A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - This Country Has the BEST Food?

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

Today, Josh and Nicole settle once and for all – which country has the best food out there? Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: http://youtube.com/@mythicalkitchen 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 is mythical. What country has the best food? San Marino, no, Lichtenstein, no, Gibraltar, no, Vatican City. This is a hot dog is a sandwich. Cetchup 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 we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host Josh Cher. And I'm your host, Nicole. And today we are breaking down the biggest question of them all when it comes to food in the world. It is a simple question.

It is what country has the best food? Yes. It is a simple question, but it is a fully loaded question. I don't think so, Nicole. I think it's going to be super, super easy to figure out. I don't think we're going to figure it out. And how long is this podcast typically 45 minutes? 45 minutes.

I think we can really, really break it down because so many other people have. There are a lot of places that have said We have found the world's best food Yes And people I have learned are taking that as gospel Which is what inspired this podcast Yes, yes, yes, yes. I know people have said that

Anthony Bourdain say San Sebastian is the greatest food city in the world And people like that But I don't know, man, I'm really curious To find out what we think Yeah Is the best food in the world The best food country in the

Is it food country? It's cuisine. What is cuisine is like Latin for cooking and food. I don't know. None of this means anything. It's all so, so, so stupid. Because for me, it's like, it's like... You can't rank these things. You can't, because for me, it's like Kurdish food and Persian food, and then there's

Uzbek food, and then there's like... And the Kurds don't have a country. Exactly. Persian food is different than... Levantine food, Mediterranean food. Or even the food of, like, the body politic of, is it called the Islamic Republic of Iran? It is the...

You know, like, Persian food is different than the Islamic Republic of Iran food, because Persia dates back thousands of years, and the current sovereign country of the Islamic Republic of Iran is different than worldwide Persian culture, but most people from Iran that I've met call themselves Persian. You know, there's a lot of factors here, but no, websites with dot com at the end of them say, we ranked the number one world's best food country. Please like us. Please share. Please share this. This was all inspired because I was talking to a very smart person, a person who will remain nameless. And they were from Morocco, I'll tell you after.

Okay, fine. And I hope they listened to this. But they're from Morocco. They work a big corporate job. And we were casually chatting. And they said, well, you know, Moroccan food was recently named the best in the world. And I was like, by who? And he goes, I don't know.

Oh, no. It was Gordon Ramsey. Oh. I was like, what do you mean? Gordon Ramsey took all like 206 sovereign nations or whatever there are now. I guess. And rank them all according to what? He goes, well, no, he said it was the best, but it was, like, based off of real data.

I was like, real data, and where? What data? What are you talking about? Data or data? I say data. I don't know why. Okay. I say data. But I like to say datum. Oops! I like to say datum, because data is plural.

Data is just several datums. Well, you say tomato. I say tomato. Let's call the whole thing off. But anyways, like, what? How do you rank this? Do you put a microphone next to every person? person's mouth as they're eating this country and rank how many times they went, hmm, do you take, like, actual hard data of, like, how much fresh produce do people have access to, right?

How many people say they know how to cook? What are you actually doing? And I found out the thing he was talking about with Moroccan food that Gordon Ramsey said, Gordon Ramsey did not conduct whatever methodology. It was something, is it puberty or pubity? I call it puberty. I call it puberty, too. Surely it can't be puberty.

No, it must be pubity. Pubity. I've always called it Pubity. It's like a British media company, and they have just millions upon millions of followers. They just did like an Instagram poll where they asked people, what do you think is the best food country? And it was like a bracket style. How many countries? Did they do all 206 sovereign nations?

No, they certainly did not. And I don't know how exactly they did it. But then in the finals, you ended up with Morocco versus Mexico. Ooh, both M countries. Both M countries. Also, check this up. Both got delicious food. I'm a fan of both.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They both deserve to be there in the finals. I agree, I agree. Morocco won 60 to 40. And then somehow Gordon Ramsey got involved. They must have paid him to, like, give this big announcement reveal. I've seen the video. Yeah, we're just like, congratulations to the country of Morocco.

And then, and then, Sonny from Best Food Review show ever, best ever food review show. Okay. You ever watch his videos? He travels the world. Does he have a bandana? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay, iconic. Love him. Love him. Love Sonny. He made a video that was like, number one food country in the world. Is it legit? And then he went to Morocco and said, Morocco was recently named the number one food country by Gordon Ramsey.

By way of puberty. By way of an Instagram poll. And so all of these things are very, very silly. Also, Sonny's video in Morocco was great. And he was just using that as like a way in, right? And it probably gets you more clicks in the thumbnail to get you, you know, more people watching what is ultimately a great, video about food and culture. I will never knock Sunny's hustle. I love all the content that he produces. But Josh, I think we need to see if you know what the Taste Atlas's top 10 cuisines are in the world. Okay, I'm ready. Are you ready? This is the top 10 cuisines according to tasteatless.com, a completely random website.

