A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - Throwback: Is Cereal Soup?

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

It's a throwback episode! We'll be back with new episode July 17th. Have you been eating soup for breakfast without knowing it? In this episode, Josh and Nicole are debating whether or not cereal is soup. Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 Check out the video version of this podcast: http://youtube.com/@ahotdogisasandwich To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Hey, it's me, Nicole. And me, Josh, the other one. As you may know, we're taking a little summer break right now. Gotta rest our vocal cords and polish our gavels for even more food debates. Like a judge! That's right, that's the reference. But instead of leaving you empty-handed, we thought we'd reminisce with you

and throw it back to one of our favorite debates is cereal soup. Controversial. For some reason, a lot of people have been leaving voicemails asking for this debate. But hello, we already did it. I think that's kind of a compliment and a huge testament to how many episodes we've done and our longevity and the fact that you and I are still very young spring chickens who can do a lot of things. Anyways, this is an awesome episode. It's literally the second one we've ever done, I think. Third one we've ever done. All the way back

in March of 2020, we were much worse at podcasting back then. But that said, I think we really broke some barriers here. Yeah, I had a different last name back then. You sure did. I made the claim that dogs are very small horses, which I still believe scientifically is true. But many don't. They're both

quadrupeds. Well, besides that. Centipedes. Millipedes. We hope you enjoy the pod. It's a great time. Buckle up, y'all. Have you been eating soup for breakfast without knowing it?

Let's find out. 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 brand new podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, where we take on the internet's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Scherer, and I once spilled a bowl of cereal on my naked lap. And I'm your host, Nicole Hendy-Zadde, and I think Josh is my best friend. Oh my God, you're top eight for me. If we had MySpace, you'd be on my top eight. Yeah, I just think I spend Josh is my best friend. Oh my god I you're top eight for me if we had MySpace you'd be on my top eight. Yeah I just think I spend so much time with you like I think you're

one of my friends like it's cool that you're like I'm your subordinate but like you're my friend. Yeah that's a a recipe for okay so today we're taking on the question is cereal soup? Nicole what are your thoughts? Why? I this is one of the biggest questions that's always mentioned on twitter on whatever and people always explode over it uh and there's a very easy answer that a lot of people seem to take but i want to hear your thoughts on it first so it's no for me and it's just no do you want me to tell you why it's no or do you want to tell me you know what can you tell me why you think whatever you think first? Okay.

So, God, I don't even like that I'm saying this, but I'm taking this position. And I do believe it because I've thought about it. And I've really done a lot of soul searching. I believe that cereal is soup. I believe there's no way around it. It is a food eaten out of a bowl with a spoon meant to be consumed as a meal. I believe that cereal is soup. The dish cereal.

Because you could say cereal is just, if you're eating Lucky Charms, yeah, if you're eating Lucky Charms by the handful, you know, you could say like you're eating cereal. But I think when you say like- Cereal the dish. Cereal the dish. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Fully with milk or some sort of milk substitute. I believe it's a soup. I just, it has to be to me. It has the same formula as a soup. You eat it in the same manner. I think it's a soup. I just, it has to be to me. It has the same formula as a soup. You eat it in the same manner. I think it's soup. I think it's just such an iconic food on its own that lumping it in with soup

defeats the beauty of cereal, in my opinion. A bowl of Lucky Charms or my favorite cereal, Grape Nuts, is just iconic. You know you're eating cereal. To call it soup is is blasphemy in my opinion because everyone has an archetype of soup if i close if all of us were to close our eyes close your eyes if you're to close your eyes and you're supposed to and you were to envision a bowl of soup what would be inside of it if you tell me mint frosted mini wheats and whole milk

aren't in that bowl you're lying to yourself a beautiful broth with little chunks in it of vegetables and then there's a tiger and the tiger is walking behind the bowl so he goes they're great because it's a bowl of frosted flakes because i am picturing no i i don't think i think cereal on its own is its own dish. I think it demands the respect of being its own iconic meal. I can call cereal a meal, sure. I can eat it with a spoon, sure. But I don't think it's soup. But why not?

I mean, really break this down. Because what are the components of soup, right? That's what we first have to discuss. I think we have the definition right here of what soup is. Is there like a Merriam-Webster as a dictionary you decided? There's actually two definitions of soup. There's Webster's definition and the Oxford definition. Give me both.

Webster's says a liquid food, especially with a meat, fish, or vegetable stock as a base and often containing pieces of solid food. That's Webster's. Okay. So let's break that down. So they say often with a meat, vegetable or fish stock or whatever. Yeah. So it doesn't mean that it necessarily has to include one of those.

So we could consider milk to be the broth. Also, I would argue that milk is essentially stock made from the teats of a cow. I don't think milk. It's teat stock. I don't think meat constitutes stock. I think if we took the teats and we stew sued the teats that would be that would be stock that would be utter stock don't put that into the universe we're gonna have to do that someone from up top's gonna be like guys we need to find that would be cow utter stock i think the the liquid

that it secretes is milk and it should be milk and called milk not Fair. I'll concede that point. Okay. And the Oxford definition says, a liquid food made by boiling meat, vegetables, et cetera, and water often eaten as the first course of a meal. What do you have to say about that? The first course of breakfast is always cereal for me.

