A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Is Bacon Overrated?

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

Bacon has made its way onto every section of the menu and bacon buffs are zealous in proclaiming that it makes everything better-- but are these truly innovative flavors, or simply a fatty familiar tune? Today, we explore: is bacon overrated? 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 is Mythical. These salty, sizzling strips aren't just for the smiley part of your breakfast plate anymore. Bacon has made its way onto every section of the menu and bacon buffs are zealous and proclaiming that it makes everything better. But are these truly innovative flavors or simply a fatty, familiar tune? Today we explore, is bacon overrated? This is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich.

Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates.

I'm your host, Josh Ayer. And I'm your host, Nicole Hendy-Zadeh. And today we're talking about a very sensitive subject, Nicole, because this... You say that every... Did you know that you always start the podcast with, this is a blank? Yeah, you do. I say this is a blank stuff. What do I do? Be like, this is a crappy subject. This is a crappy subject that we're not going to discuss. You say deeply controversial. Wow, what a garbage podcast today's going to be with our very simple, no, this is the most controversial thing. And if we get canceled over this, Nicole,

then it will be all totally worth it. Because today we're talking about bacon. Enough of the stupid pretext. We're talking about bacon. Yeah, we are. Which we could consider ourselves part of the bacon industrial complex. Why do you say that? Right?

Because, I mean, if you think about Rhett and Link, so much of their kind of brand before was this. Like we literally did one of the first episodes I worked on here was does bacon make everything better? Oh, okay. And we made burger buns out of bacon. We made the actual burger patty. We did the whole bacon, baconalia is I believe what Denny's called. Baconalia. Yeah, makes sense.

Denny's used to call it Bacon Fest that, which was part of the bacon industrial complex. But what we're talking about is, is bacon overrated? Has it grown too big for its bacon britches? I think it's overrated at this point. It's just been put in so many things that it doesn't need to be put in. And, you know, there's bacon chocolate bars. There's bacon cookies. There's bacon gum.

Like, I don't need this stuff. You know, just give me a slab of bacon with my eggs, some toast, and a squirt of ketchup. Like, that's all I need. Like, this is just too crazy. I agree. I'm fascinated with the idea of these vintage cookbooks, right? You got like these 1970s recipes, like stupid jello molds, or like a whole salmon. I love them too, but they're very anachronistic, right? Like we look

at them, we're like, who would make that today? That's absolutely ridiculous. I always wonder how our current culinary moment is going to be perceived by generations after us and what the things are going to look at and be like, mom and dad, that's so embarrassing. I can't believe you just turned a bacon strip into a straw to drink a bacon milkshake with bacon caramel. That's ridiculous. I can't believe you guys made a Taco Bell lasagna. Yeah. Hey, yo, that Taco Bell lasagna slap though. That was really good. Your kids are going to be very confused by that. My kids are going to be very confused by a lot, but I will love them. Just the same little Torbild and Ham.

Those are their two names. Ham? Ham. Ham is a biblical name. It was one of Noah's children. Isn't it Hamish? Was Ham short for Hamish? Did they give him a nickname in Genesis?

Are you being serious? Ham is a name? Yeah. Ham, Shem, and Japheth were the three children of Noah. What? They had a child? Yeah, it is Ham. Ham, ham shem and japheth were the three children of noah what do you got a child yeah it is ham ham shem and javis why is ham why is pig not kosher but noah's kid's name is ham explain that connect the dots sheeple noah's kid named ham can't eat ham for kosher that's our book genesis is that's the jew, we got that one. We wrote that one, I think, I believe. Anyways, what I'm saying is there is certainly a point in time in which our bacon sins we will have to answer for.

And I'm fine with that. But right now, I think we're actually in a very healthy relationship with our bacon. Now? Like in general? At the current moment, I don't believe bacon is overrated. In 2009 and 2011, it was bacon everywhere. I couldn't even walk down the street without seeing bacon. No, I think we had a somewhat shameful culinary moment.

Yeah, yeah. Which I think is tied into a lot of things. Like everything in life, I blame toxic masculinity for this problem. But no, there was, God, what did, there's a food writer named, I believe Jed Portman who wrote for Garden and Gun, but he coined a term, hold on. He called it like the lard and liquor era, but it was all just about culinary excess. Like think about the popular restaurants in LA, like animal is a big one that defined, you know, for you and I, especially living in the city, you know, define a certain culinary moment. The whole thing is they cooked a whole animal from nose to tail.

And they had these like crispy pig ears that were, you know, fried and tossed in a chili thing. And then I remember going there and eating like a fried buffalo pigtails with a muscified Frank's Red Hot vinaigrette. And we were like so into this idea of, you know, just eating pork fat and bacon and excess and putting bacon in literally everything the maple bacon donut oh my gosh so popular so popular it was popular but i don't think i do think bacon is losing its allure with people but my question i guess to that end is should it because like i mentioned it's not bacon's fault right bacon didn't bacon didn't ask it's the bacon lobbyists fault The dang bacon lobby. The rich, the Mott's brothers, they're trading in pork belly futures and they're selling us all down the river.

All jokes aside, we love the pork board. We do. We do love the pork board. We love the pork board. Yeah, certainly. We got to strike that. Pork board hadn't bought anything for a while. Let's talk about one of your culinary heroes that abused bacon.

Abused bacon. Harley Morriston. We're talking about Harley Morriston. I owned, once again, have nothing but respect for Harley Morriston. Of course. I love him. Great guy. And we certainly, it was funny, when we did this Taco Bell lasagna on TikTok, like it was obviously a sort of homage. It was definitely inspired by the original fast food lasagna on TikTok. Like, it was obviously a sort of homage.