Yeah, random as hell, I'd say. Great. Okay. Do want to start? Yeah. Go for it. I'm familiar with Taste Atlas's game. Italy.

Okay. Italy is number two. Spain. Spain is number four. France is going to be in there. France is number eight. Let's say Mexico. Mexico is three.

You're doing really good. You're on fire. There's going to be something dumb in there like Greece. Greece is number one. Greece is number one. What do you mean Greece is number one? As of right now, according to their document and their website, it's number one. Japan is going to be in there.

Oh, yeah, duh. That's number nine. How many am I missing right now? One, two, three, four. I didn't mean to call Greece dumb. Greece has, like, wonderful food, but you know what I mean? I'm missing four. I need four more.

Yes. God, is Korea? No, Korea's not on there. Okay, People's Republic of Korea. No, nothing about Korea. North Korea. Democratic, okay. Top ten food countries.

I want you to think of a country that you said, but It's like a neighboring country to one of the countries he said. Yes, Portugal is number five. Spain is number four and Portugal's number five. How do they? Oh, USA is probably cracked the top ten. The United States of America did not crack the top ten. I believe it's 12 or 13, yeah.

That's ridiculous. Give me some hints about what. Okay. This place. Like India? No. No, no. No.

No. No. No. People, they couldn't make food better than Portugal? So this is a country that has almost the same, if not more, people than India. China. There we go. China's number 10.

Incredible. And then you have two more. Thailand. You're so close. What do you mean I'm so close? You're close. Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar. Keep going.

Indonesia. Malaysia. Singapore. Indonesia's where? Number seven. Pakistan, Bangladesh. No, no, no. Okay, okay. And now you... Boutan. I really need you to get this one. I need you to go to the recesses of your mind.

And I need you to think of... I was going to say a song that I like... I need you to think about food that we both really like, but we don't really have in this part of Los Angeles too much. Dominican Republic. Man, that is such a good guess, but you're so far off. Cuba, so far off. Nigeria. No. What do you mean for it? It's in a song? I just like the music from this place.

a lot from this country Sorry, my ear with itchy You like the music from this country You like a lot of music I do, I do Puerto Rico is making the best They're not a sovereign state I need you to go more towards the middle Of the east

The middle of the Middle East Yeah But it's not always known as like a Middle Eastern country Georgia, Republic of Georgia No no no no I don't know they got good food Armenia You're so close Azerbaijan?

You're so close to Armenia. Uh, what? Does some people dispute this country's sovereignty? No, no. Think about we are in an area that has a lot of Armenian people. Yeah. So what is... Iran?

No, what is the like, not the inverse, but... What's the inverse of Armenia? I would say Azerbaijan. They're sort of diametrically opposite. Go back. Go back. Go back. Go back.

In time? Yeah. I mean, they were a Soviet republic. Go back. Keep going back. The Ottoman Turkey. Oh my God. The Ottoman Turks.

You're so correct to say go back. Turkey is number six. Turkey. Okay. Yeah. So right now, according to Taste Atlas, Greek is number one. Italian is number two. Mexican is three.

Spanish is four. Portuguese is five. Turkish is six. Indonesian is seventh. French is eighth. Japanese is ninth. And Chinese is 10th. What the hell?

I don't know. This is what the side says. I think, okay, how do you think? When we are talking about ranking anything, so you don't follow college football very closely. I don't. Shocker. But let's go back to college football

real quick because this is important to me. Now there's a college football playoff. They're expanding it, but it was eight teams. And what they did... Eight teams? There's only eight college football teams? No, no, they make the college football playoff. But it used to be, Nicole, where only the top two teams in the nation,

By ranking, which is subjective inherently, because a lot of teams say five teams were undefeated, you needed a way to figure out who the top two were that would play in the national championship, which has millions of dollars at stake for, like, you know, branding and marketing and whatever. And so you had to have a way to figure it out. They used to do like a poll, the Associated Press poll or the coaches poll. They would just poll all the coaches, go, who do you think the best is? Okay. You know?

The coaches? And they weren't bought. Or the coaches or the Associated Press. Like, there was a membership of gatekeepers that they would ask. It's like the Hollywood Foreign Press. Exactly. It's similar, right? Even Oscars are kind of weird to rank art.

But anyways, college football. Then they were like, there's a kind of bias here. People seem to be biased towards the teams from the South. Oh, really? And so what they did is they created a computer program called the BCS, the Bowl Championship series. And so they had a computer program that, like, they took, this is in like the early mid-2000s. Okay. Right.