It's part of a balanced breakfast, Nicole. It's not the entire balanced breakfast. Anytime they show the cereal commercials, right? It's always next to like toast, orange juice, eggs, because I don't think legally they can call a balanced breakfast anytime they show the cereal commercials right it's always next to like toast orange juice eggs because i don't think legally they can call a balanced breakfast just a bowl of cereal on account of it's just 100 sugar and corn is that what you eat for breakfast do you course out your breakfasts sometimes you see me in here well it's mostly just me grazing for like hours and hours yeah that's different but okay so to visit your point about it being iconic enough

to be its own dish yeah a lot of people also have the question is chili soup so chili is like very iconically its own dish and also whenever i go to a restaurant and they're like soup of the day and i go soup today's chili i'm just like well that should be its own menu item i don't consider that a soup of the day in the same sense that i still but i still do you know consider chili to be a soup in the sense like it's made with a stock it's got bits of stuff in it you eat it with a spoon out of a bowl but you know that said if i went to a restaurant and they said the soup of the day is chili i would feel just as misled if the soup of the day was a bowl of frosted flakes no you wouldn't you're just lying to lie no that's okay no i don't agree with that at all if you went to a restaurant and someone gave you a bowl of chili versus a bowl of cereal

with milk and they're like which one of these are soup would you honestly put your hand over the cereal and say this is soup or would you put i would honestly put my hand over both and say these are both soup but i do agree that chili is a more soup like soup but didn't you say chili is less of a soup i think chili is less of a soup than say chicken noodle, beef and barley. No. Well, also there's different kinds of chili. You know, there's the chili you put on hot dogs. I'm not about to pour myself a bowl of that and go to town on it.

I call it hot dog slop chili and it's my favorite kind of chili. I don't think I'm going to do that. But you know, if there's like an artisanal chili with like beans in it, maybe some sour cream on the top. Yeah, I'll eat that joyfully and I'll call it soup. But I will not pour myself a bowl of frosted flakes, put some oat milk on there and call it soup. Now, talk to me. I know you're going to bring up the gazpacho because that's just who you are as a person.

So, yeah, we call it the gazpacho complex. Yeah, I understand. Because a lot of people, they think soup is temperature dependent and they'll say cereal is cold. One, I pour milk over honey bunches of oats and stick it in the microwave for 35 seconds. I think it's very delicious. Yeah, that's like porridge, man. Yeah. Well, that's another thing.

Like cereal, a lot of people consider oatmeal to be like a hot cereal. And then a lot of people could ask, well, is oatmeal then soup? Isn't oatmeal labeled hot cereal? Technically. But the term cereal like in its scientific definition because so many of these arguments they come down to there's a scientific definition of a thing and then there's like a colloquial functional i feel like that's kind of where this conversation always steers yeah yeah right so like rice technically is called a cereal

grain you know but if you say like i'm eating a bowl of cereal and someone give you a bowl of steamed rice you wouldn't think that that is technically cereal. Yeah, because cereal is a meal. So technically like oatmeal is cereal. But when you prepare oatmeal, right, I think it's not suspended chunks of food in liquid. It all comes together in a paste, which I would call a porridge. Yeah. Being entirely separate from both cereal and soup.

I think soup, which is why I believe cereal is one, needs to have a certain flow rate to it. I think if we got like a physicist in here, they could give us a bare minimum standard for what constitutes the flow rate of a soup. Because if you take something like a bisque, right? If you reduce a bisque down enough, I believe it no longer becomes

a soup and it becomes a sauce or a gravy sure right so there's some sort of flow rate here and i believe cereal will always fall in that flow rate depending on how much milk you poured in there do we have a physicist budget do we have is it in the budget i think so okay yeah it's like 60 bucks so we gotta get like a real budget craigslist physicist to come in here i'm down like someone who was like ousted by the physics community because he was a flat earther i'm not i'm not i'll take a flat earth physicist in here to talk'm down. Like someone who was like ousted by the physics community because he was a flat earther. I'm not, I'm not. I'll take a flat earth physicist in here to talk about cereal flow rates.

Yeah, man, me too. I'm down. I think that's a brilliant idea. But the act of reducing it, every person has a preference. I feel their milk to cereal ratio. Some people like a really, really thin, like,

I just like one piece of cereal to like a whole spoonful of milk. And some people like a lot of cereal in their milk. So I don't necessarily agree with you on that because it's all relative when it comes to pouring yourself a bowl of cereal. So you're saying one person's definition of a bowl of cereal,

if it doesn't have enough milk, wouldn't constitute, wouldn't come up to that level of flow rate. Yeah, I think it would flow rate. But it still would be a bowl of cereal. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes. That's an interesting point. 100%. In the same way that if you reduce a bisque down, it would flow away. But it still would be a bowl of cereal. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes. That's an interesting point.