It was definitely inspired by the original fast food lasagna. But like a bunch of people were like, stop stealing Epic Mealtime ideas. And it was like, okay, statute of limitations. Also, we love and respect the Epic Mealtime guys, and they honestly taught us, they taught me at least a lot in the, like, viral

food world. If it wasn't for them, okay, the Epic Mealtime guys walked so we could also walk could also walk just at a slightly quicker pace epic mealtime walked so we could walk six years later so we could hoverboard uh no but i mean i've actually talked to to harley yeah a little humble brag uh no har. No, Harley was on GMM a couple years ago and stupid like fanboy me brought him a copy of my cookbook and was like, hey, man, I never would have written this if it wasn't for you. I never would have had this job if it wasn't for the groundwork that y'all laid out. Because, I mean, there was certainly cooking content on the Internet before that, but nothing turned it into a spectacle quite like Epic Mealtime. Sure.

And a big part of that spectacle, I mean, the single soundbite that I remember most from that is bacon strips and bacon strips and bacon strips. Of course. And I own- Muscles glasses.

And muscles glasses. Muscles glasses, Alex, he is a vegan personal trainer now. Hot. Yeah. Oh, he's still so hot. So hot. He would oil himself up with all that bacon grease.

No, but they turned cooking into a spectacle. Bacon was a huge part of that. I owned the bacon strips and bacon strip shirt. And I don't think that's, like, a shirt I would wear now. Yeah. You know? Because it had its, like I said, it had its moment. It had its explosion.

But now I just think it's overrated. Like, if I see, like, a bacon chocolate chip cookie, like, yeah, it had its time in the limelight, but now it's just over. That flavor composition doesn't do it for me anymore. But what exactly about your palate would have changed between then and now? Well, let me tell you. I used to hate mustard. I used to hate mustard. Seeing mustard would make me audibly gag.

Really? If it was on my plate, I would just, I hated it. And then after seven years, I love mustard, put mustard on everything. Like sun-dried tomatoes. I used to love sun-dried tomatoes. Now when I see a sun-dried tomato, I retch. Sun-dried tomatoes are an interesting thing to bring up because sun-dried tomatoes were the bacon of the late nineties, early two thousands. What? Really? Well, I mean, as far as a thing, this is something that like a lot of food writers look back on that era and will kind of cringe, right? Every single dish at every fine dining restaurant had like a sun-dried tomato and roasted red bell pepper coulis. Ugh, so exhausting.

Right? So it's so exhausting. Not to be a fancy lady, but ugh, how exhausting. A coulis with sun-dried tomato. Come on, Percival. Let's go to the next one. Like, I'm such a... Oh, Percival, let's go to the gastropub

where they're putting arugula on their bacon burgers. Because now it is 2007. But no, there's certain... I would call them... I don't know what the word shibboleth means, but I feel like I remember it from a linguistics class. It's like the one super salient feature of a thing. Maggie's laughing at shibboleth. Do you

know what shibboleth means? Someone look at what do you mean? No. Hang it up. A shibboleth is any customer tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word that distinguishes one group of people from another. Yeah. So I would say there are certain culinary shibboleths from different eras. What? Don't laugh at shibboleth. There's certain culinary shibboleths. It sounds like you're saying Sybil Shepard. Who's Sybil Shepard? The lady in Taxi Driver? No, I never saw Taxi Driver. That's the one where Robert De Niro, or Al Pacino.

Robert De Niro. Robert De Chino. I love that movie. I actually re-watched it last week. But you were saying about shibboleths. I thought of shibboleths. The idea that you can look at different eras. You look at the 70s, you see Jell-O molds. rewatched it last week. But you were saying about shibboleth. I said about shibboleth. So the idea that you can look

at different eras, right? You look at the 70s, you see like jello molds or whatever. Certain eras that you can look back on and be like, man, people were using

and abusing that thing. And bacon is just kind of caught in that. But again, the taste of sun-dried tomatoes never changed. The taste of bacon never changed.

But I changed. But you changed. Yes. And we changed. We changed. The culinary canon changed. Now I changed. But you changed. Yes. And we changed. We changed. The culinary canon changed. Now it's all about speck. Speck, the new pork brata coming to bacon burgers near you.

Do you want your burger wrapped in speck? Do you want speck and chocolate? Do you want speck flavored vape juice? You were not expecting speck for you. No. Speck's like a slightly worse German bacon, right? Yeah. It's like prosciutto a little bit.

I like to think. I'm starting to think back to like that era of dining this lard and liquor era is when I started like going to nice restaurants. Like my brother would like save up his student loan money and like take me to a nice restaurant. And I remember getting just, yeah, shout out to John. John's the greatest.

John Urock. Introduced me to so many cool foods in LA in a time when I was like kind of looking to what I wanted to do. It really inspired me a lot. But I remember going to restaurants. I believe Salt's Cure was one of them. You ever been to Salt's Cure? Oh, you know, I would always drive by it. And I would always say, you know what?

I'm going to go to brunch one day and I'm going to do it by myself and just sit and read a book and go to brunch at Salt's Cure. Never did it. Never did it. Never once. Never once did I do it. But boy, oh boy, did the Nicole in my head really want to I love that there's always the person in your head that you wish you were you know like oh I'm totally gonna be the girl

like I'm gonna sip a single French 75 and like read a novel and a man's gonna come up to me and go like what are you reading I'm like listen sir I'm here by myself and Nicole is enjoying a Nicole day and you never do it I never do it I did it once and you know what I had a good time and a lady even came up and was like, what are you reading?

