A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Is TikTok Ruining Food?

Episode Date: January 19, 2022

TikTok has influenced the world in many ways, but when it comes to food, has TikTok gone too far? 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. If you tried the nature cereal TikTok trend and stared at all those little fruits floating in the coconut water and thought to yourself, what have I become? It's okay. You're safe here. Today we discuss, is TikTok ruining food? 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 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 Aniety. And Nicole, today we are taking on the changing media landscape. The old guard is out, the new guard is in. You got all the teens on TikTok shaking their stuff to doja cat and jason derulo making donut lasagna what what do you make of it all what do

you make of it all nicole what do i make of tiktok and do i think tiktok is ruining food hmm yeah well long i don't think tiktok is ruining food i think tiktok is changing food now yeah but like changing it for the worse in some aspects yeah some content is honestly hot garbage but some content i absolutely adore like let me give you some let me give you three examples of tiktok food that kind of like really made me look at like tiktok as a food medium and i'm like huh this is like legit number one love the tortilla hack no tortilla hack is my mortal enemy no no no i love the tortilla wait tell tell the folks what the tortilla hack is and how freaking inventive it was so i don't know who started the tortilla hack, unfortunately. But basically, the long story short of the tortilla hack was you take a tortilla and you slice it down.

Now, not the full diameter. It's not a diameter. It's the radius. I hate this so much. It's the diameter of the radius. Yeah, no, you slice a radial cut. You slice a radial cut. And then you have the ability to fill four quadrants of your tortilla with whatever the heck you want so we

have why do you want that amazing why not why do you want that they invented a quesadilla yes they invented a quesadilla yes they did it already existed there's nothing wrong with the quesadilla and then the tortilla it's not a hack let me tell you let me tell you well i feel like a hack because i wish i came up with it but no it's not it's it's it no, it's not. It's cool. It's inventive. It's different. I thought it was really interesting. Let the record show that we also had our own

Jack in the Box tortilla hack secret menu item at one single Jack in the Box location in, I believe, University Park, San Diego. That's what I'm saying. We, as a brand, Mythical Kitchen, has benefited from the tortilla hack. So how can you stand there on your figurative high horse and act like the TikTok hack,

the first one I mentioned, did not completely change some sort of landscape for you as a creator? Shame on you, Joshie, shame. Nicole, are you familiar with the story of Alfred Nobel? You mean the Nobel Prize dude? The Nobel Prize dude. The Nobel Prize dude, he wasy. Shame. Nicole, are you familiar with the story of Alfred Nobel? You mean the Nobel Prize dude? The Nobel Prize dude. The Nobel Prize dude, he was a chemist, Nicole.

And he invented a little chemical today that we now know as dynamite. You know why he invented that, Nicole? He wanted to move rocks. He was like, I am going to change labor forever. No longer will people get hurt moving rocks manually. I have created a miracle chemical that can move rocks with a series of combustive reactions. Okay, God bless.

And then you know what people did with dynamite, Nicole? They used it to blow each other up. Okay, well that's... It became a weapon of war. Well, so what? And he... So what?

What do you mean? He created... What do you mean, so what? Blowing people up is like the worst. So you're telling me, so you're telling me because someone invented something that is used for good but

can also be used for bad should have never existed in the first place? No, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying there's a certain amount of guilt. The human condition is such. The way that it was used was so antithetical to his purpose for inventing it that he had such guilt, Nicole, that he created

the Nobel Prize Series and the Nobel Peace Prize. That's how I feel about the Tortillac. We have benefited. Humans suck. We have. And they suck. They suck on TikTok. I consider the mass murder of people with explosives akin to the way that TikTok makes

me mad. Well, I don't necessarily agree with that statement, but that's OK. Well, I don't necessarily agree with that statement, but that's OK. That is one literal TikTok quote unquote creation that we personally have benefited from. Number two, what was her name? Emily Mariko. Emily Mariko. Salmon Bowl.

I'm obsessed with that Salmon Bowl. Nothing interesting, crazy, life changing or like wild happened in that video not one thing break down break down the emily marico okay uh salmon bowl because that was one of the biggest viral tiktok moments you want to know okay number one the noises the snapping open of the container the mashing of the of the parchment paper on the rice the noises she was making are very aesthetically pleasing and i'm getting i'm gonna get into that a little bit later about how TikTok and the sounds that food make and how that is aesthetically pleasing and ASMR or whatever. I consider myself an enemy to the ASMR community. I love it.

Are you kidding me? I don't like your little sounds. I think the tingles that you describe are creepy. They make me feel strange. I don't like it. That's good. Feel strange. Feeling strange is the first step.

My ASMR article is 30 minutes of Rachel Ray narrating her chopping bell peppers. I love that Emily Mariko video. It's beautiful. She cuts up the salmon. She cooks the rice with an ice cube in it. The ice cube doesn't melt. Whoa. It's just such a beautifully done video

it's clear it's concise it's new it's different it's familiar it's art it's it's accessible it's fun it's a good video and she kills it and i'm proud of her i don't think she'll ever recreate the same magic again impossible she's gonna keep trying it's not gonna happen no tiktok is lightning in a bottle and it was such a almost a mundane video right like you said there was no narration it was just sounds she takes uh white rice microwaves it with an ice cube on top i guess to keep it moist she mashes pre-cooked salmon into it with sriracha and kewpie mayo we'll get to that in a second and then she uh uses the seaweed snacks to eat it as if they were like little itty bitty hand rolls with chopsticks. I literally did that today with Pokey.