100%. In the same way that if you reduce a bisque down, it becomes a sauce. If you decrease the amount of milk enough. Okay, but the way I'm thinking, because a lot of people, you're pouring the cereal into the bowl and then you're adding milk on top of that. One, you always pour the cereal first. Yes, always. No, no, no. Yes, always.

But two, there's a lot of soups at restaurants, fancy restaurants. You and I are both fancy people. We have very fancy tastes. Yes. There's a lot of fancy restaurants that you get a soup and they'll put the chunks in the bowl and then a waiter comes around with like the little carafe or whatever little gravy boat type of thing and they pour we have a green pea stew i have gotten some of these fancy soups and they like pour in a quarter inch of broth or whatever the thing is. That's because of small portions, man.

No, I know. But it like doesn't even say it doesn't eat like a soup at that point. It eats like a sauce. So I'd argue that cereal is more of a soup than some of these things that people are calling soups out here in the fine dining industry. That's what I believe. I think they're soups. I just think they're very I think their texture is very, very luxurious, like a sauce. So I feel like that's where you're going with it.

I believe the definition of soup is so broad. Because think about the world of soups, right? Gazpacho, just like cold blended vegetables. Often served in a cup. You don't even eat it with a spoon most of the time. It's just a liquid food meant to be consumed, I think a majority of times with a spoon. Yeah. That's what it is.

Right? And so you have, say, like a chowder, which is just a milk-based soup. Based. It's not just milk. It's milk-based. I would argue that cereal is just milk-based because once you combine the cereal-

No, it's just milk, man. Once you combine the cereal, you get the cornflake residue. Sorry, I burped. I drink a lot of Diet Coke. I drink a lot of Diet Coke throughout the day. it really like works me up into a fervor you know all the aspartame and caffeine in there yeah i don't know how your blood is pumping through your veins right now i don't know how it happens no like i would argue that stock is just bone-based water. Yes. I agree with you on that.

What are we talking about? What are the cards? Read a card, man. The cards are here to help you, not hurt you. Tell me some facts about soup, Josh. Okay, this is actually interesting. Soup facts.

In French cooking, soups are classified into two groups, clear and thick. I think that's important. But they're both soups. Because like you said, soup, we have to break this down into archetypes. So if something like a chicken noodle is more archetypally soup,

then cereal, which is obviously still soup. Looking at it through an American lens. Yeah. That's another thing. Like if we go to, you know, Japan, something like ramen. Like do you consider that soup? Even though like the noodles are the star of it? Absolutely.

It's just a noodle. It's a soup with noodles. The broth is the star of it absolutely it's just a noodle it's a soup with noodles i the broth is the star let's be real here fair we actually did an episode here that was really interesting the way that other people view different foods and definitions it was international noodle taste test oh and you know we did uh pasta dishes from nigeria and all around the world i remember that episode yeah and there were a bunch of people that commented like those aren't noodles. There's no broth. And I was like,

the definition of noodles is different per place. Yeah. And so, yeah. And so to me, you look at something like soup, which every culture, you know,

eats around the world. Sure. To me, the definition is so broad that I think you have to take it down to its complete base level of a liquid based food that you eat with a spoon or just drink directly from the cup i think that's all it is so if you're like uh is a smoothie you know a smoothie gets a little bit melty and it can flow in your mouth is that a soup yeah that's a fruit bisque that's all you're eating wake up you go to jamba juice you're getting a raspberry razzmatazz.

Any know smoothie that is a raspberry bisque? It is a semi-freddo raspberry bisque. Josh. And I'm standing by that. Josh, you and I both know that's just a sad smoothie that you will still drink even if it's 10 o'clock at night. I'm down with the Jamba. No, man. I'm sorry.

I don't agree with you. I think the line of sweet and savory is also something that it sometimes walks on because Webster and Oxford says that it's meat or vegetable or poultry, right? They never mention anything about like the sweetness of soup or the savoriness of soup. I know in Poland they have the, what is it, the Polish fruit soup? Yeah, fruit soup. Yeah. Sure, that's soup. But when you make it, it's pretty much like a custardy dessert sauce. It's not really a soup.

But it's not a sauce. But it's called a soup. But we talked about if you reduce a bisque down long enough, it just becomes a sauce. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I just feel like the line of sweet and savory really. If they made more savory cereals, like if they made honey bunches of chicken. Well, let's talk hypotheticals though.