Just post.com boom. And they're like, we took all these different factors And this way to take the human element out of it And they just gave funky results And everyone hated it and nobody knew how it worked And so they went back to a poll And then they went back to a committee So there's like never a good way to rank something

That is subjective, right? Yeah, I agree with that. The way, but what I love is when people take insane obscure methodologies And go, this is how we're doing it Because I think that's what Taste Atlas does. Well, they say, Go ahead.

They say it's based on 477,200, 487 valid ratings for 15,478 foods in our database. These cuisines have earned the highest average scores. That's nuts. So what they'll do is they'll be like, taste atlas, we'll just have a post for like spaghetti carbunara. Right. And people will rate spaghetti carbonara out of five. Yes.

And then they'll have another one for like pizza napolitana. or something, and they'll rate that out of five. And then they combine those average ratings out of five for individual dishes, which one, more people are going to know about spaghetti carbonara or like Spanacopoita than they are like Batlok like, or like Fejoada from Brazil or whatever. And so it is kind of a very strange thing. So if you look at like United States at eight, we have a lot of great Carbonara in the United States. Sure we do.

We have, we are a nation of immigrants. of the best food in the United States generally came from somewhere else initially. Sure. Yes. Right? And so if you're to like, what do you put there? Hamburger? Hot dog? Because pizza's already taken up by Italy. You know what I mean? So this is a very strange methodology. Well, they say that, well, American cuisine was 13 ranked out of the 100 best cuisines in the world. How did Lithuania beat Taiwan? I think, I don't, I have no idea. I have no idea. But like, for example, they say the must-try items in America whenever you visit America or want to eat American cuisine is,

American lobster Pacific Smoke Salmon Wild Alaskan salmon South Texas barbecue and boiled main lobster So these are all... Sorry, sorry, say those again Sure, so if you were to look at this Tate's Atlas 100 Best Cuisines of the World America's 13

It says the must-try items if you want to try American cuisine are American lobster Then what was the last thing you said? So American lobster has a 4.8 rating and then a boiled main lobster has a 4.5 rating. Yeah, it's almost like this is not a good way to conduct any sort of scientific research. But, but like, but my, my thing is, is like, as far as, like, I know, the way that I've always, like, quote-unquote ranked food, like, Italian, Mexican, Japanese, those three have always been circulating on my list or what I see as the most popular.

Yeah, well, most popular is, like, a way that you could likely rank. But not best. Of course, yeah, best food is so, so, so stupidly impossible. to say you shouldn't even go down that route. I mean, even talking about the Oscars, like, it's very silly to kind of, like, rank art in a certain way. And there's politics behind all this. Always, yeah. But certainly, like, most popular is a thing that you could track.

Like, most restaurants per capita, would that work? Yeah, or even now delivery orders on DoorDash, right? It's such an easy way to do it. Yeah, yeah. But, like, even the politics behind a lot of that is really interesting. The reason Thai food is so popular. Like, I don't think there are that many Thai people in America comparatively to any other, like, ethnic background, especially from, like, you know, East or Southeast Asia. You know what I mean?

Sure. But the Thai government did an incredible job of, like, they had a massive PR campaign. Right, right. I remember you told me about this. Yeah, to basically, like, spread the joy of Thai food and then use that as a way to get tourism back to Thailand. Sure. So they were basically, like, paying people to open Thai restaurants. restaurants and in LA we see a lot of them like the Thai embassy was doing this which is awesome so

Thai food is one of my favorite cuisines in the world also I was only exposed to it because of this government program by Thailand which rules right but we don't like for example like the countries around Thailand you have Cambodia you have Laos yeah do I don't see any Cambodian or lay ocean food go to Long Beach baby but that's what I'm saying like like if you were to like Pohman noodle shack what's up like if you were to pull like the average American that lives in like Nebraska. Yeah. They would know Thai food, right?

Because that would probably be more popularized versus like Laotian food. Oh, 100%. They'd be like, what is the difference between the two? But whenever I think of the difference between Thai food and Laotian food, because we have that knowledge of like food, because we work with it so often, like I experience Laotian food as being a little bit more intensely spiced, intensely sour, while Thai food, at least through the American lens has been, like, there's, like, Pad-C-U and Pat Thai noodles and, like, peanuts and stuff like that. So the, at least according to recent census data, there are, damn, this seems, this seems low.

253,000 Thai immigrants, or was that only that came over this year? Maybe only this year. Maybe that was in 20203, yeah, yeah. Okay, so in 20203,000 from Thailand, 161 from Laos, 150 from Cambodia. So, like, more combined Laotian and Cambodian immigrants than Thai immigrants. Mm-hmm. But, like, the outsized representation that Thai food has, you know, gives people, like, a skewed perspective on it. Right.