I got a Pokey from Wristle Farms. I do a lot of things that don't become media phenomenons, right? And are you bitter because of it or what? Yes, that's the whole point. I am bitter because we're not TikTok stars. It's fine, Josh. We're stars in other in our in other ways don't worry you're a superstar so we gotta we gotta oh you're still going i'm so sorry

i have a i have an honorable mention but i'm gonna get baked feta pasta baked feta pasta what a wild crazy time that was So much so that they had Feta shortages in Sweden I believe Sweden? They sure did They had feta shortages In American grocery stores Because the

So you take the brick of feta You bake that with cherry tomatoes And some thyme And some black pepper Some aromatics And then you just mash it all up And the juice in the tomatoes Creates like a sauce with the feta

You throw some pasta in there and then that was the whole viral hack that was it yeah that was in a closet it was a like you said it was fine flash in a pan it's cool it's different people are looking to be excited and why not use food as a medium to excite people josh no i agree i agree ultimately and it was fun you know the thing about the feta pasta, too, is like it tasted good. Emily Marco's salmon bowl, that is a tasty, delicious bowl of food. That's pretty similar to a lot of things that I eat on the daily. The crazy thing to me, though, it's not the way that people consume the content.

It's not the way that people make the content. It's how the content is going to affect the world like hereafter in perpetuity. Right. Similar to Alfred Nobel creating dynamite. People used to blow each other up. Crazy thing. We're seeing fetish shortages, Nicole, in stores. We're seeing supply chain disruptions.

Kewpie Mayo, there were shortages everywhere. Let me tell you. The same thing happens anytime someone features a TikTok. What are those things called where you spray it on? You wouldn't know. You know what you put on makeup? Oh, setting spray. There has, I have seen so many. What the hell is setting spray? It's what you put on makeup

and you set it with a spray, Josh. It's like a primer. It's like a layer of primer painted on a car. Primer. Primer's another thing, but it's like, it sets, so it's a sealant. It's a sealant. Okay? I have seen so many setting sprays that I want on the internet, but I can't buy because it's viral sealant okay i have seen so many setting sprays that i want on the internet but i can't

buy because it's viral on tiktok am i mad about it yeah but do i understand the power of tiktok and i kind of respect it at the same time yeah it's the power it's the power that absolutely frightens me though so a while ago not a while ago we can trace this nicole it's on the internet it was March 2020. We did, is Instagram ruining food? No, it's probably April 2020. I don't know. We did Instagram ruining food, right?

And, you know, we talked about the power that Instagram has, all the kind of crazy trends on, you know, what at that time, it was primarily an image-based platform. Now, of course, it's a video-based platform to try and keep up with TikTok. But back then we were like, man, these images of rainbow bagels are kind of annoying and it's giving people a skewed perception of what it actually takes to create food, et cetera. TikTok is like that, but it's times 10,000. And that's what scares me.

So they're coming out and the way that this actually affects people in the real world, ghost kitchens, right? They're now starting to create TikTok ghost kitchens, Nicole, where you can just order. Where can I get that? Yeah, dude. They're launching like a lot of them there's some articles out there um they are partnering with one of the biggest ghost kitchen companies to literally be able to log on to a delivery app and then order your favorite like tiktok trends uh and you know if we know anything this isn't like a real argument i'm not out there like advocating for i don't know proper labor compensation but this is just one element of it i mean i am but you know what i mean i'm not exactly like uh i don't know i'm like a union foreman of the ghost kitchen

workers united um but what i'm saying is like we've seen so many um garbage ghost kitchens out there right thinking about the mr beast burger do you mean like collabs is that what you're talking about yeah yeah so like so like media-based personalities collabing with you know uh restaurants and kitchens out there mostly restaurants during the pandemic who really struggled to make ends meet like you know mr beast uh i i got nothing against the dude he makes incredible youtube videos um the burger the burger was like it was just it was like bad right like it was a bad i didn't try it did you try it yeah i got it last time it came around um it was just it was not good it was a normal burger that i mean sold like millions upon millions of them across america and you know he put out a tweet that was like hey i'm supporting

you know small businesses uh which i suppose is true because what they do a ghost kitchen right a lot of them are a restaurant that is probably struggling that then takes a contract to cook a normal burger with some bacon on it call it the mr beast burger give it to a delivery driver use the app and send it out but they're gonna be making like pennies on the dollar from that because mr beast is taking that cut with the licensing deal, the ghost kitchen, all the apps, they take their cuts. And so it's like these restaurants are making money, but they're making money at a fraction of what their labor actually costs, right? It's like all these restaurants are in pandemic.