Okay. cereals like if they made honey bunches of chicken well let's talk hypotheticals though okay if if someone made you know uh corn flakes this time with uh beef hypothetically though for real if we had beef flakes which we could make because we've we made avocado toast crunch right yes we did that was savory we put we put um crushed red pepper on it and lemon juice and black pepper and salt we did so if we take that avocado toast crunch and then we pour milk on it black pepper and salt we did so if we take that avocado toast crunch and then we pour milk on it are we eating soup at that point i don't know i know are we i don't know am i conversely are there sweet soups out there because that seems to be the line that you're drawing yeah i feel like i feel like savory that's that's the line that i'm kind of like stuck on like my cereals well

no most of my time most of the time the cereals i eat aren't sweet they're just like weedabix or Grape Nuts I know it's like I'm a geriatric woman but those are my favorite kinds of cereals just because they have like a tinge of sweetness

so I don't feel like I'm eating sugar in the morning you know what I mean but I don't know I feel like you're just rocking my world here man

with the avocado toast crunch and the alternate universe snacks taste test think about beef flakes I mean honestly we could take chicken

and we could freeze dry chicken and then we could pulverize it mix that with like the tiniest bit of flour or even not some sort of other binder and then we could create little crunchy aerated chicken nuggets put that in a bowl pour milk on it and eat it do you think that would be cereal or soup i need to try it did you order the code red i don't know i don't know man you're rocking my brain right now i i don't know frick maybe maybe what separates it huh and even i mean say you put that bowl in the microwave and then you're essentially creating chicken stock out of that milk but it's still the same exact food that went into that microwave you know because we've agreed there

can be cold soups gaz gazpacho, you know? So like, what if, you know, your microwave it, you infuse some of that chicken in there, you let it cool down. Are we eating cereal or soup? I don't know, maybe cereal is soup. You don't have to choose. Have you converted me?

Embrace the fact that cereal is soup. It's a beautiful world in here. Nicole, the water is so warm. There's no rules in any food once you agree that cereal is soup i was so sure oh i'm like no it's not but when you break it down like this and you talk about hypotheticals that's wild i think i think i'm should i say it should i say the words that are on the tip of my say it okay i think cereal soup cereal is soup we've decided it's official again like i feel

dirty saying that i hope you know that you have to jump into the world of hypotheticals it feels wrong it feels it feels impure but i think the way that it's been broken down if you remove the iconicism of cereal i think in a world if you do it properly it could be soup yeah that's all i ask that's all i look forward to hate when you do this to me to coming to your wedding and eating freeze-dried chicken cereal soup sweetie my wedding's not gonna have that kind of stuff you and i both know that another thing with internet definitions not internet definitions dictionary definitions why i consider the internet to be my ultimate sources of information i'm just saying like all

the pictures that you've seen of the earth those aren't actual photographs those are artist renderings they're paintings are you flat earther like the physicist i'm not i'm like flat earth curious oh my gosh like i'm not. But no, the thing about dictionary definitions that they're always changing. Language evolves. Sure. Understandable. Yeah.

You know, so the fact that, you know, they consider soup to be often with meat and something. They even left room in there for the definition to change by using the word often. And there's the word et cetera too. Et cetera. They're being intentionally vague because they don't know the word literally.

Right. They've changed the definition of that to include the hyperbolic definition. Yeah. yeah so many times you get the keyboard warriors out there when someone's like oh my god i'm literally dying like if you were literally dying then you wouldn't be able to yeah yeah yeah but no like we can now use the word literally to be hyperbole to be an exaggeration and the dictionary supports that usage because so many people did it i have one point go ahead can i say my point i would love for you to say a point okay we're we're at a wedding and the dictionary supports that usage because so many people did it. I have one point. Go ahead. Can I say my point?

I would love for you to say your point. Okay. We're at a wedding. A wedding. It's a friend of ours sitting down the first course. Trevor's the only mutual friend that we share. Oh yeah, that's true.

No, yeah? Is it? Okay, Trevor's getting married. We're all invited. And it says first course, soup du jour. And they put frosted flakes in front of you. Are you going to be okay with that? Are you okay okay with that do you think there will be an uproar from the guests or

confusion or some sort of like you know mutiny when that happens or do you think you're just gonna i chill i'm gonna eat this bowl of cereal before i go dance the electric slide because that's what white people listen to at weddings is that what's gonna happen i know. One, I would love to be at a wedding with a mutiny, where people rise up and storm the catering kitchen. This isn't cereal. There's like, this butternut squash ravioli is overspiced. My brother's wedding was very disappointing for me. But anyways, no, of course I would be angry

if they served me a bowl of frosted flakes. That's not because it's not soup. That's because it's not high class or wedding. If they served you a bowl of progresso chicken noodle soup i'd also be mad but what if it was really pretty well what if it was really pretty cereal what's really pretty what if the chef i'm sad it doesn't make their own cereal that's the thing we need to change the world of cereal what if they made their own cereal what if they made their own like awesome cereal and then came out with like a beautiful rose hip infused milk does anyone make their own cereal but like granola but like oh whatever granola there's a lot of um

indian snacks so my my best friend deep uh his mom at his house would like make her own they look exactly like cereal it's used in a lot of uh puris like bell puri is the thing if you ever had it no it's literally just a bunch of like uh little mini cereal bites that you pour different chutneys on and herbs and onions and there's mango and stuff sure and you eat it and it's like this cold but it looks exactly like american breakfast cereal but there's a lot of masala in it and all that like chop masala yeah yeah yeah yeah and so she would like make her own essentially cereal yeah and then because i would always look at it in their pantry and be like that's cornflakes and like no that no, that's like, it's like a chat. Yeah. Which is like a snack.