Which is, like, Indonesia, combining, like, Indonesia and Malaysia, which they're, you know, different cultures and different foods. Right. But more similar to each other than, you know, say, I don't know, like, a Thai and, like, Chinese. So we have to start saying, I want to try Cambodian food or let's go get Cambodian food. Well, I do that a lot. But we have the ability to do that. That's good. But I'm talking about the royal we. The royal we. Yeah, yeah.

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slash hot dog to get started and claim you're 50% off today. Don't miss out. Go to rosettastone.com and start learning today. Hello, it's Lena Dunham. I host a podcast called The Sea Word with my dearest friend and historian of bad behavior, Alyssa Bennett. What is up? It's a chat show about women whose society is called crazy. We're going to be rediscovering the stories of women's society dismissed by calling them mad, sad, or just plain bad. Listen to and follow the C-word with Lena Dunham and Alyssa Bennett. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. I want to ask you about French cuisine because I know that this is currently number eight.

The top 100. What do they say the best French foods to try are baguette, d'A la orange. Let me see. Because I know you have a bone to pick with French being. on this list at all? I don't have a bone to pick with French being on the list. I have a bone to pick with the way that I think culture has lionized French food over other cuisines for a long, long time.

Do you think it's because it's been codified in a very specific way with, like, the brigade system? I think so, yeah. I mean, and, like, what's his name? Corrette. Like, there's a lot of, like, famous French chefs throughout history, you know, and these people have been written about. So you look like, I believe Marie Antoine Carrem was his name. And then that led into like Auguste Escoffier.

And so Escoffier, like wrote down, you know, the French mother sauces and all their derivations. So there's a lot of like written record in history that has made it into like Western sort of education. Sure. Yeah, sure. And then also the Michelin Guide, which has been, you know, the number one gatekeeper, even more than Taste Atlas or Gordon Ramsey via Pubity.com, right? The Michelin Guide. has been the number one world gatekeeper in terms of naming the best restaurants. Yeah.

Michelin is a French tire company. Right. And the guide was literally meant to say, hey, everybody, hop in your cars with your new Michelin tires. Yeah. And drive to restaurants. If it's a three Michelin star restaurant, that means it's worth the longest drive you can take in our tires. Right, right, right. And so even like from that origin, you know, it was all based on French food.

Do you like French food? I do like, I like all, this is the other thing. thing. All food is great. I love all, if not the majority of foods. And if I'm, I was just in France to the Cannes Lions Festival. That's right. You were in France. And anywhere I travel, I just try and get the local delight, right? I went. Local to Khan. Local to Khan is like, it's very like province all food. And so a lot of it and we're on the seaside. So like one of my favorite things I got is called pan banya. Okay. What is that? It's just a sandwich. I was getting it from like seaside shacks while like sweaty on the beach.

And it's just like a round like bowl, like a sourdough kind of round loaf. And they cut it in a half and they just slap on a bunch of like fresh like tomato, onion, greens, some sort of a yoli. And then a bunch of tuna anchovies and chopped hard-boiled egg. My God. And it's just all, it's soaked in olive oil and vinegar. And it's just this like just bright. It's basically a Niswaz salad. In bread.

Yeah, that you're like eating on the beach. And so, you know, what I rather have that? or a carneasada burrito in a vacuum. Carniastat a burrito, it's what I grew up on. Can I tell you something? But I'm in France, I won't eat that. If you told me any combination of food, the fact that you explained that you were sweating on the beach and your seaside, I probably would have said it was delicious.

100%. It's so crazy to me. I once, when I was at the Jersey Shore, I was sweating seaside of the beach eating a fried Taylor pork roll sandwich with white American cheese, and it was romantic and delicious because it was the local fair. And I was on the beach, right? Like, any food is great. A food wouldn't exist unless it was delicious, right?

You travel anywhere in the world. If you're eating the local fair, you can find something delicious. According to Taste Atlas, who is our Bible and God now, the must-try items from French cuisine are meal de Provence, which is just Provensal honey. That, like, their rank, I did eat honey in Provence. It was great. They have a lot of lavender honey. Exactly. It's lavender honey.

That's great. But, yeah, that's nuts. that like they're ranking Lavender Honey a product made by bees I know versus like boiled main lobster

Chateaubriand Saint Felician which is a type of soft cheese Rotin de Chavignon which is also another soft cheese and then Crout