Okay, but are they still making money though? But are they still making some sort of money? Would you rather make $3 or $0? No, that's a good point. However, would you rather make $3 or make $5 that could potentially be there if these competitors didn't exist, right? But they do exist, so you have to keep up with the times. If you don't keep up with the times, you're going to be left by the wayside. But then we're just in a race to the bottom, Nicole.

There's going to be every Japanese restaurant you know is just going to be selling Emily Mariko bowls, and then $2 from each bowl goes directly into Emily Mariko's pockets instead of the hardworking chefs and restaurant owners. Nicole, is that the future you want to see? Is that the future you want to bring kids into? Well, I don't really have a choice. They're going to come into whatever world is out there. I feel that too, man.

You and me both. But at the end of the day, I mean, they're doing, TikTokers are capitalizing on a short amount of time to make a big impact. And that's what they're there to do. And if they have the ability to go into ghost kitchens and make a Mr. Beast burger and make more money and people are going to buy it.

So it is what it is it's kind of awesome i don't think it's ruining food though like the word ruining like there is some content i see out there and i'm like this is horrific like i'm like why am i watching name it what's what's the worst tiktok content that you've seen when it comes to food like just like just like there's i don't know his name there's one guy who like drenches himself in sauce and stuff and it's just like yes i don't know his name. There's one guy who drenches himself in sauce and stuff. And it's just like, I don't need this in my life, honey. I don't know if I can imitate his accent, but I think it's a fake accent as it is. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah. The videos are all like how normal people eat French fries. And it'll be a little bit of ketchup. And he dips it in and goes, how I eat French fries. And then he literally takes a 10-gallon bucket of ketchup and violently pours it on his counter and then goes, perfect. Except he does it in what I believe is a fake accent. I'm not a big fan of that. Do you know how many followers he has, Nicole?

How many millions? 23 million followers. There you go. There you go. Wild. Well, that's the food content that I believe is ruining food. That is the kind of food content that ruins food do i think uh someone making a crispy salmon avocado rice paper dumpling is ruining food of course that stuff is awesome yeah that kind of stuff i appreciate making ramen

creamy awesome teach me how to do that the creamy creamy ramen trend. If there's one thing that I can respect most about TikTok trends, it is the creamy ramen trend of people adding mayonnaise to hot ramen. And eggs. Mayonnaise and eggs. Because I'm in favor of adding mayonnaise to more hot dishes. Yeah. Oh, here's a great example. Remember Dalgona coffee? Do you remember it?

Yeah. Do you remember the great dalgona shortage wars of 2021 nicole there were at least nine different proxy hold on the cia no i'm kidding i do i do remember dalgona coffee yeah like do you see it on any menu at any coffee shop anywhere i feel like i did at some point but no everybody forgot everybody forgot and that's the that's just the ephemeral that's the ephemeral what's it called like notion nature thank you it's the nature of TikTok like things are just gonna be cool for a sec and then you gotta move on to the next thing that's just how it is there's no i don't see the longevity of of food and tiktok like that doesn't that doesn't come to mind like someone standing there and making a

bunch of content that's gonna be like consistent for them and like people are gonna be shocked by everything they make like that's not gonna happen anymore like people don't do that like it's just you made one good video cool yeah well i mean that said, there are certain people out there who they chase trends really, really well, right? Sure. Every time a trend comes out, whether it's frozen honey or Dalgona coffee or Dalgona candy from Squid Game. Sure. That was crazy. That was crazy, dude.

It's honeycomb. It's delicious. It's incredible. The videos of people making Dalgona candy uh dalgona candy literally consumed my feed consumed yeah every other video i would see was someone making it and the song and i'm just like it's amazing it was incredible i don't see those videos anymore do you uh no no i sure don't i sure don't but i guess is that part of the problem though like that people's attention spans are i i don't want to sound like an old scorn here.

You sound like an old fart. I love you. I sound like an old fart. You sound like an old fart. I am an old fart. You are a fart. And the craziest thing is, Nicole, is that like a bulk of our income and attention and audience is all from YouTube.

Yes. Which YouTube was seen as like the death knell of traditional media a couple of years ago. And now are we the, we're the old fogies on youtube you're in the tiktok thing we're both with the times baby nicole we're both hurtling towards 30 at which point as a youtuber they just send you to an island where you retire with all the other youtubers and you just talk about the algorithm you go the algorithm will will come beam us up to algorithm heaven. And then we will all live a life free of content.

God forbid. God forbid. That island would be a depressing island. Lots of bling on that island. Lots of bling. Oh, so much tea. So much tea. Oh, the tea is hot. okay but like who are let's say like the best creators on tiktok the people creating really

good food content that you think actually helps people i have some i i love etan etan bernath etan bernath he is my he is amazing i just love he's so stylish he's cool he's young he's fun i wish he still wore his yarmulke but it's okay i get it he's just a he's just a cutie and like he knows how to hop on trends and now he he's like on drew barrymore's talk show and stuff like he was he was actually on chopped which was crazy yeah he wasped. I think when he was 12 years old, he was on Chopped. Yeah, he started on Chopped, loved food, made his own production company, I guess. Did his own little TikTok, did his own YouTube videos.