Yeah. That's wild. And so like, we just need to bring that, you know, I guess we do. We can start making our own fancy cereals. Cause imagine if you were at that wedding and there was some like really

awesome, beautiful cereal, sweet or savory that they like had in the bottom of the bowl and you get little like barrage flowers around it and they come pour this beautiful, elegant rose broth. Barrage. Barrage. Barrage. I just say borage.

Borage. Nobody knows what borage is. The world of fancy cereals is out there that can be served as elegant soups. I think we need to just delve. I think we need to get into the business of savory soups. I think we got to make beef flakes. Savory cereals? Yeah.

Savory cereals. You're already confusing cereal and soups. That means I've done my job. Yep. You've pretty much brainwashed me. Sounds like a regular regular day at the office brainwashing is such a negative term i consider it like you know i don't know like you just did a little bit of light brain laundry oh my gosh you know just like you know put a little fabric softener in there i just think it's so interesting because in america we don't eat savory cereals at all no not even a little

bit so i think if we were able to capitalize on that and market it in the right way and be like have soup for breakfast yeah that could work absolutely yeah soup is eaten for breakfast all around the world like fuzz a huge breakfast food yeah but who eats like cold beef soup oh oh my god mul nam young the korean dish so sorry it is literally cold beef soup with ice chips floating in the broth like for breakfast i don't know if it's uh for breakfast i think it's supposed to be like on a hot day it kind of cools you down it's these buckwheat noodles it's incredible oh i think i've had that at the korean spa yes actually i have to after the sauna wait

wait wait yeah i've totally had that at the spa yeah okay i'm saying once you expand your mind outside the fact that like. But with milk though, or oat milk, almond milk, water. What is cereal with water? I think you can do cereal with water. Why not? You can do anything. There's no rules anymore. I guess not. Now that we've gone this far.

I guess there's no rule anymore. We need to make our own fancy, savory cereal company because then it's healthy for kids. Kids love beef. You don't want to feed them sugar yeah i i i'm down i think this is a possibility the world is beautiful the water is warm is that what you said the water is warm the water is warm this is awesome okay i'm down to have some soup slash cereal go to mythical.com to pick up your box of mythical beef flakes

now available in children's size imagine if we made like little boxes you know those little boxes that you get of soup i mean i mean what do i keep saying soup is cereal oh my god you know those little boxes of like frosted flakes you get yeah they'll like travel size yeah imagine like little travel sized ones i'm into it this is going to be an episode what else we got the cereal industry uses 816 million pounds of sugar per year not anymore not with beef flakes there's gonna be zero grams of sugar and 900 million grams of beef up in those flakes pork flakes that'd be cheaper chicken flakes wow the world so beautiful so expansive josh read some read some cereal facts or some

or some definitions okay webster's definition of cereal. Already established the fact that we don't trust the dictionary and we don't trust the astronauts because they've not been up there. A plant such as a grass yielding starchy grains suitable for food. So that's where we come into like cereal grains like rice and wheat and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Two, the definition we're talking about, a prepared foodstuff of grains such as oatmeal or cornflakes.

But it's funny because they say oatmeal, but they don't consider the term cereal to be the dish. foodstuff of grain such as oatmeal or cornflakes but it was funny because they say oatmeal but they don't consider the term cereal to be the dish which again we're we're seeing it as the dish though right yeah like you say you know i ate cereal for breakfast people are assuming it's milk because to me the milk is what makes it a meal i agree in a way no 100 yeah not just eating handfuls of raw cereal i knew a bodybuilder one time that before one of his competitions the way he would look really like swollen stuff is he would eat handfuls of oatmeal before his competitions that's hot that's hot i love that

that's what i do before we shoot any episode no you don't i do you do you remember i went through a fruity pebble phase i wasn't here for your fruity pebble my soup in the morning phase ready to eat a bowl of fruity pebbles i wasn't here for that that makes sense maybe it was another no it's good you have the simple carbs and it gives you a pump okay here's another thing let's flip the script on this a little bit say you took doritos and just like crushed them up essentially would look like dorito krispies you know a little snack crackle pop action and you poured like um i don't, a chowder broth over it. Not even a chowder broth, just like, you know, I don't know, a little milk and salt. Is that cereal?

Can we take like soup definitions and turn that back into cereal? Because we've already established all cereals are soups. I feel like I can do anything now with this conversation. I feel like there is no limits. Why not? That sounds good. That sounds really good. That's essentially

savory cereal i mean it's like you take yogurt and this is this is the nicole snack special and i love it so much she takes a bowl of greek yogurt and she'll like smear it around the sides of a bowl and then she'll take a bunch of potato chips and throw it on there what else goes on there like paprika yeah i put paprika garlic powder salt pepper whatever I have in the pantry, TBH. And I just kind of mash it together. And it's called chips-o-mast, which means yogurt and chips in Farsi. And it's the best snack in the freaking universe, man.