A Morel it's bread and mushrooms with a cream sauce Bizarre so anyways there are people that are like taking these rankings because they will just Google best food country and world and an image of this

pops up and it's all very very silly um what do you love about french food i love butter if you must know the truth i just love it's a combination of butter and salt that is just so delicious to me a lot of countries got butter a lot of countries got salt you're so right you're so right maybe it's just like this weird fetishization of like french food is the best food but I've had it recently and it hasn't been it hasn't like tickled me the way that it used to yeah it doesn't it doesn't do it for me anymore the way that it used to unfortunately and I think it's just it's just not fun anymore it's not fun food anymore like going to eat sea snails

at a at a Vietnamese restaurant that's fun that's good those are punchy flavors and delicious meats that I don't have all the time but something like french food it's like I had duck so much culinary school like how many times can I eat duck how many times can I eat beef how many times can I eat an airline breast of chicken you know what I mean yeah yeah it's just not the same anymore for me it doesn't it doesn't like tickle me the way that it used to but something like eating those really intense flavors from like Vietnam and things like that that's something that excites me thoroughly and also I love Persian food again which is nice like I think whenever you have a food repeatedly growing up with it you get sick of it yeah which happened to me a few years ago but now I like

call my mom asking her to make me like the classics a lot of the time, which is great. Yeah. And even when we talk about French food, it's somewhat similar to talking about American food, right? France is not a monolith. There's so much influence in France. Some of the best food I had when I was there was Lebanese food.

Oh, well, of course. Yeah, naturally. It's Lebanese. It's North African. And then chefs are also using like French technique and French products, using flavors from North Africa, from West Africa, from Southeast Asia. Right. Just like chefs are in America. And chefs in Mexico are using, you know, techniques and ingredients from Korea.

When I went to, uh, to Cabo, like in Baja, California, West Coast, there was this, like, big wave of, like, Japanese flavors at like, like, their local kind of like, fancier, kind of like hipster taquerias. Is that called? Niki food? What is it called? Niki cuisine is a fusion. Wait, Peru's not on this list? Yeah, I was about to say there's no Peru on here. Wait, literally, where is Peru? Peru's number, Peru finished 10th in 2022. Let me see where Peru is right now. Peru, Niki cuisine is a fusion of Japanese and Peruvian food. Nobu Matsu Hisa was the one really popularized it.

If we were to try and create any sort of objective ranking, do you think there are any actual criteria that you could put on a ranking that would make sense? No. Even in terms of like available produce, no, because even countries that don't have available produce can still. make incredible food out of that. I think Italian should be on the list. Like, that's what you know. Italian should be top 10.

Italian should be top 10 no matter what. It can be number one. It can be number 10. It just needs to be there. I want to see, here's data that I want to see, and I think we could probably find it, is like, what kind, no, because that would be heavily skewed. I was going to say, what country, like, spends the most amount of time cooking or eating or, like, who is simply devoting the most?

Time and energy to it, right? Or disposable income. Because Americans, despite the fact that our food seems very expensive, we spend, like, less of our disposable income on food than I believe most developed nations. That's crazy to me. You know, and we also spend a lot more money on health care, so there's other offsetting costs. But, like, other countries really do put a lot of thought in the food. And that is something that I've always loved about Italian food and Italian people.

Right. Is they care so much, right? And I think that reflects in the food. Yeah, I agree. And also, like, the items that they use, like, tomatoes, like beautiful, fresh, gorgeous tomatoes. Tomatoes invented in Italy. No, they weren't invented. Native Italian food.

No, they're not. But now they're known for... If you think of Italian food and tomatoes aren't, like, in the top five of the foods that you associate with Italy... Yeah, yeah. I would say that you're just being a contrarian. Yeah, no, I agree with that. But, like, something like, like, beautiful breads, beautiful tomatoes, beautiful cheese, beautiful fresh produce. Like, those things are just good foods to have your disposal.

to combine them all into like a pizza, I think it's like a winning, it's a win for me. But I think you could say that, you could say that about any kind of, you could say that about Vietnam, right? Beautiful herbs, beautifully made noodles. Yes. You know, beautiful fermented sauces. Like, cheese is just fish sauce in Vietnam. You're correct.

In a way, right? Yes, it's umami. You know, you could say that about any single country. You could say that about Senegal, right? Beautiful, like, grains with their steamed millet with beautiful dried crawfish powder. Right, right, right. Every country just has beautiful food, which is awesome. You know what I mean?

So what country do you think has the best food? I... Like, what country should be on a top ten list no matter what? How about that? I won't tell you... I won't ask you... Yeah, non-negotiable is to be on a top ten list. Non-negotiable.

