A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Is A Hot Dog A Sandwich? ft. The Philosopher, Dr. Calvin Normore (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

What differences make a difference? Why hot dogs? Who am I? Today, we're joined by philosopher Calvin Normore in part 2 of our series that attempts to answer the question on all of our minds: is a hot dog a sandwich? Get your tickets now for Good Mythical Evening 2022, exclusively on Moment House! Click here to find out more: https://mythic.al/AHDIASGME Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 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. Hey Nicole. Hey Josh. Are we really second guessing our clearly stated title for our moderately successful food podcast? I think we are, Josh. This is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Or is it? 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 Scherer. And I'm your host, Nicole Inaidi. And, Nicole, we are now on part two of us doing the damn thing, trying to officially end the debate of, is a hot dog a sandwich?

That's right, Josh. That's exactly what's happening. There are a couple things that I've learned after this. What's that? One, my beliefs are more flimsy than I'd like to think they are. OK, there's my favorite spoken word artist, Anis Mojgani, once said, beliefs are like naps. We leave them behind the minute someone touches us. And I kind of feel I'm worried that we're going to fall into that trap where somebody says one convincing thing and I'm going to leave everything behind. Well, I took a nap before this podcast. You really did.

Yeah, I really did. And I don't know. I feel like the conversation with Ken really made me double down on my beliefs that a hot dog is not a sandwich. Yeah. So when we spoke to historian Ken Albala last episode, he came out swinging so, so, so hard that a hot dog is not a sandwich. And for a moment I was convinced, but then we just had an incredible conversation that you're about to listen to with Dr. Calvin Normore. He's a real life philosopher. And I mean, this dude is a philosopher's philosopher. He has the long beard and everything. And I'd actually spoken

to him seven years ago when he was a professor of philosophy at UCLA and I was a student there. And so this was an incredible throwback to me, but I feel like we got more to the truth, like the capital T truth of the matter, as opposed to someone like Ken, who is incredibly passionate about the subject. But when you come into a debate, Nicole, with passion, you're leaving yourself open to bias. That's true. And the thing about philosophy is you're constantly searching for the truth. But I think what he touched on that I thought was interesting was people have different truths. There's multiple truths. Which is why a hot dog might be a sandwich to you, might not be to Susie Lee. It might not be to Susie Lee.

And you know what's crazy? You know how I know a hot dog is a sandwich, Nicole? How? Because I have a super sweet t-shirt that says a hot dog is a sandwich. Oh, what a coincidence. I have one that says a hot dog is not a sandwich. We both look down at our shirts to physically read them, which is hilarious. And depending on what you believe, you can go to mythical.com right now and buy the t-shirts.

The designs are awesome. I'm absolutely obsessed with this. But that said, I might trade this t-shirt in for your t-shirt by the end of this. I feel like that's going to happen. It's going to happen because I clearly don't know where this is going. One thing, we talked a lot about the idea of Socratic forms in the episode and didn't really get in to what they are. So Socrates, right, OG philosopher that like kind of may or may not have actually existed. He's only written about from Plato's perspective.

That's one of the things I remember from philosophy in college. But he held that the world of forms transcends the substantial world and is the basis of reality. So, Nicole, that's pretty sick. It's pretty metal, right? So the idea of, say, like a triangle, right, is a Socratic form. If you were to draw a triangle on a whiteboard, and you would say that is a perfect triangle,

I'd say no. Because you could measure that, right? Whatever you drew, you can measure that at any angle, no matter if you used a ruler or whatever. And you would see some sort of deviation, right? The wind blew the chalk just a micrometer. So that would not be a perfect triangle. A perfect triangle exists outside of space, outside of time. It is a concept, right?

It is a form. But is perfection? Just mathematical? Is it spiritual? Is it emotional? What is it? What does perfect even mean? It's formatic, Nicole. It just exists in the ephemera. And so that's what we're talking about. But turns out there ain't no Socratic form of a hot dog. Unfortunately for us. The most important part of this conversation, though, is that Dr. Normore called us smart. Yeah, that was sweet. Which is incredible. More guests should call us smart.

It would really help us. But truly, this is one of the most fascinating conversations I've ever had. I can't wait for y'all to listen to it. Yeah. You ready to get into it? Totally. Let's do it. Dr. Normore, thank you so much for joining us from half a world away.

It's my pleasure. Perhaps a little later in the day would have been a greater pleasure, but it's a pleasure. It is 7 a.m. where you are, correct? That's right. Wow. You're in Brisbane, Australia? I am, yep. I had hoped to be on a paradisical island, but I'm in Brisbane. You'll settle for Queensland.

And this is incredible because the last time we met, we were in the same room together. We were actually in your office later, the courtyard at UCLA, because this is not the first time that we've talked. Nice. That's true. And the birds were singing and the leaves were blooming, right? It was truly idyllic. I was younger. I was dumber. And this is when, Nicole, I was It was truly idyllic. I was younger, I was dumber.

And this is when, Nicole, I was an amateur hot dog sleuth. So I wrote a piece for First We Feast before they launched Hot Ones, the show on YouTube. They were but a lowly food blog that would pay people like the likes of me while I was still in college.

And I wrote an article that wanted to philosophically dissect whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich. And Dr. Normore, this podcast wouldn't exist without you. That was literally the genesis of this whole idea. So thank you for contributing to that. Again, that's an astonishing fact, but it's a pleasure to join you.

And I think you have unknowingly made thousands of listeners a little bit dumber by forcing them to listen to us. So I'm also sorry for that. I feel like it's the opposite of what you want to know. They're the ones clicking on it. There's no force. We're giving them the opposite. Quite the contrary.

Yeah, that's right. So like I said, back then I was an amateur. And now Nicole and I, we are truly setting out to end the debate of whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich. We just spoke to a food historian and a fellow academia like yourself for about an hour. And I mean, he had a lot of points, but I feel like they were all sort of shrouded in personal feeling and bias. Dr. Normore, I'm hoping to get to some capital T truth

via the powers of philosophy and metaphysics here to finally end it. Do you think that's achievable? Yes. It's not easy, though. But Dr. Normor, I don't know if I want philosophy in my hot dogs. Well, do you want hot dog in your philosophy? I mean, when you spin it that way, now my mind has been opened.