Now he works with Drew Barrymore on traditional media. He's so young and he's doing amazing things. I'm proud of him. I just look at him and I'm like, I love your content. I love you as a person. I want to see you grow. I want to see you progress. Um, who else do I love? I'm really, that's a, that's a really cool thing about TikTok is that you see it gives a, it's a very low barrier of entry of a platform to get in, right? Like even, even YouTube now, right? You can certainly still create your own YouTube videos, but you have companies like

mythical where it's like, Hey, this has become our whole business. Like we shoot with a, you know, two or three cameras set up when we make our food videos. The videos that we're making on YouTube, it's a Food Network show. A lot of them are Food Network length too. We're making 35 minute videos. Yeah. The caliber. I'm making a medieval Christmas feast. Don't get me wrong. The caliber of our videos are incredible and they really are done exactly like a classic tv production tiktok isn't like that anymore no people people don't necessarily need that to be

satiated by our by food content because the next one is simply a swipe away who else do i love i love doobie doobop yeah she makes korean food i believe and she always says don't yuck my yum and she's pretty and i love again this is i'm going to talk about the noises the asmr and the food community have finally come together without the addition of a mukbang it's beautiful the noises the rips the tears the cuts the scrapes wait that's that's the reason you're into this is because you maybe love asmr and you love food but you don't particularly love mukbang and i love pretty people and you love pretty, but you don't particularly love mukbang. And I love pretty people. And you love pretty people.

And there's a lot of pretty people on TikTok. So many pretty people. I have one quip, though, about food TikTokers. Stop scraping your knife to prove a food is crunchy. No, that's the best part. All you see are off the duck breast and you scrape the knife against it and you hear that. Yeah, I get that. If the food

is like actually crunchy people are like like i don't need you to run your knife over it to prove it's crunchy like how about you cut into it so i know it's crunchy like that's one of my biggest biggest food pet peeves when it comes to tiktoks i don't need you to scrape your damn knife on the damn crispy food don't do that anymore well there's a couple things like that that have become signature to the style of making a tiktok video right and you'll see throwing your knife on the damn crispy food don't do that anymore well there's a couple things like that that have become signature to the style of making a tiktok video right and you'll see throwing your knife on the cutting board throwing the knife in the cutting board oh i did that in a recent one that's coming out somewhere i just watched a cut of that uh people picking up a large piece of meat and just squeezing all the juices out in front of the camera to prove that it's juicy sure we talked

about this a while ago like it's it's creating images of food you're not actually creating food that people eat uh exactly there's a dude there uh early pete we're friends with with the homie early pete you know early pete i think so he he does a series called stunt food or good food where he just reviews tiktok videos and says if they're stunt food something that is made solely for the camera to get a reaction out of uh or something that is actually edible and good which like you know i don't think it's a, it's a hilarious series and I absolutely love Pete, but you know, I've grown up in food media, like my entire career. This is all I know. A lot of things have to be stunt food. You know, you're out there, you're trying to grab people's attention. Uh, you gotta make some things that are kind of outlandish and crazy. We make a lot

of things that I happen to think are really dope and really good like the the pop tart or the pop tart ravioli for instance to me that one tasted really good we were all slamming that after we finished shooting that two really fun and inventive but of course it's a stunt it's a spectacle you're on there to grab people's attention and that's what a lot of people are doing sure no i totally agree i mean we make stunt food oh of course oh it's fun as hell i love it i was making stunt food before the cameras were on i i once made a 10 pound quiche filled with uh 100 mcdonald's chicken nuggets for a friend's birthday speaking of speaking of pretty tiktok creators that i really enjoy uh and make really good food can i shout some people out of course please i'd love for you to do that pierce abernathy i think i love pierce abernathy i think he modeled for he modeled for one of the big italian fashion houses i think oh really recently yeah do you check it out it was the thing uh

anyways uh but no he he makes food that i really really respect it is absolutely delicious he films it in a very aesthetic way. The ASMR is there. He's very quippy about it. And it's insane on TikTok because you have now the time limits a little bit more, but you had like 60 seconds to get your point across to still inject some personality into it. So people care about you a little bit. But he makes primarily vegetable based dishes, tons of dips and salads and sauces using vegetables in ways that people wouldn't think. I mean, it changed the way that I cook. Like, the doodles take, like, cooked zucchini and pine nuts

and, I don't know, tahini and lemon zest and some herbs and just throw it in a blender and just be like, this is my new favorite dip. Because that's kind of how he talks. I tried to imitate it. And then he does a little giggle. And then he does a little giggle to prove that it's good. He goes, mm-hmm, it's so good. And it and i've i've made a lot of stuff that he's made uh other people like

you know newt newt oh do i know newt everybody knows newt everybody knows newt newt's got like 10 million followers and newt also is uh the la times did a story about him i mean this is a dude who was uh living in a trailer and then, you know, he would set up his camera and he would make, he makes like very simple, honest, good food, right? Like the first couple of videos I saw, he would make like, you know, balsamic glazed chicken wings, something that's like a little inventive, a little cool, or like blackened salmon with, you know, fettuccine Alfredo. It's like good food that's teaching people how to cook. And he was learning kind of in the process.