Mexico for sure. Okay. Peru for sure. Okay. I agree with Italy. I love how I always say this is futile and you can't do it and now I'm doing it. Yeah, you... I mean, India, just because it's such a massive country and also such a beautiful history of

cuisine. I know. I would want to like spread this out, right? Right. I think Japan and probably Korea too, maybe. I mean, to be honest,

Tokyo. I couldn't leave off Vietnam. Tokyo is one of the best food cities I've ever been to. Vietnamese food is just like, has my heart. You know, there's just every country I could name

has such delicious food. To be honest, I think this is impossible. South Africa is the best produce I've ever had in my life, dude. The avocados from Limpopo in South Africa blew me the hell away. The best Turkish

donor kebab I had was in Germany. You know, I... What are we going to do? What are we supposed to do? Slovenia, put Slovenia on there. I think we need more people to cook foods from more countries. So that way there's

more availability for us common folk to eat them. I would love to eat more Senegalese food. I would love to eat more Latvian food. I would love to eat more Iraqi food. I haven't been to an Iraqi restaurant ever in my life. Yo, you go down to like El Cajon. Like inland? This is, okay,

Real quick, just going to stand for California here. There's so many, like, neighborhoods in California where you're like, oh, there's like 10 Iraqi restaurants and a half mile radius. Like, like little blink, like little Bangladesh or like Little Tehran or stuff like that. Dude, like Little India and Artisia. There's a little Arabia and Anaheim where it's a bunch of, like, Lebanese restaurants. Sure. But you go to like East, like East County, San Diego. Okay.

And there's a ton of Iraqi restaurants. They make that big old, big old grilled fish. Yum. What's it called? I don't know. I don't know. See, that's the thing. I don't know. Literally, Iran and Iraq are neighbors, and I've never had Iraqi food. Yeah. I mean, have you ever had Canadian food? I've never had Canadian. I mean... I've had like... Yeah, actually, I have. There's a... Me and Julia went to a Canadian's called Che matantant. It's like a French Canadian food. Yeah, yeah. And so what does Canadian food actually mean, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, we had like Kijery, which is like a very Canadian dish based off of a Middle Eastern dish, based off of a British dish that is made with salt coffee. in Canada. It's a whole thing. Isn't it Indian, too?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an Indian dish that made its way to Britain, that made its way to Canada, but has been transformed all the while. You know, but yeah, they ate Canadian food there. It's just so hard to define. And I think it's going to get harder to define them. And we don't need to define it. Go out there.

The world of food is wide and wonderful, and not everything needs to be ranked. Except I love that Bulgaria finished ahead of England in this ranking. Go Bulgaria. This time of year always gets me thinking about fresh starts, whether it's getting organized, setting new routines, or swapping out my wardrobe. And when it comes to style, Quince is my go-to for those timeless, high-quality pieces that actually last. I describe their knit maternity strap Unitard and their 100% organic cotton-poppin maternity long-sleeve shirt, and both instantly elevated my everyday look. The texture of the jumpsuit feels incredible. It's light, it's

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slash hot dog for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash hot dog to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash hot dog. All right, Nicole. All right, Josh. All right, Nicole.

All right, Josh. All right. Okay. That's all right, then. Well, we've heard of you and I have to say. It's time to find out what other wacky idiots are rattling out there in the universe. It's time for a little segment we call Opinions are like casserole.

What a Judy Garland stink on there. You like that? She lived a tough life. She sure did. Judy Garland, really a cautionary tale. Very sad. Judy, not Julie. It's like Liza with a zine, not Eli. Judy Garland. They had her on a... diet of amphetamines and chicken broth.

That's right. They did. She lived a life of pain. Deserved a lot better. Some would say she deserved better. Judy Garland deserved better. Hey, Josh and Nicole. My name is Bill.

I'm from Asheville, North Carolina area. You guys were talking about interesting ways to eat candy bars the other day. Snickers with the vein, Josh. But did you know with Kit Katz? The filling between the layers is more crushed up Kit Kat. I did. I did. Search it. Find out for yourselves. That's why it's so good. Keep it up. Bye, guys.

No, you keep it up. Wait, you're telling me. Yeah, you're going to say it. They're grinding up whole Kit Katz to use as the mortar in between the Kit Kat wafer bricks. Yeah, the Moror is old Kit Katz and the, what is it? I don't know what it is. Crane. What's Moror? Moror is like on a Russia-Shanes-Sater. Yeah, it's to represent the thing in between the Oh, that's right. That's what Moror is. Right? Dude, I don't know. So the Maror is more kick-at.

The Moro-R, the Choroset. The, yeah. How do you pronounce it? Haler. What? Haler. Haleg. In Farsi, it's Haler.

Any, like, Hebrew Jewish bird I grew up hearing was, was via the lens of a very Victorian South African accent. So my grandma would say, Kharasit. Charrasit. Josh, you need to eat them all, like, junky. Ours is smooth and pasty. No, we would generally blend it, but I've had a lot of chunky chorosite. I don't like chunky hair. No, I like it to be a paste.

But horos, it's like one of my favorite things. I like to... You just blend like apples, walnuts, honey, sweet wine. Dip it, dip a cracker in it. My mom goes, this is the first energy bar. And it's just matza and hereset. It's good. But no, yeah, basically it's the harisette.

Yeah. Yum. I did find out. I think it's the rejects. I think it's the. Reject. Sorry to interrupt you. Sorry, best friend. Oh, it's like the ones that get messed up to grind them up into fish food? Yeah. Okay.