And I was like, some garbage pretentious book. There's power in solitude. Especially during this time when everyone just wants to be a part of a collective. It's like, I'm going to rebel and eat bacon and read a book during brunch by myself. Making yourself available only to yourself is a power. Despite like, well, why would you go do that in a crowded bar? Actually to de-stress from shoots when we first started shooting here and I was all like nervous every time we do it. I used to go to Black Market

Liquor Bar. Great place. Great place. And it's very, it's, it's dark and it's very loud and it's cool. Beautiful. Yeah. And just really delicious cocktails. Make the single favorite penicillin in the city. And I would go there and I would sit alone at the corner of the bar and I would just let the sounds of Studio City wash over me. It was really cathartic. What I was saying about Salt Skir is that in this lard and liquor era,

I remember just getting a tub of whipped lardo. Oh my God, don't talk to me about lardo. Oh my, it's literally like you get bread and butter, except it's bread and pork fat. Oh my God. So I don't even think it was bacon as the most overrated thing. This is just this era where everyone was trying to put pork fat in everything.

And I'll tell you what's more overrated than bacon, pork belly. Oh yeah. Pork belly is dumb. I don't understand how, first of all, bacon is pork belly, obviously. It's just bigger. It's, well, I mean, yeah, but I mean, bacon is, it starts off with a whole pork belly that's sugar and salt cured and then smoked. Yes.

And then typically sliced into strips. But then, you know, pork belly is just unseasoned bacon. Yes. And it's just cut differently. Yeah. But you can cut pork belly into strips. You go to Korean barbecue, you get pork belly, it's cut like American bacon. You know, but so many places started advertising, especially after bacon went out the window in, say, like, 2010, 2011 or something, people started advertising pork belly burgers.

And everyone was like, oh, my God, pork belly is so indulgent. It's so good. I'm being bad today. Do you know that pork fat is actually better for you than olive oil because of blah? And it's like, bro, you're just putting unseasoned, you're putting plain flavored bacon on that burger at this point. No, no. But they would, like, they would alter it a little bit.

They wouldn't just say, they wouldn't take bacon and call it pork belly. They would take pork belly and say it was pork belly. And add like a half-assed bacon-y sort of glaze on it too. Kind of, yeah, yeah. No, yeah, yeah. I agree with you, kind of. Yeah. Because, well, every single dining experience I've had,

it's like pork belly sliders or like pork belly, forget it, I was going to say omelet, but nobody makes pork belly omelets, but I should make a pork belly omelet. Well, no, this is actually a perfect example of like someone trying to make a fancier version of bacon and calling it pork belly. I had a, you know, the hangtown fry. Sure. With the oysters. Yeah. Hangtown fry. It's like one of the coolest dishes. It's a California original from like the, you know, pioneer mining days up in San Francisco. Miners would take their

like, you know, gold riches of the day and they'd want to buy themselves a fancy meal and go to the saloon and they'd get an omelet that was studded with bacon, cheese, fried oysters, and maybe hollandaise, I think. But anyways, I got a fancy version of a hangtown fry and they put, they advertised pork belly instead of bacon. And I thought it was going to be bacon because you need that saltiness with the eggs. You already got the salty oysters but I want both of those double salty eggs.

Yeah, it's like minerally salt and like fat salt. Exactly. You get like both you get sea salt and then land salt. Yeah, sure. It's just like unseasoned pork belly

just thrown on there and it like ruined the dish for me completely. Was this at Salt's Cure? No. This was somewhere else. Yes. Okay, you want to tell me where? No, I'll tell you after. I'm not just going to flame this random

person, but they are now kind of big on media and it makes me mad. They seem really nice. I hope they don't hear this. But anyways, you know, that was like an issue where bacon would have been the correct choice, but because bacon is passe and pork belly will give you- Eventually be passe. Eventually be passe, but it was now kind of in the moment, then they use that and it made it a worse dish. So there's part of me that thinks that us reacting so strongly to the bacon being overrated is putting us back in an even worse hole. Like bacon is delicious, objectively.

It is. No one is denying that here. Bacon is delicious. It was just overused. Whenever I was beginning my culinary career, it was just in everything. And it really boggled my mind. I'm like, is this really what it's all about? Like bacon this, bacon that, bacon whatever.

And bacon, remember the bacon-wrapped avocado with the egg inside of it from Estrella? From Estrella, yeah. Like that was like upper echelon, amazing stuff that was happening. And then it was like people just like putting like wrapping everything in bacon. It was just tiresome. I mean, I remember going to an event and they had a mason jar on every single table filled. You know where this is going, just filled with strips of bacon. And it was a hot day and the bacon was just sweating in the sun.

And there were these like rich, fancy people. And it was flopping over. Mm-hmm. Ew. These rich, fancy people just like grabbing fistfuls of bacon covered in grease. Their wine glasses are stained with grease.

Oh my gosh. I mean, truly this thing like marred by a different kind of excess, right? Not like a, not like a rich excess,

almost a sort of pedestrian excess. Yeah. Where it's like, look, I can eat pork fat like the commoners. You know,

that's kind of what it, what it reminded me of. Yeah. But what was I going to say? I don't know. We're going to compare it to like, uh, like the Greeks and how they had like.

Yeah, that was like the downfall of the Roman Empire was their excess. Yeah. That was us. That would be a very ironic way for America to go down. Like not because of, you know, political infighting and widespread corruption and a distrust in media and distrust in institutions and distrust in democracy in general. But like bacon just gives everyone heart disease. Exactly. And we're all done. We do have the,

don't we have the highest rate of heart disease in like the world? We got a lot of hypertension in America. And I think, yeah, bacon gives Americans hypertension. Unless the pork board is, lean pork exists and is good. Well, all I'm saying is bacon is delicious.

I love bacon. I eat it often, but I just think it's used too much. Use other things. Use prosciutto. Use guanciale. Use other ways of pork. I'm trying to think of what the current moment is doing to excess.

You know, what is the bacon of now? I mean, we went through a kale phase where that was a big thing everyone doing a kale caesar salad especially because i mean the thing massaged kale massaged kale because the big thing with bacon was that like it was just places where it's it just didn't belong yeah right like um i mean aleppo pepper aleppo pepper is the aleppo peppers on everything shishitos oh shishito peppers uh beets no i beets. You know what I think the one most overrated kind of thing is right now that people fetishize to a degree that they fetishize bacon? Can I guess?