All right. So, Dr. Normor, I'm hoping you can break down like the actual act of philosophical argumentation and how that relates to the question, is a hot dog a sandwich? Like, what are we actually arguing about here? the word hot dog. And, uh, but presumably we think there's a single concept that underlies that word. Uh, maybe there isn't. And we think we have a pretty good grasp of it.

And maybe that's not true either. There are lots of concepts that we use all the time that we don't have a very good grasp of. Can you give us an example? Sure. Um, if I ask you what an electron is, you'll be able to talk.

No, give us an easier word. No, no, easier. Give us an easier word. Electron, I don't know. Say like a peanut. Okay, okay. If I ask you what an elbow joint is.

I know what that is. Yeah, you'll be able to say something, but there'll be lots of things about that you won't know, right? Correct. You'll know the elbow. For example, I don't know, does it carry water? Does it have to carry water? Oh, interesting. In my elbow joint?

I have no idea. Well, I'd say if the huge- Ah, you see, now you were thinking of your elbow joint. I was thinking of the elbow joint in a pipe underneath my kitchen sink. You stop right there, you silly man. That's incredible. They're both elbow joints.

Is it unfair to characterize philosophers as sort of modern day leprechauns who are always out to trick you? Not maybe to trick you. You can't call our guests a leprechaun, Josh. That's rude. I'm sorry. Please explain. No, just wanted to point out that, you know, that elbow joint is used in all sorts of contexts. And we don't typically grasp all of them. True. I don't think it's an ambiguity, actually.

I think it's probably the same sense of elbow joint. Maybe, maybe the same sense of elbow. I'm not sure about that. So anyway, so the thought was that there are lots of concepts that we use. We only have a partial grasp of. And the question is whether a hot dog is one of them. And of course, whether a sandwich is another one. And so that's going to be, that's one of the issues we have to face.

And I'm glad that you said that you'd talk to a historian about this, because one of the ways that we can trace this is by trying to look at the history of the development of the concept, but we'll come back to that. You were going to ask me about argumentation. Yeah, please. I mean, do you have any tips? Because I think we found with our historian that, you know, we don't have the bare bones tools enough to really discuss this efficaciously. Oh, that surprises me too. I can yell at people all I want. But I mean, like even down to say, like you said, we all think we have an idea of what a hot dog is. But when it comes down to truly defining our terms, right?

Like we found that we kind of struggled. Yeah. Yep. And we often do because we use these words and these concepts in lots of contexts. We get by perfectly well. because we use these words and these concepts in lots of contexts. We get by perfectly well. But there are gray areas, penumbra, around central uses that we don't grasp very well.

And one of the things philosophers try to do is to work out how those concepts work and how they're related to one another. And so, you know, argumentation is partly a matter of that. It's not entirely a matter of that, but it's partly a matter of tracing out the relationships among concepts. You say that, okay, then you're committed to this, right? And do you see that you're committed? Well, let me show you. If you're not committed to this when you say that,

what about this other case? Doesn't that look exactly the same? And don't you agree that you're committed to, you know, X if you say Y in that case? Okay. And so on, right? So there are lots of cases like that where we attempt to trace out the relationship among concepts. And hot dog is one of them. Hot dog is a concept. It's a word that picks out, we think, a concept. And we're trying to trace out not only its history, but its relationship to others. That's really interesting because we got into the idea of the concept of a hot dog versus a current hot dog in practice. Because sausages have been made for thousands of years. They've been put in bread rolls for at least hundreds of years. But the term hot dog doesn't come into the English language documented until earliest we could find was like 1843. And so, Dr. Normer, would you say that there is a Socratic form of a hot dog

that exists outside of space and time? Gosh. Ah, so this is a special case of the general question. Are there forms of artifacts, right? Because a hot dog is an artifact. It's something that we make. There are no hot dog trees. Hot dog is an artifact. Okay, got it. Yeah. Okay. So now the question is, when we make up an artifact, let's suppose we make a new one, maybe something like a microphone, say, do we discover something or do we invent it? That is, is there out there in the logical space somewhere something,

the microphone that we're developing, we get onto and we make a copy of it, let's say, in the physical world. That's one way of thinking about it. The other is, no, there's nothing out there in logical space. There are various bits and pieces that we put together, and lo and behold, we get a working microphone, and now we can apply that concept in other places and blah, blah. Now, my own inclination is to think the second, right? That there aren't any forms of artifacts waiting to be discovered. But that's not obvious, I think.

Interesting. And so is it a little bit like the idea of invention versus discovery? Like if you were to put a monkey in a room with a typewriter with an infinite amount of time, he would eventually type the works of Shakespeare. Similarly, if you put a monkey with a knife next to a cow, infinite amount of time he would invent the hot dog. Yeah, yeah. Well, it might take more than one monkey and the cow would probably die. But yeah, that's the question, right?

I mean, but it's even a slightly different question because let's go back to the works of Shakespeare for a second. If the monkey typed out all those things on, say, an old-fashioned typewriter, it's not at all clear they would have typed the works of Shakespeare. The reason it's not clear that they would have typed the works of Shakespeare is you've got all these marks on the page. You come in and assume they're English. It's not built into the Marx that they're English. And you assume that the monkey was somehow writing English. And what's more, wasn't writing a new works that just happened to look like the works of Shakespeare,

but were the works of Shakespeare. And probably none of that's true. what were the works of Shakespeare, and probably none of that's true. There's a wonderful Borges story called Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote, in which this French, 19th century French guy attempts to write out a new novel using exactly the words of Cervantes, Don Quixote, in exactly the same order. And Borges argues he can do it. It'll be a different novel. What? Because it's written in the 19th century. Did it work? Yeah, because it's written in the same order. And Borges argues he can do it. It'll be a different novel. What?