It's like eating, it's like cereal. It's cereal. It's cereal, but it's not soup, Josh. That's not soup. I don't think it's cereal though, because it's not liquid. So I think if you thinned out that yogurt enough, I think it would both be cereal and soup.

Sometimes I thin out my yogurt. Sometimes I thin out my yogurt. Sometimes I use that Bulgarian, do you know that Bulgarian mountain yogurt that's super thin and tangy? Sometimes I use that when I don't have Greek yogurt. Bulgarian mountain yogurt is soup. It's good for you.

That should have been this podcast. Is Bulgarian mountain yogurt soup? The probiotics in that alone will just clean you out. It at i was at a farmer's market and uh they were selling beet kvass do you know kvass yeah it's like fermented oh isn't that made from brown bread or something yeah it's like a russian peasant drink that's made with brown bread and it's fermented it's like a little bit alcoholic yeah yeah but they're advertising beet kvass and i'm like the only person who'd be like oh my god they're making kvass yeah and so i go over there i start talking about it and she goes there are nine billion probiotics per ounce oh my god and i was just like you could have said any number you could have said there are four probiotics in every ounce

that would have been like dang that's a lot any number over than one was so impressive to me the fact that she said nine million just made me like a little scared. Oh my gosh. And then I buy a bottle and she goes, have you had this before? I'm like, no. And she goes, oh, maybe only start by drinking a couple sips. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, what's going to happen to me?

Oh, your GI tract will just go. Yeah. And so I drank the whole bottle and then had a cold brew. No, you didn't. I sure did did oh my gosh did you poop your pants no i just woke up the next morning feeling great feeling fresh it was the nine million probiotics all nine million hi how are you that's so just checking up oh my gosh it's so silly all right nicole let's just a brief recap because i need to hear you say it one more time is cereal soup josh cereal can't say it say it josh cereal soup cereal soup i agree it's it's

almost upsetting and unfortunate that is but there's no way around it i hate cereal soup uh dogs are horses there's no rules anymore dogs are just tiny tiny horses 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 everyone's got one and it goes in the oven opinions are like casseroles put tater tots on top okay so let's see what kind of messages we've gotten all right we got at bushy dot boo ketchup is hella disgusting shout out to norcal yay area mustard is a gift from the gods don't pit two kings against each

other that's not right we can uplift all condiments here that's right king uplift the condiments i love ketchup i love mustard but i don't like mustard on hamburgers it's a preference i don't think it doesn't belong but i'm saying i don't enjoy it. I've learned to love mustard. I used to hate mustard. Now I love mustard. I don't love it as much as ketchup, though. Yeah, ketchup is

a beautiful sauce. I think ketchup needs a rebrand in a way. Sir Kensington's doing a good job of making fancy ketchup. Oh my gosh, fantastic job. Their ketchup is delightful.

Yes, but ketchup, like if you look at it, it's an agrodolce tomato chutney. It's sweet and sour and spiced. What a lovely sauce. Agreed.

Sauce of kings. Let's see what's next. AJ Collins 15 says, iceberg lettuce is the absolute worst form of food ever. No taste, too crunchy, and it wilts instantly. There are better lettuces out there than iceberg lettuce, but it definitely serves a purpose in food. I think having a taco with some shredded lettuce

is phenomenal. I think putting it in a salad in addition to other lettuces is phenomenal as well. Putting it on a burger, hello, it's delicious. It definitely is like probably the least sexy of lettuces, but I'll still have it. Iceberg lettuce turns me on. I don't know what you're talking about.

Also, he's getting the instant wilt iceberg. Don't buy instant wilt iceberg. Get the good iceberg. Don't buy your iceberg from Walmart. I don't think iceberg does wilt instantly. I think that's what makes it great on burgers. Like Shake Shack uses green leaf lettuce. That stuff wilts instantly.

Oh, yeah. Icebergs actually, I think it has a really beautiful flavor too. If you take a piece of iceberg, put it in your mouth, and meditate on the flavor, it's beautiful. It's hazelnutty to me. love it interesting hazelnutty i've never had i've never thought of that but next time i shove iceberg lettuce in my mouth yeah shout out to

helen rosner from the new yorker because she wrote a beautiful essay on iceberg lettuce because i realized ben asked me what i do for fun on the weekends and i was like i don't know i just lift weights and eat food uh no i also read uh helen Rosner's essays in The New Yorker about iceberg lettuce. Interesting. She wrote a great one on chicken strips. Okay. Yeah. Maybe she can come on the podcast one time.

Oh my God, I would love that. You can read the next one. Oh, this is me. I had Jacob, age 22. Steak should, okay. Sorry, I started laughing before I could finish it. Steak should always be well done. The red parts are icky.