Yeah. Grilled cheese sandwiches. No, I do love grilled cheese. No, it's kind of in the opposite spectrum of bacon. Juice. It's, well, juice is part of it, but I'd say beans. Rancho Gordo beans. Rancho Gordo beans.

Dude, what is up with this? What is up with these weird? One, Rancho Gordo, they make like, they make nice beans rancho gordo beans rancho gordo beans dude what is up with this what is up with these weird i won rancho gordo they make like they make nice beans they're good beans yeah all right it's good beans but when quarantine hit especially you had all these people especially people in food media who were like part of this bean club and part of the monthly bean club at rancho gordo and rancho gordo i follow uh i believe his name is steve sando who like you know operates it and he was like sending out Instagram messages all the time. He's like, I'm so sorry. We have like a thousand people on our bean club waiting list. And it's like, I don't know.

It's I don't want to go so far as to saying it's virtue signaling as a response to the bacon epidemic that we had in 2008. OK, because I think like when I talked about masculinity, I do think that that plays into this. I think there is some weird politics involved in this. Are beans masculine? No, beans are feminine. Bacon's masculine. Got it. Not like actually, but I'm saying, you know, talking about the way that, I don't know,

say masculinity, et cetera, politics, your sort of beliefs and empowering that affects down to your food choices, right? If you were to ask like people who swear by red meat. So for instance, there's a football coach named John Harbaugh. Okay. Right. John Harbaugh is a little bit of a wackadoo. He is the coach of University of Michigan, Jim Harbaugh, one of the Harbaugh brothers.

But anyways, he tells his players not to eat chicken because it is a nervous bird. Chickens are too nervous and skittish that you, if you try and get the protein from chicken meat, you will be nervous and skittish. So you got to eat beef. Beef is a resolute animal. And like with how important beef is to Texas and pork is to the South. I think there's this kind of thing where like, you think you're a big tough guy if you eat a bunch of bacon. And I think you can see whenever I would post a picture of vegetables. Cause again, I'm complicit in this whole baconalia thing, because I wrote a food blog called Culinary Bro down where I'd make a bunch of bacon stuff. Yeah. I was going to ask you, how much of your

book is actually bacon? Not even that, that, that much. There's certainly like a fair amount in there. And again, I do love bacon. Yeah. But you know, I would post a picture of any vegetables and you get so many like meat hardo guys in your dms being like that'd be better wrapped in bacon and it's like there's no moral virtue you're not a tough guy for eating bacon or it's the same people who are like you post a video of you cast iron searing a steak and they're like the only way to cook a steak is outside on a fire with your bare hands you need to kill a bear and then make a spatula from its bones. Kill a bear? That got dramatic real fast. No, but I mean, that to me

is like the kind of psychology behind this. And then, you know, the response to this like all bacon everything is like, hey, everyone, we should be eating plant-based. Beans are a source of good natural protein and fiber. We should all be eating beans. But now let's completely fetishize them and make a wait list a thousand people long to get the finest beans in the

land. Yeah yeah beans are in vogue did you know there's something called cranberry beans i recently found this out they were so pretty they look like a tie-dye t-shirt oh my god scarlet runner beans oh my god yes unbelievably gorgeous my myacopa beans what my i don't know a bunch of fancy beans from rancho gordo and i also love beans and again i, we're both susceptible to trends as well. Yeah, for sure. But I just like to eat my Rosarita beans. Yeah, I was going to say that. Give me some Ortega black beans, sir. That's all I need.

Give me the canned refried bean stuff. Yeah. But I just always wonder where the natural endpoint of these trends is going to be. You know what I think the next food trend is going to be? Cool peppers. We're talking Bell or chilies chilies yeah i think chilies people are gonna want to look for cool ass chilies it's starting yeah it's already i um and i almost ruined my shot with my girlfriend julia whom i love very much no on our first date i must have told you the story i had to have told you the story tell me tell me tell me we went to

nightshade by maylin one of my favorite restaurants oh me. We went to Nightshade by Maylin, one of my favorite restaurants. Oh, my God. I went to Nightshade, too. That's a big first date move. That's a bold first date move. That is. And just weird fact, Tim Duncan and Greg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs were dining there. Wow. And I was like, what a good sign.

And we order some crudo dish or something, and the server goes, oh, and that's served with habanero peppers. They are a habanero, which the capsaicin has been removed. They've been bred that way. Okay. So you get all the bright flavor of a habanero peppers. They are a habanero which the capsaicin has been removed. They've been bred that way. Okay. So you get all the bright flavor of a habanero without the crushing heat. And I go,

oh my God, what farm are those peppers from? Oh yeah. Okay. To me, it was a very normal question, especially someone that used to write

about restaurants in LA and also write about agriculture. I was like, okay, this could be from Kong Tao up in Fresno or it could be Dan Barber or Roe 7 Seed Company,

because both of them are doing really cool things with peppers. And the server, I thought, would immediately have the answer ready, because that's the type of restaurant that you go to. Yeah, exactly. They know everything. They should know everything out of the back of their hand. I totally agree with that. But also, Julia was a restaurant publicist at the time.

And so I didn't think anything of it. I wasn't trying to impress her. I was asking out of my own curiosity. But she literally went like, I'm going to leave. That's a joke. But I was like, oh, my God. No, no, no. I'm not a dick.

I'm just, you see. And the server was like, I don't know what you're talking about. And then it comes back and it goes like, oh, it's like roast. I didn't see it. And I was like, it is Dan Barber. I knew it. Dan Barber's breeding these peppers. That's the same dude that literally just fed chickens a diet of only chili peppers to see

if it would turn their yolks red and it did it did it did wow like how red i don't know like like fire engine red or like opaque i'm sure we can google a picture of it lipstick red really important i need to know josh i can't tell you but all i know is i now in the same way that i wanted bacon in 2008 i want to eat these stupid chickens with the red yolks. Oh, eggs. Eggs is a big one. Fancy egg. Fancy egg?