Because it's written in the 19th century. Did it work? Yeah, because it's written in the 19th. No, he only got a page or two in. But because it's written in the 19th century, right, not the 16th, it's written by a Frenchman working in, who knows the background of Cervantes' novel, where Cervantes wasn't doing anything like that. So Voorhees gives a good argument, I think,

that it is a different novel. So the monkey might not actually produce the works, a copy of the works of Shakespeare. The monkey might just produce something that looks like one. And that bears on the question of the hot dog, right? Because one might think, well, look, anything that looks like a hot dog and tastes like a hot dog is the hot dog, right? Because one might think, well, look, anything that looks like a hot dog and tastes like a hot dog is a hot dog. But it might not be. I mean, if we found

people on Mars who had invented something and put something into it, let me give you an example, a weird example. They thought that you could take something that wasn't bread, but let's say it was something like a corn meal or something. You could bake it and put inside it something that wasn't a sausage at all. You could make something that they were prepared, let's even say, to use the word hot dog for. And they were also prepared to use the word hot dog for everything that we do. So now, would we think that they had hot dogs? Or would we think that they had, I don't know, everything that we do, right? So now would we think that they had hot dogs or would we think that they had, I don't know,

schmuck dogs, right? That included hot dogs, but were a little bit wider. Do they sell the schmuck dogs for $1.50 at Costco? They would charge extra because of their exotic origin. That makes sense. You could market that. Well, no, this actually, I think, speaks, especially I'm fascinated by the quixote example

because that kind of speaks to, I don't know, the convergent evolution of certain foods, right? Sure. Like if you look at, sausage has been being made in China, like lap cheong for several, several hundreds of years, right? Leavened bread, you know, showed up originally in like Mesopotamia.

But then now we're looking at that through a uniquely American lens. And so if we call a hot dog a sandwich, we can only examine that through our own like very ethnocentric terms, I think. You know, like, but is there any can we draw a universal conclusion from our own like ethnocentric ideas? Because for instance, you go to Jerusalem or Damascus and they're stuffing pitas. It feels weird and, you know, almost xenophobic to call that simply a sandwich. Yeah, it does. But I mean, we can call it, we can't, we get to decide, I think, how we're going to apply our concepts to things going forward.

I mean, but we don't get to decide how to apply them to things going backwards. So were there any sandwiches, say, before the Earl of Sandwich? Yes. Well, that's a loaded question, right? I'm sure there were. Because bread has existed for 10,000 plus years. People have been putting meat inside that bread but before the term sandwich was invented but does language equate invention or discovery i don't know right right so so so let's imagine the following

sorry personal victory so there's all there's all this bread and there and and people are are putting things in it, but they don't think of it as any particular kind of thing, right? I mean, different people do put different kinds of things in different kinds of bread in different kinds of ways and so on. Along comes the Earl of Sandwich, and people began to identify a particular kind of putting in stuff in particular kinds of bread as a sandwich. And going forward, they sort of extend that bit by bit by bit.

And now they look back into the 15th century in Mesopotamia, let's say, and they ask, are those things sandwiches? Well, they look a lot like sandwiches. They work like sandwiches. Let's call them sandwiches. Well, they look a lot like sandwiches. They work like sandwiches. Let's call them sandwiches. And I see nothing particularly wrong with that, as long as we understand that what we're doing is we're taking a concept, well, by now, a 21st century concept, and we're seeing how, if we applied it to things that we do apply it to and we applied it to things that were sufficiently similar to what we do apply it to, then we would call them sandwiches. Right.

See, I think that's fine. That's something that I fully agree with. And that's what informed. So just to let you know where we stand real quick. Nicole is a staunch. A hot dog is not a sandwich person. I have always been a staunch. A hot dog is a sandwich person strictly. Staunch. I have always been a staunch. A hot dog is a sandwich person.

Strictly because a sandwich to me seems very simple. You could define it as yeasted. Well, maybe not yeasted because a biscuit's not yeasted, but a biscuit's still a sandwich. Anywho, like a risen bread that has filling and is meant to be eaten with the hands, at least primarily on a common sense definition, you know? And so to me, a hot dog very much fulfills that, but that is why the question as it's phrased is a hot dog, a sandwich. There's no, like, to me is a hot dog, a sandwich from my perspective, because if you were to ask this question to somebody in, you know, Xinjiang, China, you know, is a hot dog is a sandwich. They might just be like, I don't know. Yeah.

Or they're just like, of course it is. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. But so, I mean, does that does that add a tricky layer to this, Dr. Normore? Like a certain you're implying a universality when you say the word is. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So if you if you I mean, until McDonald's arrived in China, right, I doubt that if you asked somebody in Shanghai whether a hot dog was a sandwich, they would, I mean, I don't know if you translate it into one of the Chinese languages. I don't even know what words you would find. Maybe you wouldn't find words, right, that would naturally translate. And so you might have to do exactly what you were just doing there, Josh. You know, say, okay, here's what I mean by a hot dog, right? I mean, blah, blah, blah. Here's what I mean by a sandwich.

Now, do you think one of those is one of those, right? So, yeah, so all that's true. But we perfectly well could say, looking at, say, something that had been made in a Chinese bakery, oh, that is sufficiently similar to what we call hot dogs, that we will call them hot dogs. And now there's the question that you raised, are the things that we call hot dogs sufficiently similar to the other things we call sandwiches that we want to call them sandwiches?

So I think in a certain sense, that's partly up for grabs for us. And it's partly up for grabs for us because they're artifacts, because they're things we make. And so we can, I mean, we wouldn't be able to do that with trees. Trees are whatever kind they are. And if we want to carve nature at the joints, so to speak, then we have to find out what the different species of trees are. With hot dogs, we don't have to so much find out what they are as what we intend them to be. I see. Which is a different thing. Interesting.

So I say. So say I. something, it is up to us as specific humans to give it its name and its definition and where it belongs, so to say, within our universe. Yeah, that's what I'm inclined to think. So that goes back to your original question. Is there a Socratic form of hot dog? I say no. I say no. There isn't a Socratic form. When I think about that, because I mean, thinking about the Socratic, and I'm not an expert on the Socratic forms by any means, but think about the Socratic form of a triangle existing outside of space and time. A drawing of a triangle is not. I just imagine this perfectly shaped hot dog, Dr. Normor, just floating, you know, as an idea and a nebulous concept. And to

me, it's beautiful and I want to eat it. The only thing that I can imagine in nature that is equivalent to a hot dog is a cattail. Yes. Is a cattail a hot dog? Are you trying to find? No. Come on, give me one, man. No. I have a general question about Dr. Norma. Why do you think that people strive to put things into categories, which is to say, why the heck are we doing this? Why do we find it so necessary to find definitions and to ask questions like this? Like, why do we need this to be answered? Well, I mean, one thing is one reason is simply practical. I mean, just imagine what things would be like if you had to have a name, a single name for every single object that you encountered. And, and anyone you talked with had to know that name in order for you to

communicate with them at all. Right. So you go into a shop and you say, I want James, James. You go into a shop and you say, I want James. James. Gotta have James. They say, well, yeah, we don't have James. We've got Susan. Will Susan do? Let me look.