And now he's, you know, got a fair amount of money. I don't want to speak to Newt's net worth. But he's like a really incredible story of a young person who had a talent, a willingness to learn, and an eye for aesthetic. And TikTok gave him that sort of success that I think is very, very well deserved. You know, we forgot to mention the queen of it all, Tabitha Brown. Tabitha Brown, I knew you were going to talk about Tabitha Brown. She... She's awesome.

Oh, she's incredible. But I mean, Tabitha Brown was like a long working actress for years, right? Yeah, but I don't think she really like smashed onto the scene the way she did. The first video I saw of her was a buzzfeed video where she made tacos out of walnut meat and i'm like what is she doing but

then i was amazed at how beautiful the food look and all the colors and how bright she was along with the food and then she made some carrot bacon and she exploded on the scene on tiktok and we're just like was that the video that that exploded tabitha brown is the carrot bacon i have a feeling that was the one she probably had a few more but i remember seeing her vegan sushi recipes that was and they all look like a delight nice i like vegan sushi it's good i love vegan sushi there's a place called m cafe that makes like almond meal vegan sushi it's really good wasn't m cafe like it stands for macrobiotic yes yes and it was like a madonna it was like madonna was like really into the macrobiotic diet in the 90s and that's why that restaurant exists

really i didn't know that yeah i remember going into some weird hole there's a couple restaurants in la that were just like run by cults on their weird cult diets oh well what are you gonna do anyways uh but yeah so no tiktok i mean as much as i can cringe at some of the content of people just like wasting 10 gallons of ketchup for clout and food waste is always going to be a part of food media uh i mean us included it's the reason that we i mean it's also we just like to do good things but you know we donate to the la food bank every month um because food waste is kind of a part of it but if you watch a show like Top Chef and you think that they can just stock an entire pantry with all the ingredients that people want to use and they don't just throw all that fresh produce away,

you're fooling yourself because there's massive food waste. You have to give it to people. That's what I like to do every Friday. I like to get a little grocery bags and I say, everybody, come get fresh groceries. And then people normally do that. So I hope that's what other people do. I like, yeah, we literally have like a shopping day in the Mythical Kitchen on Fridays where we lay out all our groceries and we send out a picture and people come. Who's the best shopper? Who's the best shopper on the Mythical crew? Chris Marino.

Chris Marino. Lovely. Always takes every single, I say take this and he says, okay. Yeah, sound guy Chris has taken home more pounds of fresh meat from the Mythical Kitchen than anybody. This dude will just be like, hey, we got a six pound London broil. He's like, I don't know what to do with it. I'll take it. Yeah, he's a good sport.

Morgan takes everything. Morgan's got a baby to feed. Mikayla takes a lot of stuff. She takes a lot of the prepack. David Hill Mikayla's picky though. Yeah, I know, but she's a good kind of picky. David Hill, he comes through like a bulldozer takes it on i said god bless take it all i don't want to see it anymore and me i take a lot of stuff home i take oh i take a lot of stuff home i've eaten so many heads of cabbage from the mythical kitchen it rules for you so where nicole we are we are

also on tiktok we are uh where do you think we what is the myth yeah follow mythical kitchen on tiktok we do weird stuff uh where do you think we fit in all this do you think that we are simply responding to the times do you think we're adding anything new to the conversation do you think we are the enemy well considering let's be self-reflective okay let's be a little bit self-reflective i really enjoy our content i love it i think it's good I think it feeds our audience I think our audience responds well to it I feel like I'm in a review right now and I hate that as being broadcasted to like a bunch of people's ears um I do enjoy our content again uh I had to uninstall TikTok from my phone because I am so obsessed with it literally I still go on Instagram reels like all the time, like a crazy person.

But like, I'm not on, like I can't have TikTok physically on my phone. If I did, it would be a problem. Like you would never see me. But no, I think our content is incredible. I think we, again, satisfy a certain demographic. And I think we just got to keep being true to ourselves. I think the secret to being successful on TikTok

is being true to yourself and really being inventive and creating you know that lightning in the bottle effect and being okay with you know having one great video and a bunch of all their like you know having one kick-ass video and then having a bunch of like all right videos is okay it's just how the algorithm works yeah i i think you tend to have an air of non-judgment when it comes to anything changing, right? Like a lot of times when we talk about like, I'll be like, hey, Nicole, does this changing tide and landscape in the industry bother you? Blah, blah, blah. And you're like, bother me or not bother me. It doesn't matter because it's happening.

You know, it's how you respond to it, which is which is like honestly an attitude that I really respect and wish I kind of had more of. But I'm like kind of trying to get there. I think a lot of it is just me dealing with thoughts of my own mortality. If we're if we're being dead honest about this. Do you mean like actual mortality or online mortality? Oh, God. Are they different, Nicole? Once one suffers ego death is the death of an image equivalent. Sisi ne pas un person. Right. Isn't that Ré Magritte?