What kind of fancy eggs are we going to get into? You know, people are going to start feeding their eggs blue sour straws. And then the yolk is going to turn aquamarine. This is what I think. The limit does not exist. Yeah, that's the next thing what I think. The limit does not exist. Yeah, that's the next thing. Did you say the limit does not exist? We are going to make egg yolks every color, ladies and gents.

We got red from the chilies. We got blue from the sour straws. What's another unnatural color? You got purple from Skittles. You feed them the purple Skittles. You feed them a whole box of Froot Loops. No, Skittles are white in the middle sometimes. I'm sorry.

And then in 25 years, we're going to be looking back on this being like, are rainbow eggs overrated? Here's the thing. The shibboleths of the rainbow eggs is that. I'm telling you, it's chilies and rainbow eggs. You heard it here first on the podcast. A hot dog is a sandwich. And we are going to be equally ashamed of that in 20 years. You know what I think, Nicole?

Here's the thing of what I think. What's up, buddy? Bacon's fine. Bacon's fine. Bacon's good, right? And we enjoy bacon. It's salty. It's crispy. It's all meaty. Sausage has always been the superior choice. Can I ask you a question about your bacon preference? Do you like your bacon floppy or crispy? Floppy. Okay. See,

because I like mine floppy too, but sometimes I like to microwave it and then it gets really crispy, like, like teeth shattering crispy. That's really, really good too. But I went to this really great restaurant. What was it called? Um, uh, the Rose. Have you been to the Rose in Venice? I love the Rose in Venice. I had a big piece of bacon. Like, like you can't see my hand right now but it looked like a I don't know like a vape like a vape the size of a vape of a vape pen? oh the big old vape rigs

you see them just pouring out of cars you see the big vapes where they have like tech techs on them or something I don't know like extension packs like a slab a vape sized slab of bacon yeah you know like the extension packs of Digimon and stuff. Game Boy. Like a Game Boy extension pack, but a vape.

Yeah, so it was that and it was bacon. And my friend worked there and we got to eat their pate gratis, which I really, really enjoyed. That means free. Oh, yeah. I thought it was a... I was like, yes, pate gratis, the pate made from the liver of the songbird of the galapagos i'm familiar with that dish no either powder gratis which is free in spanish and then and then uh it was just this big old vape size slab of bacon and then the outside was crispy

and the inside was like this beautiful soft gorgeous like meat and then it was glazed in this maple and then they put like alderwood smoked salt on it. Oh, sorry, I just... Salivated? You just drooled on the table? This is a nice... Put a coaster down if you're going to drool. I have a coaster right here.

You literally have a drool coaster for you already. It is not a drool coaster. It is a multi-purpose coaster. That's a situation where the bacon is the star of the show, right? The bacon gets to take precedent. Yeah. Whereas, like, in all these other things, they're trying to shove bacon places where it doesn't belong.

Yeah. And I know something about shoving things where they don't belong. What? Why are you laughing? But what do you, okay, what do you think the best application for bacon is? If bacon's overrated and now there's been this whole rejection of bacon, where do you think bacon should stay?

What's the best application for it? I like bacon cut up in my pancakes. Yeah? Yeah. That's nice. You get the little studs of salt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even on like a breakfast sandwich, I always prefer sausage over bacon.

Uh-huh. But that said, a BLT for me is one of the most perfectly constructed sandwiches of all time. Sometimes when I feel really – I have a BLT like once a year. What's the special occasion for your once a year BLT? Because it's pure unadulterated pork. Yes. And I feel bad about that. Oh, that makes sense.

You still have a bit of the pork shame. Yeah, I do. Of course I do. It's intrinsically within me. I've seen you shove a lot of fistfuls of prosciutto in your mouth. There's been too much just prosciutto. I'm sorry.

You like go into the fridge and try to hide behind the door, but I see the little fat flaps of prosciutto hanging out as you're shoving it in your mouth. I love prosciutto. Prosciutto is different for me. It's because my dad showed me what prosciutto was when I was 14 and he changed my life forever. Bacon is different. Bacon is still really naughty for me.

So I have it once a year. I have a BLT once a year to remind me like you, this is your industry. Like you work in food. Like you're allowed to eat this. It's a part of your job. That's really beautiful. I think that's very beautiful. Thank you.

In conclusion. Yes. Bacon, whether we like it or not, it has cultural weight to it. Like you said, you have more shame about eating bacon than prosciutto. It has more cultural weight when people say that'd be better wrapped in bacon. Everything's better wrapped in bacon. No one says everything's better wrapped in ham or prosciutto so whether we like it or not bacon is i do agree with that bacon has become such a huge intrinsic part of our culture

and i do agree that for a time it was overrated there was a about a five-year period that we're going to look back on with a lot of shame for what we did with bacon but bacon is a spectacular product i don't need to convince anyone of that, of course, but it should be treated with respect and also restraint. Respect and restraint. Things that we do not have. What's wrong with us? I'm learning. It's a process. This is the pot calling all the kettles black right now.

Yeah, I'm trying, man. Okay, Nicole, we're back. Nicole, we've heard what you and I have to say now. Stop laughing. Now it's time to find out what I... I'm just kidding. Keep laughing. Nicole, your laughter brings me so much joy.

It is like the laughter of a small child. It's like when you fall down and you see the smile on a baby's face looking at you playing the buffoon. This is what your laughter does to me. 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 internet all these stupid opinions time for a segment we call opinions are like casseroles uh no these opinions aren't aren't stupid they're controversial hold on i want to go back to the thing that we're talking about what we're talking about like like culinary trends that go overboard it's funny seeing that in other cultures uh-huh right and that like they don't necessarily reflect

ours like i remember i went to a very fine dining restaurant in israel it was i believe mizlala from oh fun yeah yeah yeah um very well known like uh should have a michelin star if michelin traveled to israel but they don't. But anyways, their whole thing, like Mexican food just hit Israel at the time. I was. When I went, it was sushi. That's funny. Yeah. I was like a couple of years after the sushi craze.