Well, Susan's a lot like James, but I don't know. But whereas now we can just go in and say, you know, I want a pair of shoes. Okay. Now, what size? What kind? Right. I mean, but we don't have to pick out the particular pair from that long list. So that's one reason, right? literally think in terms always of the particular objects of which there are more than anyone could possibly count or imagine.

But there's also this, this deeper question, I think, which is, does the world come in kinds? And that's the deeper question. Is the world structured in a certain way? And of course,

what our, what our science tries to do. And I guess what we do in daily life too, is we try to, we think, yes, the world is structured, and we try to find out what the structure is, right? And that's exactly what we're doing when we categorize. And we can make mistakes, right? We can make up categories for things that turn out not to be. So there's a, for example, for things to turn out not to be. So there's a, for example,

there's a philosophical debate about whether phlogiston is oxygen. What is that? Phlogiston is an Olympic 100 meter dash runner. She broke the world record. Phlogiston? No, that's phlojo. Oh yeah, that's not. There was a time when people thought

that what happened when things burned was that they gave off something, which was phlogiston. It turned out, of course, that what happens when you burn stuff is you consume oxygen, right? And you give off various kinds of carbon compounds. So there turns out to be no such thing as phlogiston. Now, it was part of a scientific theory that just didn't work, right? There is still the question, though. Something happens in burning, right? And something's given off.

Might we extend the term? Might we say that they didn't get it completely wrong? You know, blah, blah, blah. So you can go down that road, right? But the thing that you're really trying to do always is get the structure of the world. What is there really? And what differences make a difference? So the difference between James and Susan, if these are the names for, let's say, two hot dogs, right? Doesn't make a difference. You don't care which one you get. And so you're happy to go into a shop and get a hot dog.

You might care about the way the hot dog is, but you don't care if it's James or Susan. So categories help us there. And of course, with natural things where we're discovering what there is, we get at the structure of the world by getting the right categories for them. With artificial things, it's more complicated. Of course. And we certainly have to break down why somebody would be motivated to categorize things, right? Like, of course, in the hot dog versus sandwich dichotomy that we've set up here, like when talking to the, you know, historian, Ken Albala, he mentioned, you know, a common thing that people will say is if we stopped at a gas station and I asked you to get me a sandwich and you got me a hot dog.

I'd be disappointed. I'd be disappointed. And I fully understand that. And he also said nobody would ever call it a hot dog sandwich or put it on a menu as a sandwich. But that's simply not true. Right. I'm thinking of a diner. I'm thinking of a diner.

Like if you are, say, at a 7-Eleven, they have no reason to categorize a hot dog as a sandwich because they simply put it on little rolly bars and you put it into a bun yourself. But if you're at a diner, say, that has a 200-item menu as most fantastic diners do, and there is a subheader on the menu that says sandwiches. And you see a hot dog. You'll see a hot dog. You'll see a hamburger. You'll see a ham and cheese on rye. You'll see wet beef. And so they have a reason to do that because for them it matters most who are we to tell lancer's diner in burbank that that's not a sandwich but as the consumer and i see that there it causes a little bit of a like a question you know it's like does it belong

there does it belong to be categorized there? Shouldn't it be in miscellaneous? There should be more miscellaneous categories. Someone who's like loose cottage cheese. Yeah. Yeah. It's called the sides. You know, so I mean, why do diners have to be the ones that name it?

Why do they get to be the authority? Well, that's a good question. And Dr. Norma, I'm hoping you can sort of elucidate philosophical, what do I call it? Hold on. I wrote it in my notes. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

Hold on. Don't make me look stupid. Don't make me look stupid. I took one philosophy class in Santa Monica College. I did too. Oh, a good college. Yeah, she was great. My instructor was incredible.

Dr. David Spiewak at UCSB Philosophy 101. He was obsessed with the idea that we're all in a simulation and that is all we learned about. Oh, nice. I can tell you all about it. Nicole, if post-humans exist. Sorry. All right, I found what I was talking about. Dr. Norma, I hope you can help us break down some like philosophical fallacies and how they would relate

to this right here because one, I believe, after some cursory Googling is called the appeal to authority fallacy. Right. Yeah.

So, you want to find out if a hot dog is a sandwich, you go and you ask a hot dog expert. Now, what makes them a hot dog expert?

Well, it's that people go and ask them, right? Yeah. Now, if makes them a hot dog expert? Well, it's that people go and ask them, right? Now, if that's all that's going on, then they might have a certain kind of authority because people will obey them and obey them not because of their power, but just because they defer to them. But they're not expert, right? If they're expert only because people are prepared to follow them, then they haven't any insight into the nature of a hot dog. So if you just settle the question that way, then you'd be settling it by authority. And that would give

you no reason to think that you had gotten things right. Let's put it that way. So that's why it's a fallacy. I think that's really pertinent in this debate, especially because the biggest authority that people will defer to is the dictionary. And I think people fundamentally misunderstand what the function of the dictionary is and how it reacts. case of the word literally where the dictionary changed the definition of literally to include a facetious use of it for like, you know, bombast and emphasis as opposed to what people previously thought it meant. So society is responsible for the dictionary. I believe it's prescriptive versus descriptive or sorry, descriptive versus prescriptive language.