I didn't know that much about Asheville, North Carolina, but I've been, I've seen a couple sketches that go like, that one couple that lives in Asheville. There's a lot of breweries in Asheville. That adds up. They're very, like, progressive. I don't know. Cringially progressive is what these sketches are suggested. Oh, what sketches are you watching? Not a lot.

Like the drop, like from Dropout? No, it's just a random sketch. What the hell are you talking? Like a TikTok sketch. Oh, I see. I really don't scroll very much anymore, but I got one from Asheville. I like calling petition to call people from Asheville Ashholes. I think we should.

Okay, deal. Hey, guys, my name's Drew. I'm from Utah. And I was thinking, shout out, Drew Ta. Is that the major city of every state in the United States should have its own hot dog style, much like the Chicago hot dog. Oh, my gosh. Seattle hot dog. And that would really help add to our country's thing where every state has like a flower

and tree. Oh my God. But I think we should all have a hot dog too. Drew. That's it. Drew. Drew came out swinging. You need to get hired by some sort of cabinet, right?

Yeah, like the cabinet of the United States of America for being awesome. That's a great idea. Get him out here. Because here's the thing. We grew up doing like state reports in California. Yes. It was like fifth grade. You had to choose a state. I had Maryland. You had Maryland? I picked it because I had the weirdest flag. It does have a weird flag. Weird ass flag.

I picked Louisiana because I had already started loving Cajun food. I would have been like nine, ten years old. And I was like, I love Benets and Gumbo. I like weird shapes and colors. But like I, but because of that, I know that the state flower of, uh, of Louisiana is the magnolia. I know that the state bird is the pelican, you know. But I don't know what It's state hot dog is I've actually eaten Oh my God I've eaten a crawfish Ramelead hot dog in New Orleans

You know what we have to do Let's Okay Drew we're just gonna borrow your idea Yeah We need to make a list Of 50 hot dogs I know there's some that exist

Obviously Chicago dog whatever We need to make a list Of all the hot dogs And then just lick Like the envelope And send it to somebody At the Whitehouse Yeah to design a hot dog

for every major, for the biggest city in every state. Not biggest, but most important city. Is the capital okay? I don't think it should be capital because then you're left with like, I believe Washington's what, like Olympia instead of Seattle? Oh, okay. Did I lie about that? No, the capital of Washington's Seattle.

But there's already a Seattle dog. But like the capital of New York is Albany. But there's already a Seattle dog. No, the capital of Washington's Olympia. Yeah, right? Like, are we going to make... But there's already a Seattle dog. That's what I'm saying.

Like, we take the major city. And I think it can be intuitive. It doesn't have to be biggest because then you're doing like... How about most iconic? That's what I'm saying, yeah. What's the most iconic city in Nebraska? Why do I... Why are I so obsessed with Nebraska?

What's going on? Lincoln. We'd make a Lincoln dog. Make a Lincoln dog. Oh, my God. Can we... I'm not even kidding. I know that we like...

And it would be inspired by Arunza. We work together all the time, but I think this would be such a good project for us to do. Pier, Pier South Dakota. Oh, my God. A South Dakota dog? Can put Chislic on it. Oh, my God. Or testicles.

Or, like, dandelion greens. Dandu Lion Greens, but something. Oh my God, can we please do this? I got a fun exercise. I got hired by Tillamuk years ago to design like regional grilled cheeses. Yeah. And, you know, you end up in Portland,

you're making like pickled huckleberry jam and stuff. We talked about this. It's rad. I think we should do that. We should do a podcast called the United States of Hot Dogs. Okay. Where we put one minute on the clock to decide what each major... Drew.

You did it. And this is all because of you. And then we send it to Condoleezza Rice, who's still in the White House. Condoleezza Rice. Speaking of, She was one of the people on the college football playoff voting committee. Condoleezza Rice.

I loved Condoleezer Rice growing up. She was like an icon to me. I think she was so strong and beautiful and it was just so nice to see her like taking on a lot of stuff. Yeah, I've had a lot of respect for her. If she did anything politically monstrous, which she may have. I don't know about that. I was like 12 and I just thought she was so inspiring. I don't know what she's up to now.

I had something to do with Stanford. I don't know. But she was iconic to me. So iconic. Yeah. Hello, Josh, Nicole, Hot Dog Nation. This is Natte and Nick calling from California. And we are laying in bed, taking care of business in the last few minutes before our daughter wakes up, which means debating the important stuff.