But I remember that like Vietnamese immigrants were like opening sushi bars because people really wanted it in the desert. But anyways, Mexican food was really big. And I went to this fine dining restaurant. And like one of the dishes was like, you know, like, uh, the, what do they call them? They call them marquitas in Cuba, the thinly sliced plantain chips, but they're like long. Uh-huh. Okay. It was one of those with like black bean puree.

Oh yeah. And like a tomatillo puree dotted on it. Okay. But it was literally just like a plain black bean puree. But if you've never had black beans, right? If you've only eaten, you know, thinking about like, what's in fool? Chickpeas? Not chickpeas.

It's the other one. Lentils? No, the other one. I don't know. Fava. Oh, fava beans. You can only have like fava beans and chickpeas and lentils and stuff like that. You see like a black bean.

You're like, holy crap. So it's like a pureed black bean on a plantain with some like bad salsa verde. It's okay, man. They're learning. It's man they're learning it's a process yeah and it's a completely different taste to other people but i'm like yo growing up in southern california like this is yeah this is laughable it was like childlike and all the rest of the dishes i was blown away by this is a good segue into this they had like a fish dish with like a horseradish and lemon you know uh nitrogen frozen buttermilk ice cream they like pounded on

it and spread it over the fish. Hey, speaking of fish and ice cream, opinion casseroles. Some nerd Zach says, fried catfish dipped in soft serve vanilla ice cream is delicious. No joke. This is joke. This is joke. Gross. Some nerd Zach, this is a joke, right?

It's gross. No, but hold on. What? I think you know what I'm going to say here. What if you take a bunch of tartar sauce and you just spun that in an ice cream maker? No, I thought you were going to say you dip french fries in ice cream. Why not accidentally pick up the fried fishes on the side of your fish and chips? I thought that's what you were going to say.

That is a bridge quite far. I'm not going to say too far. I'm not going to rule it out. The thought of fish and vanilla ice cream makes me feel a little bit not great. Yeah, a little bit sick. You know what's good? Oysters and vanilla. Really?

Yes. That's one of those things. They both have that kind of like very perfumey. Yes. Yeah, a little bit sick. You know what's good? Oysters and vanilla. Really? Yes. That's one of those things. They both have that kind of like very perfumey. Yes. Pheromonic kind of vanillin. Yeah. What's it called? Castoreum?

No, this is like one of those like stupid perfume like words. Iodine? No, Idaho's. Idaho's. It's like. Idaho? No, you know, girl. That one?

No, aldehydes. Aldehydes. Thank you. I'm also a- Yeah, yeah. Aside from being a food nerd, I'm also a perfume nerd. They both have similar aldehydes, which is why when you put it in your mouth, it tastes good together.

Should we start a perfume podcast? Yeah, is that it? You like- Don't tell me that because I will drop everything and I will do a pure perfume podcast. I'm just going to be like, yeah, that smells pretty good. There's notes of juniper, jasmine, emerald green. Smells like a sexy lady is wearing it, but like dignified, huh? Like a sexy, dignified lady.

What's that, sandals wood? Sandals and wood? Okay. FSUlax22 says, avocado is overrated and tastes like cardboard what kind of cardboard are you eating can i have some because i love avocado they're either eating really bad avocados or really good cardboard and i want to know which one i don't i'm not ruling either of them out you could be right but bro just give me some of that cardboard yeah if your cardboard tastes like avocado sign me up i I get why people wouldn't like an avocado. Like, there aren't a ton of other plants like it, right?

But yeah, that's the good part. It's like the added cream. It's like natural creaminess. I agree with that. Those are the reasons I love it, but I could see how someone would be freaked out by it, but I could never see how someone would think it tastes like cardboard. Also, there's a big Florida State lacrosse fan.

FSU lacks 22. Go Knolls lacrosse team, but your opinions are bad. At Busby. Oh, good, good little segue here, Nicole. White rice with ranch and bacon bits is delicious and oat milk is much better than almond milk. Two opinions. One opinion per casserole. Not much of a casserole at all, I suppose, at that point.

White rice with ranch and bacon bits. Yeah, that sounds good. That sounds like a thing I would have eaten growing up that that sounds like what my mom's signature dish would have been had she had a signature dish got it it would have been that you think it's real bacon bits or fake bacon fake it's bakos it's bakos it's bakos okay it's the thing that look like the the fish food yeah they're vegan they're vegan they're great it's just like little rice crunchies with liquid smoke in it and salt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love them. Cool. Yeah, this is cool. I also agree that oat milk is better than almond milk, but oat milk has more fat than almond milk.

So that's why you like it because it emulsifies better in your coffee. No, it has more carbs, right? It doesn't have as much fat. Does it have more fat too? Okay, so oat milk needs an added fat to help it emulsify. Makes sense. Because almonds have natural fat in there. And so it just mixes up, but it kind of separates. I don't know if you've noticed that.

Almond milk? Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes though they'll put like carrageen in, they'll put some sort of chemical thing in, guar gum. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But with oat milk, they use less of that because they use vegetable oil to help emulsify it.

Yeah. So you see a lot of the times whenever you make your own almond milk, it separates and it gets weird. But if you buy like store-bought or if you add a little bit of vegetable oil to it, it helps with the combination. It's funny though that sometimes we confuse

like fat creaminess with carb creaminess, if that makes sense. Like risotto, right? Risotto, people use the term creamy for risotto, but there's no cream in risotto. It's just starch making creaminess. So that's the difference between almond milk and oat milk. You're getting starch versus fat,

except they kind of add more starch into one and add more fat into another. Yeah. Yeah. I like almond milk. I like oat milk more. Awkward. Oh, it's my turn. You're awkward.