And so if you look at the definition of a sandwich in the Oxford English Dictionary, it specifies two slices of bread. But do you think that that is too narrow of a definition of sandwich? I do think it's too narrow, but let me just say a quick word about dictionaries. So as you say, they can either try to make us speak a certain way. And putting a word in a dictionary often does, for example, bring it about that people who weren't prepared to use the word before are now prepared to use it, right? That kind of thing, and taking it out conversely. So that's one thing. A dictionary can get us to speak a certain way. Or it can also just describe the way we do speak, right? So one of the things that a dictionary is supposed to do, I think, is capture what you might call central uses of

a word that are actually there. And then by making those salient for us, by putting them before our minds, encourages us to go in certain directions rather than others. With the case of the sandwich, well, does it have to be two slices of bread? Could it be one gigantic slice that we folded over? And if so, would the gap, would the fold have to be a fold that could easily be broken? And I thought, who knows, right? I mean, that would be a proposal that you could have a sandwich that had a single slice of bread. And of course, there are open-faced sandwiches. Always a question whether they're sandwiches, right? Et cetera, et cetera. So,

I'm inclined to think that there's nothing in the concept of a sandwich that requires that it be exactly two. I mean, consider a three-slice sandwich. Oh. A club sandwich, if you will. Ooh, I'm hungry. I will consider a three-slice sandwich. I mean, so there's nothing in the concept of'm hungry. I will consider a three-slice sandwich. There is. Yeah. I mean, so there's nothing in the concept of a sandwich, I think, that requires that it be exactly two. But notice that we gravitate to it, right?

We think, okay. So we have a stereotype of a sandwich. It's got two pieces of bread. It's got maybe some tomato. In Australia, they'll put beetroot in some things. Yeah, they do. Beetroot burger some things. Yeah, they do. Beetroot burger. Yeah.

Yeah. So we've got the stereotype and we're imagining things that are similar to it. And now the question is always, how similar does it have to be? So similarity plays this really crucial role in extending these concepts. I think in the case of a sandwich, no reason to think it stops at two. I'm certainly inclined to believe that. To me, it's almost absurd that people think that the bread needs to be fully sliced in half.

To me, it's such a meaningless distinction for how both hot dogs and sandwiches actually affect our day-to-day life. And to me, we spoke about this in the last episode, but Subway, Subway is the largest restaurant chain in the history of the earth. It has a Genghis Khan-sized impact on the way that we eat food. It is like almost 50,000 locations across the globe. They serve sandwiches.

Anybody could tell you that, Nicole. You go anywhere in the world, you ask what Subway sells, and they say sandwiches. And it is one contiguous piece of bread but what if they introduce a hot dog in the little trays then what do we do they're still serving sandwiches because a hot dog is a sandwich nicole they have not deviated from their core business model i'm i'm faltering on my stance now because if Subway could sell a hot dog and put it in their Italian herbs and cheese, that's a sandwich. It's a sandwich. It is a hot dog.

And, I mean, conversely, if you were to take a hot dog bun and simply replace the meat tube with something with the stereotypical fillings of what you consider to be the quintessential sandwich. To me, I don't see a world in which that is not a sandwich as well. I cannot see the bun. And I mean, Dr. Norma, especially with a hot dog bun, it's literally the fact that it is quote unquote one piece of bread and not two, it is held by sometimes a quarter centimeter of bread your argument is held on by a quarter centimeter nicole a zephyr blows in zephyr schmeffer what about a crepe what's a crepe what's i put ham and cheese in a crepe and i fold

it up there i just fold it there's no opening there's no closing it's folded all up is that a sandwich? Well, I mean, I think that's a question for Dr. Norma. Dr. Norma, answer my question, please. How far away from the stereotype can you get? Like, of course, we must draw a line. But then who is the arbiter of that line? And it scares me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there isn't anyone who's the arbiter. God, it's us? We have to rely on our own devices? Gosh, so much responsibility.

So what would you think? I mean, you've got two shops side by side. One of them puts the crepes, let's say, under a special category, crepes. And the other puts the crepes under this wider category, sandwiches. Now, is one of them making a mistake? Well, I think if time passes, we could, in retrospect, think one of them had made a mistake because it turns out, let's say, that everybody else now starts to put crepes under the sandwich category or doesn't, right? But right now, what they're doing is they're making a proposal about the extension of the word sandwich. The proposal will either stick

or it won't stick, right? And there's no telling, typically. There's no fact. Because it's an artifact, there's nothing to discover here, right? There's a decision. There's a decision. Yeah, and nobody has the authority to make that decision, so we make it in this kind of loose collective way. It's our jobs to take their suggestion and determine whether this suggestion is true or not to us individually. Can I just say something? I'm having the time of my life.

Dr. Norma, I got to tell you, Nicole, before this, she was like, I'm nervous. He's going to be so smart. He's going to start talking about Socrates and I don't know what to do. And I'm like, he's just a normal person. Ah, fiddlesticks. That is incredible.

I mean... Yeah, it's the art of suggestion and then it's just us to be like all right and i kind of love that and i mean there are so many different reasons that somebody would want to categorize a sandwich right yeah and so that's what makes the to me at least it a very tricky concept of is a hot dog a sandwich because speaking you're speaking universally as opposed to like does a hot dog being a sandwich make sense for my own life and way of being or i mean does it make sense so actually next episode this is part of a whole large series dr norm or we're talking to a lot of people trying to really cover all our bases and we're actually speaking to a lawyer next because we know the legal system has gotten

involved in this to determine whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich. I mean, do you see that as like kind of falling under the appeal to authority fallacy? Do you think the legal system has any right to be involved in our hot dogs? Well, it'll have to probably because the borderlines of these concepts can have serious legal consequences. I mean, there's a famous, famous legal case about whether roller skates in Central Park count as wheeled vehicles. There was a prohibition,

no wheeled vehicles in Central Park in New York. So somebody skates in. Now, have they violated the law or not? They're too fast to get anyone. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. It has to be settled, right? I mean, consider cars and driverless cars. I presume nobody will doubt that they're cars, but there's a whole set of regulations about cars.

And if they don't count as cars, those regulations will not apply to them. So it's crucial in a way that we, for legal purposes, that we settle the borderlines of these concepts. That doesn't mean, of course, that the law, so to speak, does it reasonably or gets it right, right? There can be weird cases. But again, because they're artifacts, they're the kinds of things that we collectively, some institution or other, do get to settle. And the law might be able to settle many of them for us, right? Just decide. Of course, what happens typically is if the law gets too far out of sync with what we ordinarily think, then it just begins to not work as law. And I believe we find that case, Nicole, in the case of Miracle Whip.