René Magritte, yeah, yeah, great French surrealist painter. No, but I'm talking about one day are we going to wake up and there's, I mean, three years from now, there's going to be a new app, right? Sure. And we're going to be recording the same damn podcast going like, is flubble, flobble ruining food? And it's like, yeah, the fact that you can lick your TV screen and then you get, or your Google glasses, eye screen, and then it tastes a little bit like the food it's, you know? So, I mean, tides are always going to change. I think TikTok does have a sort of unique problem to it. That's also an opportunity, which is the algorithm is so good

that it just feeds you the things that you crave like true if you if you leave a corgi in a room with unlimited food it will eat itself to death right creatures don't always gravitate towards the things that are good for them so when you create a media platform that is specifically designed to let people naturally gravitate towards anything, that might not necessarily be the best thing, right? That's how we saw YouTube lead to extreme conspiracy theory videos. People keep clicking on more extreme videos in the right sidebar. It's the same thing on TikTok. You linger on a really crazy video a little bit too long because it catches your eye and then they feed you even crazier videos. Nicole, that's how I ended up on plastic surgery recovery TikTok.

That makes me wildly uncomfortable. What a subsect to be on, Josh. It's the weirdest subsect to TikTok. It makes me very uncomfortable. But that said, it wasn't any outside force that was doing it to me necessarily. It was me. Sure. I wouldn't be there unless I was given it that upgrade.

doing it to me necessarily it was me sure i wouldn't be there unless i was given it that people wouldn't be pouring 10 gallon buckets of ketchup on top of french fries unless people wanted to watch people pour 10 gallon buckets of ketchup on french fries it's us nicole the world made us sick how can it heal us that is the words of lead singer of every time i die jeff buckley i rest my case i for one can't wait for Smell-O-Vision. 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 Twitterverse. It's time for a segment we call... Opinions are like casseroles! Opinions are like casseroles.

We didn't talk enough about Jason Derulo's TikTok pivot. He's my favorite TikToker. He won. What a good looking man. My God. Have you seen his baby? No. Is it a good looking baby?

It's a beautiful baby. His wife is gorgeous, but their baby is so delicious. I don't know what the baby's name is, but just go, I want to kiss it. That dude will make, like, the most disgusted. If we ever think what we do is, like, stunt food and decadent, like, Jason Derulo, a lot of it, like, looks pretty good and I eat it. But he's just, like, drenching donuts and bags of M&Ms in cake batter, then baking that and covering that in strawberry syrup and then deep frying it all and then putting it in a funnel cake. Unbelievable. What I wonder though,

like he had no say in any of that, right? There's no way Jason Derulo's sitting there writing down food ideas. Of course not. It was all his manager and agent. Come on. But who the hell in their right mind just goes, hey, Jason Derulo, I am your manager. And Jason Derulo goes,

oh great, do you think we should come out with a new single or maybe do some sexy modeling shoots because I'm Jason Derulo? And they go, goes, oh, great. Do you think we should come out with a new single or maybe do some sexy modeling shoots? Because I'm Jason Derulo. And they go, no, no, no. Hear me out. We're going to take a whole bag of M&Ms and then we're going to melt that down. We're going to deep fry it around a sleeve of Oreos.

Like, what does that even have to do with Jason Derulo? But it stuck. And it's incredible. And people watch it. And he's so hot. My God. I'm glad you have a type. Yeah.

God, man, he's got such a bright smile, great body. Seems fun. He's a good looking guy. He really is. I'm looking at pictures of him right now. Okay, should we go on to the opinions like casserole's part of this whole entire thing? Yeah, probably. You start it.

You start it. I'm thinking about Jason Derulo. Okay. Evan Isloco says, ramen is a soup dish, not a noodle dish. Well, it depends on who you're asking. Are you asking me? Yes. We host the podcast that he

wrote to. Yes, he's asking you. I think it's a soup dish. I'm going to leave it at that. Yeah, it's a noodle dish. Ramen's a noodle dish. There is soup in ramen, but also like men in Japanese literally means noodles. What does ramen mean in Japanese?

Pass. The Egyptian sun god. But no, you know what I mean? Like if you took the noodles out of that dish, it would no longer be ramen. Ramen, the noodles are endemic to the dish. Ergo, I believe that to be a noodle dish that happens to have soup in it there's other forms right mazaman uh you know ten ten men stuff like that sukemen yeah sukemen's uh because i think you would still call those ramen noodles that is with sukemen right i think so is that accurate i think so it is a dipping one so you dip the noodles in the broth. Yeah, it's like a really concentrated broth. It's almost like a pork bone gravy. I've never loved it as much as it was like kind of a very trendy thing in LA to have.

I much prefer soba. I'm a soba guy. Okay. I love buckwheat. Can we like have soba together? Because I've been trying to get some soba and it's really hard. Also, you remember the day it was raining recently? I tried to go get udon and little did I know that everyone

else in the whole entire universe in Los Angeles wanted to get udon on the same day as me. So I was really mad about it. But I'd love to get some soba with you sometime. Cold soba? Yeah, I love cold soba. It's Japanese buckwheat noodles that typically served on like a mat where they're kind of drying out. And then you get just this like cold

I don't know, like shio dashi broth and you dip them in and oof. There's a spot in South LA that does it with mentaiko, which is the cod roe. Ooh. Cold, cold cod roe soba, baby. Yum, yum. Eat it up. Yum, yum.