You said I smile like a babe, baby, like a young baby. No, I said you bring the same joy to my life as a baby. Are you for real? That's the best compliment you've ever given me. Other than when you called me your de facto best friend. That was two hours ago. You called yourself my de facto best friend. Yeah, yeah.

That was a title you bestowed upon yourself. Yeah, it sucks. Okay, Nipnut. Nipnut has come up a couple times, and we still don't know how to pronounce their name. Okay, Nip and Nut says, I don't know where this is, but a pinyon casserole. SpaghettiOs with meatballs are far superior to the meatball-less SpaghettiOs, which are just sad. They're both sad. Sorry.

No, SpaghettiOs with meatballs was my favorite food until I was like nine, and it was indeed much fancier and better than meatball less spaghettios. Okay. Looking back now, if you taste from side by side, the meatballs does taste like dog food a little bit, but not in a bad way. Like in a way that I really love canned meat products and they all smell like dog food. Like potted meat. Potted meat. Corned beef hash in a can is so much better than the fresh stuff.

Dinty more beef stew. Give me all that. Dinty more beef stew give me all that yeah more is good but you know what that's done is that i don't smell those and go that smells like dog food i smell dog food and i go that smells like breakfast i'm dead serious what why do you do that i no i don't pate. This is a good example. I eat a lot of canned pork liver. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. No, there's a Vietnamese brand of pork liver pate, the same stuff you put on banh mi. It's really good. I've had that before.

It's really good. You crack it open. It smells like dog food because dog food is just canned liver. Yeah. You know? So I smell dog food and I'm just like, mmm, sandwich spread. And I don't think there's anything weird about that. Yeah.

Okay. Dog food is just, all dog food is technically human. I'm getting into weird things. No, it's not. Stop. You're's anything weird about that. Yeah. Dog food is just all dog food is technically human. I'm getting a weird face. No, it's not. Stop. You're digging yourself into a hole. I deserve to have, like, some of them are just like bison, cranberries, and barley and I'm like, that's a good snack for a growing boy too. We have epic

bars that literally have those three things in them. Those are dog food. Epic bars are as close to dog food as dog food. Alright, at Royal City Rock 01, I prefer barbecue chips with French onion dip over plain slash rich chips. Plain slash rich chips are good dipped in ketchup, miracle whip,

or both. This is just a kind of series. It's like they were trying to get this off their chest. Yeah, it's okay. Let it happen. You gotta let it happen. But this does bring up, Nicole, a very controversial topic. What is that? And I know what you're saying, Josh. You say every topic's good, Let it happen. You got to let it happen. But this does bring up, Nicole, a very controversial topic. What is that? And I know what you're saying, Josh. You say every topic is good, but not this.

This is, wow, what a controversy. I hope that people, if you're going to come for us for saying this, then it's fine because we need to say this. We have an obligation, Nicole, to the people. I guess. I don't think you should dip flavored chips into a dip. What? I don't know.

That's wrong. Even like dipping Doritos in salsa doesn't taste right to me. Who dips Doritos in salsa? Well, we're talking about dipping flavored chips into a flavored dip. No, no, no. Okay, have you ever

have you ever dipped like you said a barbecue chip with French onion dip? It don't taste right to me. Oh, okay. The seasoning powder is the dip.

It is a dry dip. It is a salsa seca already on top of the chip. No, no, dip. It is a salsa seca. It is a salsa seca. Already on top of the chip. No, no, no. That's a... No, no, no. You are wrong.

The flavor's been done. Okay. What about you take a Flamin' Hot Cheeto and you dip it in cream cheese? That's the one exception. The one exception. Okay, what if you take... With that said... Let me finish.

Hold on. Let me finish. Okay, go ahead. Yes? I thought you had something to say. No, no, no. Okay, so what I was going to say is that cream cheese is like a plain dip. So you can't take-

Okay, well, wait, wait, wait. What if I take scallion cream cheese? I think you get one mix in. It's like a cold stone where your parents go, you got one mix in, Wink. I don't have 59 cents for gummy bears. You get sprinkles. You get one mix in, but then anything after that, you put a single speck of black pepper

in that scallion cream cheese. It's no longer a plain dip. Oh my God. Stop. Scallion cream cheese is a plain dip. What? Okay. Let's think about something else.

What's a dip? What's a dip you like? Guacamole. Guacamole. No, no one dips chips in guacamole. Like who's going to dip Lay's in guacamole? Oh, potato. When you said no one dips chips in guacamole, I was like, Nicole, you need to get out more.

Chips and guac is a big thing. No, we're talking about potato chips. Yeah, yeah, potato chips. Buffalo chicken dip. Okay, ranch. Oh, but are you saying just like- Ranch chips. Dipping ranch chips in buffalo chicken dip?

I don't think it would taste right to me. Well, no, it would. You're right. What if you take buffalo chips and dip them in ranch? Ranch is a plain dip. What if- This is so silly. This is so silly. what if this is so silly this is so silly what if you took okay have you ever had the ruffles queso uh it's the green and blue package yes yes yes yes okay what if you dip that in refried beans

okay it sounds pretty good to me i think i'm just a fraud um but i'll give you that one i'll give you that one okay barbecue chips french onion dip that sounds like really it literally changed you doing that to me you doing this freudian sort yeah of breakdown that actually did change the potential flavor of barbecue chips and french onion dip in my mouth you need to listen you need to see all options before you until you hate something that's i'm a firm believer in that. That's a beautiful, beautiful sentiment, Nicole. Okay. NMZimmerXO says, I eat peanut butter, butter, and cheese sandwiches.