Dr. Normor, are you familiar with Miracle Whip? This guy always talks about- I am familiar with Miracle Whip. Is it mayonnaise? Yes, a good question. A very good question. If I can spread it on a sandwich and it's squishy, white, and delicious, that's a mayonnaise in my book. But yeah, I mean, the government really, they laid down a hard line of what constitutes mayonnaise. And I believe it's a hard line of what constitutes mayonnaise. And I believe it's a certain percentage of oil by weight. Miracle Whip was simply watering down their mayonnaise too much and they got their distinction taken away. I am glad you brought up cars earlier because, so I think one analogy that people draw, myself included, is that, you know, a car is to sandwich as convertible as to hot dog. No.

Right? It's like a convertible. The car is the overarching or even say truck, right? Nicole, do you believe a truck is a car? Yeah. I do too, but I can also see people. A convertible is a car. It just doesn't have a top.

No, that's what I'm saying, though. I believe a hot dog is simply a subset of the overarching order of sandwich, which is something that Ken argued fully against. That sandwiches are lateral to hot dog and sandwiches are two pieces of bread. I think that car is to sandwich as a mobilized scooter, like a limeime scooter, is to a hot dog. I see, yeah. Do you see what I'm saying? I see what you're saying. He's picking up what I'm putting down. Thanks, doctor. But now, look, we can get very – so let me generate a series of cases, right?

So on the one side, you've got, I don't know, let's say a brand new Lexus. And on the other side, you've got a pair of roller skates in line perhaps. Okay. Now we get scooters, we get motorcycles, we get three wheeled motorcycles, we get golf carts, we get things that are like golf carts, but they have a bigger engine. It was called a gem. I know the thing you're talking about. It's like like golf carts, but they have a bigger engine. It was called a gem. Yeah. I know the thing you're talking about. It's like a golf cart that old people drive on the street.

At my Nana's Community Living Center, they drive. It's called a gem. That's right. Sorry to disrupt. No, no, that's good. Now, keep going. What do we have to add to the gems to get a car? A door.

Or have we already got there? A door. Ah. Does a door have to be a permanent door or can it be something like a car? Doors. Or have we already got there? A door. Ah. Does a door have to be a permanent door or can it be something like a curtain? Well, the door serves as safety for accidents. Well, no, no, hold on. And for pulling down the window. My Italian roommates who did not have driver's licenses drove a Jeep Wrangler that had no

doors. I was going to talk about Jeep Wranglers. They had no doors. Detachable doors. Detachable doors. I don't believe doors can be essential to car hood. Because my Italian roommates, they would hand roll cigarettes, driving with no license, no doors, hands free.

And they were UCLA students, mind you. Should have been smart. I'd love to be friends with your friend. Wouldn't surprise me at all. So you can see that the borderline is delicate, right? At some point, it'll be uncontroversial that these are cars. At some point, it'll be uncontroversial that there aren't. But in the middle, and I think this is especially true because they're artifacts, there isn't any answer that is given you by the original concept.

And so the borderlines of the concept are themselves blurry. They're vague. And part of what the law has to do, for example, is settle them. But also, that's part of what shops have to do when they classify, part of what we have to do when we go into things. We have to decide whether this counts for us as a one kind rather than another. And if our ways of doing it are so out of sync with other people's ways of doing it, then communication breaks down. So we have to come up to some consensus. And new cases constantly come up. I mean, think about these electric scooters. Are they scooters? Well,

yeah. But now they can go much faster. They can do all kinds of things that ordinary scooters can't do. And so we have to treat them differently from the way we treated scooters and more like the way we treated motorbikes. That's interesting. And I mean, that speaks to say like the ubiquity and popularity of the hot dog, something that I think is really fascinating. Dr. Normore, you brought up earlier McDonald's entering into China, you know, and we now view the hamburger as like, I would say the most important food stuff outside of say commodity grains that has affected more people across the world, right? We think of the hamburger and the hot dog as being things that sort of have always existed, but they are but a blip in time. They do, yeah. They're more like newish inventions. I mean, it's, you know, in the history of world food development, it's so, so, so new. And so,

I'm thinking now, whatever podcasts look like in 250 years, you know, the hot dog could not even be a thing, or maybe the hot dog is transformed into something else. Maybe the need for a sandwich isn't even there. People are eating the little- Hot dog flavored pills. Hot dog flavored pills. Yeah. And people will argue, is that a hot dog?

And people will say, well, it contains the same macronutrient breakdown and flavor of a hot dog down to the molecule. And I will be sitting there saying, no, hot dogs used to be at the Costco and the schmott dogs cost 25 cents more because they were exotic and from Mars.

Oh, man. Dr. Normor, I have to ask you, finally, do you believe that a hot dog is a sandwich or not? Well, let me put it this way. Okay. No philosophical funny business, Dr. Normor. No, I want it. I want it. No, nothing particularly funny here. So, like you, Nicole, I think that if I said, bring me a sandwich and somebody brought me a hot dog,

I'd be disappointed. On the other hand, I wouldn't think that I had cause for complaint. Because I think there's a sufficient gray area here that while if you asked me to bring you a sandwich, I wouldn't bring you a hot dog. If somebody brought me a hot dog as a sandwich, I would think they're just using the term slightly differently in that gray area. And neither of us has any authority to settle that. That's beautiful. Can I also say anyone who just asked somebody to quote, bring them a sandwich,

just tell me what kind of sandwich you want. This has happened too many times where I'll go to a gas station and say, you want anything? And someone says, give me a soda. And I go, no, no, no. Tell me what kind of soda. I don't know if you like Diet Dr. Pepper. And so I think that speaks to the idea of specificity. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. No, that's actually a very nice example because if somebody did bring you – let's suppose you don't like diet sodas. I hate diet sodas. And somebody did bring you one. I'd be so't like diet sodas. I hate diet sodas. And somebody did bring you one. I'd be so mad. But you wouldn't think you had cause for complaint. You hadn't told them not to do it. Yeah, but if I'm going on a car ride with someone, they should already be aware of the fact that I don't drink diet soda.

If you're close enough. They should know my preferences. If you're asking me to get you something or the other way around, we should know each other's preferences. If you bring me a diet Dr. i will raise absolute hell the artificial sweetener gives her digestive troubles and you don't want to be stuck in a car with her but if someone brought me a hot dog in lieu of a sandwich i also wouldn't be upset i just so maybe so maybe a hot dog is a sandwich possibly maybe maybe not to you maybe not to you i'm just pointing at random people in the So maybe a hot dog is a sandwich, possibly. Maybe. Maybe not to you.

