you very much. Yeah, no problem. Hi, Nicole.

Hi. Hey, Josh. My name is Anna. Wow. And my hot take is that the best fruit, objectively, is lime or limon. That's the green one, not the yellow one. Because you can use it for sweets. You can put it on dessert.

You can make your sour candy. You can make limeade. You can do savory foods, put it on top of a taco. You can use it for cleaning. You can use it as medicine for your throat. It's multifaceted. And that's why it's the best fruit. And

it's on my tattoo. Got a tattoo of the limon. You know what the one thing you can't do with a lime is, though? Butterfly shrimp. Popcorn shrimp. Lime and potatoes. Lime salad. The one thing you can't do with a lime And I'm not saying you're wrong necessarily Is eat it

You can if you want to What are you talking about? You can't just straight eat You can't peel a lime and eat it as a snack Have you ever, ever seen the videos Where people will skin a lime Put a bunch of tahini on it I'm salivating

Tahini and chamoy And they put like warhead on it no i don't watch this weird sour porn that you oh my gosh it's so good oh god i've never done it but like i could um so i'm really curious where they're from because when they call lime limon different latin american countries in their different dialects of Spanish have different terms for lime and lemon. And this is people from Mexico may rebuff this, but a lot of places

do not have a term for lemon. Right? And if you try and translate it across different cultures, different Latin American countries, different states in Mexico, limon to mean lime, limon amarillo to mean lemon. Like there's a lot of weird things because most people are just like

yeah we don't mess with lemons we have limes that's great you go to Argentina they don't mess with limes they only use lemons

yeah is it because of like it's not just not cultivated there like what is the reasoning I think it has to do with like you go to Argentina it's a lot of European population

you know for a lot of very complex reasons and yeah limes are you know indigenous to like the like Yucatan Gulf Mexico area I agree that limes are indigenous to the Yucatan, Gulf of Mexico area. I agree that limes are super multifaceted.

I love limes. And I think that there was a lime shortage for a while in Cali. Do you remember that? You had to get lemons at taco trucks and it doesn't taste right. You make guac with lemon, it does not taste right. It's crazy. It was like, what, 75 cents for a lime at that time? That was insane.

You know what you do in those situations? You buy a bottle of citric acid. And then you put a few granules in there in your guacamole with some lemon juice. To me, lemon has a sweetness and a floralness to it, whereas lime has this like biting bitterness that's so freaking good. Especially in the zest. If you had to choose though, one citrus to roll them all, lime or lemon,

what would you give up? What would I give up? Yeah. Probably give up limes. I think I might have to give up limes too, which is a bummer. Well, I find myself reaching like with the cuisines I make at home

and the recipes I make at home, I find myself reaching for lemons more. Like for example, if I'm making, I don't know, like salmon, I find myself reaching for lemon. If I'm making a vinaigrette, I find myself reaching for lemon more so than lime. But yeah, if I'm making like tacos,

like last night we had tacos, I put some lemon, I mean some lime juice on it. Yeah. But yeah, I find myself with the canon of what I cook at home, I'm reaching for lemons more often. But I always have both at home. Same, same lime juice on it. Yeah. But yeah, I find myself with the canon of what I cook at home. I'm reaching for lemons more often. But I always have both at home. Same, same, same, same.

Always got to have both. You never know when you're going to do tequila shots. I always agree. Not only that, for me, I probably cook with an equal amount of lime and lemon because I make a lot of Vietnamese food. And there's like a condiment like nook trum that you make with lime, fish sauce, sugar, and garlic and chilies and i make that a ton uh make a lot of mexican food at home so i always use lime um but the kicker for me is

cocktails sure yeah i use lemon significantly more than lime you say oh no i'm not always entertaining i'm always drinking alone oh um but i like to make i like to make myself cocktails and like lime juice with whiskey. It don't taste right. I drink a lot of dark liquor. Make a lot of kind of whiskey sour variations, stuff like that. So that'd have to be my kicker. But I do agree that the lime is like seriously underrated, especially like Colima limes.

I'm a big Persian lime purchaser for obvious reasons. I just started thinking about... What is this? Jamon Del Mar? Jamon Del Mar smoked marlin. purchaser for obvious reasons. I just started thinking about ¿Qué es esto? Jamón del Mar. Jamón del Mar. Smoked marlin. Oh, yeah. Oh, we had that together. That was delicious. Smoked marlin with cheese and you squeeze lime juice on that. That's really good.

That's a good bite of food. So much salt, smoke, fat, acid, pow, bitter. Hot damn, I'm horny. Josh and Nicole What? You were just saying words So I said our names Oh sorry yeah

I forgot I blacked out there I noticed And on that note Thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich Nicole's doing an Interpretive dance over here If you want to hear more

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