I feel like, I mean, I've liked it since middle school or so, LOL. Have we addressed, hold on, Nicole. I'm going to jump in and just interrupt to mansplain you right now. No, we have not addressed, I believe in the podcast, since we did the live stream, that we ate a bunch of your garbage peanut butter opinions. Garbage.

Most of them were pretty bad, right? Yeah, a lot of them were really bad. No offense. I spent, whenever we would talk about these on opinions like casseroles, I would always give it the benefit of the doubt of like, oh, I could see how that works. Peanut butter and tomato, peanut butter and avocado.

I can see this. No. And then in practice, they were almost all bad. They were almost all inedible. Peanut butter and jalapeno. It was good. It makes sense. You know, I've had jalapeno peanut butter before and it's really good. It makes sense. Yeah, that makes sense. Peanut butter, eggs and sriracha was maybe my second favorite. I like the marshmallow fluff and the stovetop. Marshmallow fluff, peanut butter and stovetop stuffing was a shocker. That was very good. Yeah, I really liked that one.

But a lot of them, the peanut butter and the hot dog, not good. Peanut butter and salami, not good. So we've now given a lot of these a shot. And I can pretty confidently say, to me, peanut butter, butter, and cheese sounds bad. Yeah. Bad, right? Bad. Bad.

Yeah. Bad. You enjoy it. That's the only important thing. You've liked it since middle school. Lol, you say. That's fantastic. Good for you. To me, bad. Yeah. Ooh, bad. You enjoy it. That's the only important thing. You've liked it since middle school. Lol, you say. That's fantastic. Good for you.

To me, bad. Yeah. Ooh, this is interesting. At Kamantum Actual, hazelnut spread and cream cheese is superior to PB&J. I've never had that, but as someone who doesn't like cream cheese frosting, I don't know that I would like a... They're talking about Nutella, right? I like to think that they're talking about Nutella.

Why wouldn't they just say Nutella? Could be Nocciolata. Okay, whatever. Bootleg-ass Nutella. Why wouldn't they just say Nutella? It could be Nocciolata. Okay, whatever. Bootleg ass Nutella. Whatever. Yeah. When I was growing up, we would eat this on matzah. This would be my snack.

Nutella and cream cheese? Well, it was kosher for Passover. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which was the weird growth. I've seen that, yeah. The yellow top. At the Valley Village Ralphs. Yeah, yeah.

And then the whipped cream cheese and then matzah. It was actually really good. I really enjoyed it. And this flavor combination, I still enjoy to this day. I grew up on cream cheese and jelly, and that is a fantastic combo that I love. No, no, no. You don't like cream cheese and jelly? I mean, I do.

It kind of tastes like a Danish. Yeah, that's the best part about it. Yeah, it kind of tastes like a Danish, but I think Nutella holds a very special place in my heart. I love Nutella. I'm not the biggest Nutella fan. I enjoy it on crepes and things like that, but I don't go out of my way to eat it. At Captain Femme Shep, cinnamon should be thrown back into the fires of hell from whence it came. Also, when you say whence, you don't need to say from whence.

It's actually just back to the fires of hell whence it came. Okay, Shakespeare. Cinnamon is like the best spice, though. The best spice? No. Cinnamon is like... The best? I don't know about the best. What would you, what do you got over cinnamon? I think we're going to discuss that on a podcast a little later. Oh, quite interesting. But no, cinnamon's great. You're

just like kind of wrong on this. I don't know how better to explain that. Cinnamon is delicious. Maybe you just have a heavy hand with it or you just don't know how to use it. And like, you're just like, you think, listen, a teaspoon of cinnamon in a recipe is actually a lot of cinnamon because it's so fine. And it's so like concentrated the powder. Like it's a lot of cinnamon. I think people do just chuck it into too many sweet goods without any intentionality to it. Yeah, I agree. But I mean, I love cinnamon in savory food, though.

Me too. Like, I mean, even like a pho broth, right? You get that just like slight perfumey, cinnamony, a little bit of warm spice. Yeah, I get more star anise. More anise, yeah, yeah. One time I had pho broth from Whole Foods

and it was so star anisey. I was like bleh. Yeah, yeah. It tastes like a candle. It tastes like a candle. Okay, Leftover Jared says, I eat tamales with mayonnaise and it's delicious.

Josh, this is the last time I'm telling you stop making burner accounts. I'm not interested in your crappy opinions. Jackass. You can just say them to my face.

I would eat tamales with mayonnaise. So a couple days ago, I had tweeted a picture of what I refer to as white trash tamales. And I know people might say, Josh, you can't say white trash anymore. That's offensive. It's my people. I can say what I want. Okay. I made yesterday what someone referred to as guisados guero.

Sorry, guisados guero. Okay. Which is a white boy stew, I believe. Guero means white boy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I put green bean casserole on my taco, and it was really delicious. Was it good? And so that, to me, is the perfect fusion that leads into mayonnaise on tamales.

That's great. I'm proud of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. One more. One more. One more. We got time for one more. Hold on. I like this one. I like this one. At Link Roberts 1, Cheetos aren't chips and neither are Fritos. We already debated this, Josh. Not Fritos. Not Fritos. They're saying Fritos aren't

chips in the same way that Orzo aren't noodles. Which he has a point. You can't. That's why Fritos had to create a whole separate Frito to make it dippable as a chip. Fritos scoops. I agree. Fritos are not chips. And that's the final word.

Nicole can't respond because we are out of time today. Fritos are strips and I like to dip my strips in things. Thank you so much for stopping by, whatever this podcast is called. All right. On that note, thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. If you want to hear more from us here in the Mythical Kitchen, we got new episodes for you every Wednesday. If you want to be featured on Opinions or Like Casseroles, you can hit us up on

Twitter at MythicalChef or with the hashtag OpinionCasserole. For more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube where we launch new videos every week. And of course, if you want to share pictures of your dishes, hit us up on Instagram at Mythical Kitchen. See you all next time. I love you.