Maybe not to you. I'm just pointing at random people in the room. Maybe it just is what it is, and it's a sandwich. Yeah. I'm more confused now. But it's not a toasty. No, nothing is a toasty. A toasty is a toasty.

We love a good toasty. Dr. Normor, thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Normor. I feel great about this. Oh, thank you. I'm somehow sweaty again. I keep sweating doing these podcasts. You are sweaty. My brain thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Norma. I feel great about this. Oh, thank you. I'm somehow sweaty again. I keep sweating doing these podcasts. You are sweaty. My brain's working so hard.

Yeah. Dr. Norma, please, I mean, do you got anything you want to plug? Anything you want to tell people about? No, I just want to tell them that I love this and you guys are really smart. Oh, you do? And that's the greatest compliment. Yeah, what a compliment. Thanks, Doc.

Thank you so much, Doctor. Take care. Take care. Take care of yourself. Nicole, you ever talk to somebody about a song and you're just like, I like that song. And they're like, yeah, well, when they went to the downbeat tempo on the third, eighth, the half beat, and they start breaking it down and you quickly realize like, oh, you're a musical genius and I'm just somebody who listens to something at the gym. Correct.

That's how I felt the gym. Correct. That's how I felt with Dr. Normal. Sure, yeah. He was like incredible. He's on a different plane. Just a vat of information in that brain. Also, y'all couldn't see him, but his eyes were closed as if he was like living in this. Symphonically. It was like he was conducting a symphony as he was speaking to us.

That's incredible. Really, really interesting. And also, I love the fact that philosophers exclusively speak in riddles. I mean, even I love that. He called him a leprechaun. At the end of all this, I mean, he waxed philosophical for dang near an hour. It was awesome. About whether or not hot dogs is a sandwich and all this.

And when we finally asked him to just hit us with, well, in this scenario, if you did this and I did this, then I would not have a reason. But I think that's beautiful. And I mean, I certainly learned a ton. Yeah. I feel like I have expanded my mind and my theories. And I don't know. I don't know where I stand. I need to like sleep on it.

I need to talk to some other people. Yeah. We need to talk to some more people to find out. I mean, we got part three coming up but like right now has your opinion changed from episode one to two i'm swaying i'm swaying you seem swayable i was double i was doubling down with ken and now dr normore's making me sway doctor i mean he definitely made me sway in that way too ken it really shocked me how much i was willing to say that a hot dog is not a sandwich but then after talking to dr normore it was like this idea that truth can only live within you

in that sense, that there is never going to be a fully universal definition. There can be to like a large in-group of people, right? Yeah. You know what I mean? Murder is bad. Murder is bad, right? Like, oh man, we should have asked him about that.

We should have gotten into moral relativism with him. Next time. But I mean, God, that was incredible. Another thing that I learned is I just sweat when talking about whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich. I guess you just get nervous or something. I think it's my brain is working on overdrive, you know? Yeah, I touched your forehead. You were sweaty.

You really got a lot of my sweat on you. I did. But, God, I mean, this makes me really excited for episode three, talking about the legalistic definitions of a hot dog oh it's gonna get so juicy I'm gonna throw so many legal terms habeas corpus aye object badgering you're badgering the women oh man Nicole should we do some

opinions are like casseroles yeah but we have to sing it okay fine you lead it off I'll follow opinions are like casserole. That was abhorrent. I'm so sorry. Maggie,

you are listening that closer than anyone and I'm sorry if your ears are bleeding. I am not financially liable for that. I feel like if we were on American Idol,

you'd just get an instant no from Paul Abdul. And that sucks. She's like, I'm so sorry. You're probably good at other things. I think Katy Perry's not enough. All right. First up.

First up. First up. We got at Rafa Conrad. Beef hot dogs are better than pork hot dogs. Agreed. Here's where it takes a turn, Nicole. But turkey hot dogs are better than beef hot dogs. So turkey better than beef better than pork yeah that's what

the hand signals i don't know if you saw yeah i mean i'm not the biggest fan of turkey hot dogs i'm just all beef all day turkey hot dogs as somebody who grew up eating so much ground turkey because some idea of health right uh turkey burgers on the grill turkey meatloaf turkey meatballs and somebody who still does that to this day. So I'm like, well, I might as a little bit healthy. Yeah. No, I like resent turkey hot dogs. Nice. But that said, maybe I just haven't had a good one because like turkey hot like hot links.

If I cut up a turkey hot dog and I put it in some huevos with some. Oh, yeah. So I would enjoy it. I agree with that. But on its own, like in a bun with a little bit of a condiment, mm-mm. No, and I do find it fascinating how like all beef hot dogs are fantastic. Hebrew National all beef is great.

But that said, like a beef sausage as opposed to a pork sausage, you're doing a coarse ground brat or something. Pork sausage is the way to go. Pork sausage, but there's something about like the aggressiveness of the spicy hot dog that to me lends to the beefiness. Or maybe it's just the fact that that's what I grew up on.

But like all beef hot dogs, man, nothing better. Shout out Hebrew Natty Light. Josh, before we get to our next opinion, we got to chat a little bit about something. Ooh, what? Yeah. You ever heard of Good Mythical Evening? I have. Oh my gosh.

It's happening again. Again. How crazy. The show is live on September 1st to jumpstart Labor Day weekend. Tickets are on sale right now at GoodMythicalEvening.com. I'm super excited. This is one of my favorite things that Mythical does. This is raw, this is X-rated.

This is the after dark, raunchy version of Mythical. X... XX. Maybe? R. Rated R. Rated R. It's at least PG-13 for visible male nipples I believe that's how

you get the PG-13 rating my nipples were incredible they were hyper visible last time because they were shined up with olive oil

and really under the bright lights but really Good Mythical Evening is going to be an incredible time go get your tickets Yitzi Raven

we're now on to the opinions on that castles part now Yitzi Raven wait hold on did you pronounce it Yitzi Raven because you assume now on to the opinions on that castles part now. Yitzi Raven says... Wait, hold on. Did you pronounce it Yitzi Raven because you assume that they are Jewish and that very much sounds like a Hebrew name?