Like, we all know you could fry an egg on the hood of a car on a hot day. but I am wondering if you could hard boil an egg on the inside of the car on a hot day my husband says there's no way but I think

I think that you could so please settle this for us sure you have to in order to boil an egg the temperature of the water needs to be like boiling is 212 but like you could still like warm up an egg

at like 1, like 90 or something. So suvied eggs, you get to like 170, 175. They end up like kind of cooked in jammy. And the egg whites will start to coagulate at that point. Yeah, yeah. Don't think that's pulsable unless you put like a magnifying glass in the water. I'm trying to think of like the hottest my car I think has ever gotten because I'm in a lot of saunas. I think 130 might be the hottest my car's ever gotten.

I feel like my car's probably gotten in the 140s, 150s. That's so scary. Don't leave a baby or. animals. Who brought a baby into my car? It was just, it was me and some old cans. Yeah, and I wouldn't leave your baby in the hot car. You better not. I'm not. Uncle Josh is not allowed. But yeah, so even if your car got up to like 150 and could warm the water to that, which would also take a long time because water tends to like, you know, you can't diffuse heat into it that fast. Yeah. Uh, no, impossible. But you could, you could warm up a hot dog to a pleasant

temp. You know? If you're into that. I like that they said hot dog nation That's good We should start addressing The Vox Populi Is that the right word? Yeah, great The Vox Populi as Hot Dog Nation

Like Brittany Brosky has Brosky Nation Yeah, we can be Hot Dog Nation I like that I think weaner world better Hey Josh and Nicole Here's a hot take When I was a kid I'd do this What's up?

I would like to DIP my bacon and orange juice You know, kind of like a pineapple ham situation. Also, how do you feel about Chi-Chi's coming back this year? What's Chi-Chi? Goodbye. I didn't know. Goodbye.

That was so creepy. Wait, wait, wait, Chi-Chi's is coming back. Chee-Chi's is a chain of, like, casual Mexican dining restaurants. I think, God, is it from Minnesota? Sounds familiar. I think Chi-Chi's may have been founded in Minnesota. I've never been. know Chi-Chi's from their jarred salsa.

That's how, that's why the name is familiar to me. We didn't add for them. We didn't add for it. It's perfectly fine jarred salsa. But gosh, apparently physical restaurant locations will reopen in 2025. The physical products stayed the same. I'm, listen, happy for Chi-Chi's, happy for you if you partake. I've never been to one because we don't have them in California.

I don't believe. Bacon and orange juice. I can see how that would make. It's like squeezing lemon on a steak Or any cooked meat That's great The thing I worry about What's it doing to your juice

Who cares about the juice? Are you, if you are like taking You think they're pouring it over the bacon? Well no, if he's dipping his bacon Into a glass of orange juice And then are you drinking the orange juice after? It's gonna get warmer, it's gonna get greasy It's not that big of a deal

You know, but I'm not like I don't think I'm not gonna stop the day I don't think it's that big of a deal I think that this is a good idea And it sounds pretty damn good to me And don't listen to that guy He's just trying to be silly

If you took like a pastry brush And you dipped in orange juice And then painted that on your bacon You know Hear me out marmalade Marmalade You should be doing it You should be dippy-die doing it in marmalade

Not in juice right I had a marmalade recently That was way too much Pith Way too much Pith Way too much Pith I love Marmalade I do too but it was like very

bracing. Was it hormone? Was it homemade? It was in France. Oh, that's why. They respect the pith. Apparently. We don't, it's like pulp and juice. Suck my pith. Do you like pulp in your orange juice? No, I do not. I love pulp. I don't think I've had a glass of orange juice in probably three years. I had one recently. For no reason. I just like don't encounter it. I had some Tropicana. Oh my God. It was so good. Sometimes the human body just needs a swig of oranges, but I typically I don't, because I have really bad acid reflux, like, always my whole life. So I never had orange juice growing up, like, at, like, the breakfast table. A little fun fact about me.

That's a fun fact. Hi, Josh and Nicole. This is Allison from Michigan. Hey, Allison. My husband and I were just talking, and we feel as though your next cookbook should be recipes from last meals. Oh. Specifically, the zucchini flan from Terry Cruz's episode. Love you guys. Thank you.

That's a great idea. Josh, I like that idea. I think it's a good idea. That's a great idea. I think it's a good idea. I think writing another cookbook is certainly a good idea. I think we might want to get on that at some point. Yeah.

But, you know, gotta see. Gotta wait and see. You should wink at the camera. Got to wait and see if there's going to be another cookbook. I'll do it to my own. Gotta wait and see. Me too, me too. And then add each other's cameras

And on that note And on that note Thank you so much for stopping by a hot dog It's a sandwich We got new audio-only episodes every Wednesday And a video version here on YouTube every Sunday If you want to be featured on opinions Like cast rolls

Hit us up at 833 Dog Pod 1 The number again is 833 Dog Pod 1 Sorry my voice cracked a little My voice is torched man More Mythical Kitchen. Check out our other videos. We're launching new episodes every week. See you all next time.