All right. Here we go. At Dan Thomas, bet I can guess where he's from. Marmite in cheese is the best crumpet topping. Dan, I'm not going to BS you here. Imite in cheese is the best crumpet topping. Dan, I'm not going to BS you here. I have never once thought about the best crumpet topping. Can we, you need to do us a favor, Josh, explain to the people what a crumpet is. Cause some people don't know. Bro, you explain what a crumpet is. How do they all know what a crumpet is? No, you do it. Okay. So a crumpet is an English muffin. It's an English muffin.

It's basically an English muffin, right? But english muffins and crumpets are a little bit different the crumpets that i have had uh they're like an english muffin except there's almost like a perforation on the top so it's like a kind of like a yeasted leavened but cooked on a pan like an english muffin but like less crusty than an english muffin and a little bit i think think this is like a Canadian bacon versus pea meal bacon situation where like it probably means one thing to us in the States. Like a scone is like different in the States versus in Britain. But now I don't remember what a scone is like, like a biscuit, like American biscuits don't exist in the UK.

They call cookies biscuits. I'm going to be honest with you. And then an American biscuit would be like a scone cookies biscuits. I'm going to be honest with you. And then an American biscuit would be like a scone or something. I'm going to be honest with you. I've never had a crumpet before. Never have I ever had a crumpet. But I have a strong feeling that salted butter is probably the best thing on a crumpet. I'm just going to guess.

Nah, bro. I'm going raspberry preserves and clotted cream on my crumpet. Josh, I went and had South African scones the other day. Scones? I had a scones with homemade lemon curd and whipped cream. Oh, was it good? That was my South African accent. Homemade lemon curd and whipped cream?

The lemon curd? Homemade? No, it's homemade, made in the kitchen. From South Africa. From South Africa. I had tea. As far as like South African, there's a sausage called bourvers. Yes, I've heard of it.

That's a good sausage. Typically, I believe a beef sausage with coriander. That's nice. Coriander. Bunny chow. You ever had that? No, but I've heard of it. It's like stew in a brick of toast.

Yeah, you hollow out like a whole bread loaf and you shove a bunch of, typically like a chicken curry, or at least that's what I've had, is chicken curry. But the only time I had that was at the Mach Nayuda in Israel. Mach Nayuda? But yeah, Crumpet, the Yehuda. What is a Mach Nayuda?

The Mach Nayuda, the Yehuda market in whatever city in Israel. I don't know. Have you never heard of that? My God, Nicole. Culture yourself. Ten points deducted off of my Jew meter. Anyways, Dan.

Marmite and cheese. I say those are, the flavors are too complimentary. I would just go Marmite and butter. Unsalted butter. Let the Marmite shine. Okay. Also, Vegemite's better than Marmite. Oh my Okay. Also, Vegemite's better than Marmite. Oh my god, what?

Vegemite's better than Marmite. Vegemite has more of a salty sharp punch. I like Marmite more than Vegemite. Marmite, too deep and yeasty. Too rich for my blood, Nicole. I like it yeasty. I like it yeasty, that's why they call Nicole the yeasty boy. I'm gonna read the next one. Oh shoot, it's mine, it's mine turn it's your turn oh it is

yeah sarah fiat says ranch on peanut butter and jelly tangy sweet and savory yum no no that's screwed up dude no don't do that like alfred nobel straying too far from the light of his original invention causing immeasurable violence sar, that is what you have done with your ranch PB&J. You've caused immeasurable violence. I have, like, you know, we've made, like, ranch cupcakes and stuff. There's something about ranch on sweet things. Who's made ranch cupcakes? Was that before your time?

Did I make those before you were at Mythical? I think so, because I've never made that before. Bro, they are bad. They are bad news. Ranch and sugary things do not go well together. It's just that there's a lot of onion powder. I made a ranch crispy treat. That was pretty bad.

That was pretty bad. It was pretty freaking gross. Ranch and sugar. That's honestly a thing that I can't do, which you think I might be able to. I can't. Ranch and lasagna, though? Sign me up, partner. Ooh, here we go.

At Food Chemistry Lab, what are your opinions on charring peppers even though it's unhealthy um yeah that is actually one of the biggest um food-borne what's the term for something that causes cancer carcinogen uh people talk about sugar causing cancer or red meat causing cancer uh charred food, the data suggests from the World Health Organization, it's like absolutely insane how much charred food really affects like cancer rates and whatever.

Yeah, and it's all because the carbon is like burnt and denatured. So it turns into free radicals. Sure. That said, I don't know, man, I don't like take a ton of risks like driving fast in the rain. You know, I don't do extreme sports. All the risks that I take, I've saved it up for foods that I enjoy eating and charred foods is heavily among them. Life's too short to eat steamed vegetables until you die. until you die. I feel like there's a lot of other risks in life that we don't even know about.