No. Is it Raven? I feel like it might be Raven, but Yitzi Raven sounds like the name of a rabbi. Okay. At Yitzi Raven says, for the longest time, I didn't like my hot dog in a bun. I hate condiments, only ketchup for fries and nuggets. As I grow up, I do eat with a bun sometimes, but it's not my preference. That was a lot.

Okay, so I... Did I read this wrong? No, I also... They're saying they didn't... Josh is reading it again. No, I fully understand this because I also grew up not eating hot dogs and buns, but it was for a very specific reason. So my grandma... No, no fully understand this because I also grew up not eating hot dogs and buns, but it was for a very specific reason. So my grandma.

No, no, no. I wasn't on like a low carb diet from a child. Like I wasn't. Anyhow, no, my grandma, who is from South Africa, British Commonwealth country, I would like come home from school when I was living with her. And she'd be like, Josh, do you want some sausages? And I go, heck yeah, granny. I'm a portly young man. I want some sausages and I go heck yeah granny I'm a portly young man I want some sausages I'm thinking

that it would be like either an actual sausage on a plate or a sausage sandwich or maybe even I don't know but what came to me was instant mashed potatoes with two Hebrew national hot dogs on top gosh bangers and mash it's bangers and mash but you know she is Jewish so doesn't eat pork and so what's the most accessible beef sausage Hebrew Hebrew National Hot Dogs. Hebrew National Hot Dogs baby and that said I will still sometimes as a snack microwave a Hebrew National Hot Dog and eat it covered in mustard and

hot dogs are a delicious standalone sausage. Yeah hot dogs fresh out of the microwave is one of my favorite things but I always put ketchup or hot sauce or mayo on the side. Is that okay? Just for dipping?

Yeah. Just dipping it in mayonnaise? No, I like, Josh, come on. I'm a woman of class. I do a squirt of mayo. I do a squirt of hot sauce. I do a squirt of ketchup and I kind of just go through the line. No, no, no.

I go through it like a line. Drag it through the garden. That's what they call it in Chicago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I go through it like a lion. Drag it through the garden. That's what they call it in Chicago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Except my garden is mayonnaise. My garden is mayonnaise is the worst memoir title I've ever heard, but it's kind of beautiful. All right. At Finley Jane, Costco hot dogs have the prime bun to sausage ratio.

Fluffy bun without drowning the sausage, but no sausage overhang. That's a nice thing when sausage but no sausage overhang that that's a nice thing there's no sausage overhang i like biting the tip off sometimes doing a little spit it out right into the trash can spit it into that kid's eye this i i do love costco hot dogs the only thing i might say is that i think it's too big to be the ideal golden rule to be the Fibonacci sequence of hot dogs. It's a little too girthy of a wiener. That's a you thing. I love Costco hot dogs. And another thing that I love about Costco hot dogs is the wheel that turns the onions.

The onion wheel keeps on turning. That's my favorite thing. For people that don't know, Costco has, they have a litany of condiments. They have ketchup. They have yellow mustard. They have spicy brown mustard. They have relish that's in like a pump, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But then their onions, they could just have chopped onions in a bowl. Fresh. Fresh. They put whole onions in a device that you hand crank. It's beautiful. And it spits onions willy nilly all over your hot dog it'll get on your hand and you don't care you have to like hold it like down like by your thigh and like lift it up a little bit and then do of onions i love the onion wheel oh my god i'm all

for my birthday i love it can you buy one for my birthday i know i'm not gonna buy you an onion wheel also there's no way that's a specialized tool, right? Like, that has to be used for other. It's probably a meat grinder that they, like, change the thing. Just retrofit. It's just an onion grinder? I'm guessing. I love that.

God bless Costco hot dogs. Okay. DJ Cereal Sauce says, you guys have gone on record. Don't quote. No, no, no. Don't put us on the record. This is all on background. Okay.

Dr. Cereal. I forgot his doctor. DJ Cereal Sauce says, you guys have gone on record saying you like long dogs over thick dogs. Let me just say a primary factor in my enjoyment of a hot dog is a nice mixture of both. Thin hot dogs don't feel satisfying, but full brats, if those are in the equation, are simply too much to handle. So you're trying to find the Goldilocks of hot dogs don't feel satisfying about full brats if those are in the equation or simply too much to handle so you're trying to find the goldilocks of hot dogs and let me tell you you know you gotta try all the hot dogs until you find the one that fits in your butt and you just gotta find it and you keep trying dj cereal sauce you keep trying to find your magical Koli Lox hot dog. The right wiener size exists for you.

And for a lot of people, which is why I don't like when places brag about size. They're like, we have a quarter pound hot dog, a full foot long hot dog. I'm like, size? Everyone has different buds.

And this is absolutely true. You know, and it's only, science would prove this, that women over 5'9 don't feel that Sonic's foot-long coney dog. Are you kidding me? No, that's real. I'm saying the sizes of all buns are different.

We know that wiener sizes are different, but the size of buns are also different. That's just math. What are you talking about? I don't know. I don't know. I can't believe so early on I started

hyperventilating. Oh, God, Nicole. Our brains are turning to absolutely mush during this. By the end of it, we're just going to be shells of humans.

Hot dog. Is a hot dog a sandwich? I'd like to eat a hot dog sandwich. Hot dogs. Oh, God.

Well, thank you for listening to Hot Dog is a Sand dogs. Oh, God. Well, thank you for listening to a hot dog is a sandwich. Thank you for listening to a hot dog is a sandwich, Nicole. I'm sorry. I didn't know we were done. I think you're just going to respond, you're welcome. I didn't know we were done.

You're welcome. If you want to be featured on Opinions Are Like Casseroles, you can hit us up on Twitter at MythicalChef or at Henny Zonda with the hashtag OpinionCasserole. And 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 dishes, hit us up on Instagram at Mythical Kitchen. If you don't want any more of us, don't go to any of those. No, no, go. Talk to a friend.

Call your grandma. We're your friends. We're your grandma now. Oh, God. All right. Stay tuned next week where we talk about hot dogs again. And we got a lawyer. And God, I hope we beat a lawyer in an argument, Nicole.

Likely story.