You're icky. I think this is oh i know what this is this is uh jacob ben moha he's a friend of mine no you're wrong jacob this is a bad statement re you need to re-evaluate some things boo-boo but there is a huge like cultural difference on you know who eats uh rare meat and who eats meat well done for like a lot of different reasons right yeah but like i mean like sure your filet mignon eats meat well done for like a lot of different reasons right? Yeah but like I mean like sure your filet mignon can be well done like that's how kebab is that's fine but like

get some steak bloody like a good t-bone hell yeah what the frick. Yeah I love me some medium rare steak but also I think people are too this dude is going way far the other end but I think there's a lot of people on the like steak should never be well done but there's a lot of great well done steak dishes out there yeah the people think well done

equals burnt which is incorrect or dry which is also incorrect i think a well cooked well done steak is definitely delicious as is a medium rare piece of meat yeah it all depends on like how much care you've taken it like there's a meat in maize dish called baluklak or shaking beef as people know it oh i love shaking beef that's that sounds great yeah yeah I absolutely love it uh but yeah no wait I grew up uh not eating any rare meat though because it's not kosher right I mean yeah well I don't know if there's some debate is that's due to bleeding the animal I don't know if it's like in the Torah or something but traditionally a lot of people that I know don't eat their steaks less than medium well I don't know if it's like a

religious thing or if it's just like a preference thing there's even a thing like um a lot of people in east africa like in ethiopia there's like a raw it's essentially sure is it called dorawat what's it called the raw kifte kifte i think it's called kifte yeah they eat raw meat or kitfo kitfo i think it's kitfo but yeah it's like ethiopian tartar but then if you go to like uh parts of west africa like n, I mean, all my Nigerian friends are like, I don't eat steak that's not well done. Yeah. So yeah, it's just, it's a real cultural thing.

But no, man, I get down on beef and any, any color, shape, size, whatevs. Okay. E-T-F-P says Velveeta is good. It's aight. No, Velveeta's great. Oh, it's okay. I'd rather have a slice of american cheese than a spoonful of velveta wait are you thinking of velveta the sauce or like the brick the brick a spoonful of brick

velveta is literally if you melted down like american if you made like an american cheese jello yeah like a thick american cheese jello yeah which i love it velveta emulsifies great and the sauce is gorgeous all right at erica jav says i like avocado and cottage cheese and honey everyone thinks that's weird hmm that sounds like a filipino dessert that i would really enjoy erica it's not that weird girl it's fine it's like breakfast that that's something i would eat for breakfast absolutely i'm down with that avocado i don't know why everyone considers it to be a purely savory thing no of course not it's great and like hollow hollow in filipino food get like the avocado in there with the condensed milk honey's basically condensed milk cottage

cheese delicious with like fruit on it i'm diggity down with that next time put honey on your avocado toast it's delicious yeah sweet avocado toast i do that all the time why don't more people do that because they ate me dude get some like dates and honey and a little bit of nuts on avocado toast. Delicious. Yo. Breakfast. Into it. Am I next? Yeah. Lania something says ketchup on eggs is nasty to ease.

No, why? That's false. I love eggs and ketchup. It's delicious. It's dank. What are you talking about? I don't like it when my eggs are runny though. When my eggs are runny, I like to have it with hot sauce.

The ketchup kind of like makes it like this weird cold yolk situation. So I'll eat it with an omelet, but I won't eat it with runny eggs. Do you remember what I ate at like 11 a.m. yesterday? Four eggs. Boom. Scrambled. Yes. With a lot of ketchup on it.

There was also some Arizona gunslinger hot sauce in the ketchup. That's like my favorite meal. Oh, yeah. You love that. Ketchup on eggs is absolutely beautiful. I love that I get this next one for a reason. Robin Nabat says, Gourmet Sabzi is whack. Nicole, is this one of your friends? All of these have been my friends.

Erica's my friend. Robin is my friend. ETFP is my friend. These are all people I associate with. You were the one that, dang it. Whatever. We'll do some non-Nicole's friends. I love Gourmet Sobsie.

Gourmet Sobsie, for people who don't know, I love that I'm the one explaining this. It is a Persian Khoresh, which is a stew that is made with a ton of fresh herbs and kidney beans and typically beef. Yeah. Typically beef. Fenugreek is one of the main flavors

that you're tasting in it, but tons of what? Parsley? Is there fresh dill in there and not well my mom every every mom makes it different my mom puts cilantro parsley tada tada is like a type of green onion it's like specific to persian people um some people put spinach in there some people put some other green herbs in there whatever you want to put in there great great acidic uh acidic, uh, herbaceous stew. I love gourmet. Me too. All right.

Uh, at next, I'm next. Oh my gosh. I'm next. It's my, it's my turn. Matthew Devaney says,

I hate food, but I love mythical kitchen. That was me blowing you a kiss. Cause I love you. That's very sweet. At just mainstream trash says fruity pebbles as a chicken tender breading

is it soup that's a sandwich that's all I know here's my problem with it because are they saying you should do it whole

or buzz them up in a processor and make them like a crumb because if you do that they turn a very weird color it's like a grayish

purple I have a feeling just like straight fruity pebbles also when you fry a sugary cereal, it caramelizes on the outside and it burns before the chicken's done. Shockingly, I am against this idea.