You know, we could get, Nicole, we could get mesothelioma and we would have to call the offices of James Sokolov to represent us. That's a shout out to LA local lawyer commercials. No, so I would never let anything like that affect my life. But that said, it is like a real uh health risk factor that i don't think

enough people talk about yeah um you know i've never even thought about this but uh it's unfortunate and i love charred food but i like to uh peel the char off so it's not too bad i just eat it oh no i don't like to eat burnt food i don't like to eat burnt food. I don't like the way burnt food tastes. I don't. I don't like burn. I like a significant char. I don't know, man. I got to think about this.

I got to talk to my mom about this. Nicole, what like dietary measures do you take to protect your health? Or like anything? No, I mean, I didn't mean to ask that as a leading question. I'm just wondering, like, like my brother stopped eating red meat. Like that was the thing. He's like, I, you know, I'm getting up there in age he's 33 now so old uh and he was like i'm not gonna eat red meat anymore so we'll like go out to nice restaurants and we just he even sticks to it there we're just you know order the fish um i haven't gotten that far in my evolution

as a person yet i like all foods and And I don't know what's going to happen if one day I have a rude awakening. I'm going to be like, oh, well, that last chocolate chip really screwed me over. But I don't know. I haven't done that yet, but I'm sure it'll happen whenever like my next doctor's checkup,

they'll be like, you need to stop eating X. And I'll say, okay. And that'll be the wake up call that will probably give me my uh dietary restriction that i need yeah i just i try and uh exhibit some sort of sense of balance in a way that's sustainable for myself which manifests in just a lot of a lot of greek yogurt i really hope they don't say stop eating eggs because i like to eat eggs yeah and i'll be i will i will go to the grave before i only eat egg whites. God, what a depressing food.

Yeah, no way. Speaking of eggs, this one, Jimmy7474 says, eggs are overrated in baked items. What? Well, I think they're saying like egg as a flavor instead of like adding eggs to baked items. I don't think they're talking about like the chemistry of like adding an egg to a baked item. I think they're talking about like egg flavored things in baked goods, like an egg tart. What do you mean?

Like an egg tart or like a salted egg yolk. No, I think they're talking about actually adding eggs to like a cupcake batter or something. Oh, really? Yeah. I wonder if they're vegan. I don't know. But that being said, I do think that like egg alternatives,

like flax eggs and like banana and like applesauce like i think yeah pork blood no yeah pork blood pork blood yeah he's that's a big one as a substitute used so much by other people um yeah when i bake uh eggs do the lifting man they have that's how i know it like they they do the lifting i'm a big big egg guy love me some flan love choco flan where you bake the cake underneath oh i was just telling david i love me some flan love choco flan where you bake the cake underneath oh i was just telling david i gotta make some flan in this house man yeah no eggs aren't overrated you're overrated sorry i feel attacked oh i like this one i like this one at walden sends underscore nh steak is kind of gross yeah dude it's okay so animal, okay, so. It's animal flesh.

It's just, but it's like an unadorned animal flesh. You know what I mean? That's the weirdest thing I think about it. What do you mean unadorned? You don't need to adorn everything. You do, you do, you do. It's not a necklace. It's not a décolletage. Julia and I, great use of décolletage.

I'm going to play that in Scrabble tonight. Julia and I, we ordered from my favorite South Indian restaurant in LA. Shout out to Mayura and their utha pams are delicious. But I mean, everything in their food is just bursting with flavor. South India, the place reps Kerala, which is from the spice coast, like literally where the world's best spices come from. Everything there bursts in your mouth. And Julia took a bite and she was like, can you imagine someone coming here from like India, from the city of Kerala to the United States and seeing people eat a steak and potatoes like it seems barbaric. It literally seems primitive. It's like you didn't even have time to develop enough of a food culture to put anything that tastes on it.

You know, that's the way that I look at it, whereas we tend to have the opposite, you know, feeling where in America, a lot of people like, you don't need to mess with a good steak. You just need salt and maybe some butter or whatever. Um, but for me, I'm just like, nah, dude, that's kind of gross. I don't give me the, give me a nam prick sauce on it, man. Give me some flavor. Give me some flavor. Um, I'm on both sides of the playing field i love a beautiful advanced uh exquisite uh detailed meat but i also love a ripping through flesh and just having salt as the as the addition i like barbaric food i do i like simple barbaric food from someone who eats so much garbage and so many different things so much i eat so many unique cool things i'm I'm so lucky. I'm so lucky. Sometimes just biting into a piece of meat

that just has a little bit of salt in it is so rewarding and so comforting. It's incredible. Red meat causes cancer. All right. On that note,

thank you for listening to a hot dog is a sandwich. If you want to hear more from us in the Mythical Kitchen, we got new episodes for you every Wednesday. God. If you want to be featured on Opinions Mythical Kitchen, we got new episodes for you every Wednesday. God. If you want to be featured on Opinions or Like Casseroles, you can hit us up on Twitter at MythicalChef or at AndyZadeh 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. See y'all next time. Remember, creatine, that's what I do to keep me healthy. Creatine. Yeah, for sure. A universally beloved substance that everyone agrees is good for you. Ew, no, don't listen to him, kids.

It's his joke.