You'd think I would be very for it. Nope, nope. I agree. Don't do it. Am I next? Yeah. Oneheart907 says, Chicken Parmesan is BS

because they let a perfectly crispy chicken get soggy. Why make a beautiful crust if you're just gonna cover it in sauce it's about okay so when you have a really good chicken parmesan like only like the center part has like a bunch of sauce on it but the edges stay crispy so you get the duality of that super crispy chicken and then that really soft beautiful anxious meat with the cheese on it and that's that this is me snapping for nicole thank you there's also i think there's words in other i think there's a chinese word for a like crispy food soaked in sauce and the texture that's creates it's really magical yeah because this

is a lot different than like you know if you fry something and soak it in sauce it doesn't like just get soggy yeah there's this beautiful like half kind of like the tension of the crunch is yielding to the sauce it's beautiful the top is like soggy but there's the center that's still crisp and then the bottom part of the protein that got a little wet is there too so i totally know what you mean crispy fried things covered and soaked in sauce is one of my favorite things in the world shout out panda express orange chicken all right at bearded underscore viking underscore geek oh wow taco bell cinnamon twist dipped in taco bell nacho cheese is the best combo at taco bell one no because the best combo at taco bell is pretty much anything fire sauce and cheesy fiesta potatoes is

a really simple delicious combo i have dipped cinnamon twists in nacho no you haven't i sure have why have you done that? Because they were there. Oh my gosh. And I want to shotgun method the entire food world. My idea is I want to just create every flavor profile in my mouth and put that up in the memory bank and then use that for later. So I have had that.

I get the appeal of the sweet and savory and all that. It's not for me. I'd rather dip nachos in nacho cheese. I'd rather dip cinnamon twists in the little glaze that they give for the cinnabon delights oh my gosh i'm sorry i cannot uh i cannot grasp my brain is having a malfunction last one i mean this doesn't have to be the last one but this is one it's called bazo h minsky he has a few opinions okay so i think we should read one and then move on okay yeah green peppers don't belong in anything. I don't agree.

I think they belong in a lot of things. You ever had a sofrito? It's quite delicious. Cajun trinity, bell pepper, onion, celery. Okay, cool. Kiwis should be eaten like apples. Like with the skin on? Do you eat kiwi skin?

I don't, I sure don't. I don't like, neither of us like kiwis, is that right? Kiwi makes my tongue itch. I'll still eat it though. Yeah, the texture inside a kiwi is like broken glass and I really don't. I don't like, neither of us like kiwis though, right? Kiwi makes my tongue itch. I'll still eat it though. Yeah, the texture inside a kiwi is like broken glass and I really don't like eating fuzzy. I don't like eating fuzzy skins on fruits. Like you get like a real hairy nectarine. I love nectarines.

Nectarines are my favorite. Don't give me fruit hair. I don't want fruit hairs. I love hairy nectarines. I like a good shaven nectarine. I love, nectarines are so delicious. Okay, filet mignon is the worst steak it's not it's not the worst it's good it can withstand cooking temp like a high cooking temp

yeah yeah i agree that you know it it's something where filet mignon for such a long time was considered like the big business boy steak like oh i'm uh jordan belfort jordan wolf of wall street guy for people who don't know that guy's name, I'm going to eat a filet mignon. And Margot Robbie's going to divorce me or whatever. But no, now I think we're like 20 years away from people being like, ribeye's the worst steak.

It's so overrated. Because now like everyone's all up on the ribeyes. I don't think anyone's going to eat steak in 20 years. That's also true. Yeah. Last one this guy says is, eating a banana is like biting into a turd. Yeah, here's the thing.

If someone was bitten into a lot of turds, I just can't speak to that. It certainly looks like a turd more than any of the other fruits, except, you know what really looks like a turd? Fresh tamarind in the pod. Google fresh tamarind in the pod. Looks like a poop.

Yeah, but it's yummy. It tastes so yummy. Yeah, I like tamarind in the pod oh google fresh tamarind the pod looks like a poop yeah but it's yummy it tastes so yummy yeah i like tamarind pods it tastes so yummy it's almost as yummy as this podcast which is now over bye boom clean out so clean so good mr clean and on that note you know what i'm new to podcast and on that note no there's no that note we're just done this is the end of the podcast thank you for listening to to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Check us out again next week when we ask, is lab-grown meat vegan? Oh my gosh. If you want to be featured on Opinions Are Like Casseroles, you can hit us up on Twitter at mythicalchef or and hendizadeh with the hashtag opinion casserole. And for more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube. We launch new recipe videos every week and a new premium show on Tuesday. And if you want to see with your eyes

what you heard with your ears here today, check us out on the video version of the podcast out tomorrow on youtube.com slash mythicalkitchen. See you next time. Opinions are like casseroles. Sometimes there's onions inside of them. Opinions are like casseroles. Taste good with cream of mushroom soup.