A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - What Does Barbecue Actually Mean?

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

Is it a barbecue or a cookout? Today, Josh and Nicole are discussing: what does barbecue actually mean? Leave us a voicemail at (833) DOG-POD1 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This, this, this, this is Mythical. What's the difference between a barbecue and a cookout and why doesn't anyone invite me to any of them? You know why. Oh my god, that was one time. This is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense.

A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Ayer. And I'm your host, Nicole Inayati. And Nicole, this, like all good ideas, came from a stranger on the internet complaining at me. Oh, I thought it was just you.

No, well, okay, this is a topic that we've talked about discussing because the term barbecue, it is, it's a little bit confusing. People think they know what it means, then is, it's a little bit confusing. People think they know what it means. Then if you actually press them for a definition and this happened because I, I think we were doing the busting hot dog myths episode on the mythical kitchen YouTube channel. Okay. And I said, yeah, when I go to a barbecue, I like to, and somebody said, stop calling it a barbecue. That's a cookout.

But for me, I grew up calling any sort of outdoor grilling, large gathering a barbecue. But if you were to actually ask me, what does barbecue mean? I would be like, well, obviously it is a an indirect cooking method of low and slow heat using live fire that generally, you know, dates back to a lot of black American cooking innovation in, let's say, like the 1600s. But I'm still going to a barbecue and grilling up some dogs on a propane grill and drinking 19 Coors Lights, baby. Yeah, finding the definition is going to be difficult, but I'm glad we're on this journey together.

Just you and me, Nicole. I think it's going to be complicated. Well, what do you think it is? If you had to just make a definition of barbecue right now? Well, a barbecue or barbecue. Let's just you had to just make a definition of barbecue right now. A bar. Well, a barbecue or barbecue. Let's just say barbecue. There's a difference between the two.

I know. I agree with that. Going to a barbecue and eating barbecue are two different things for me. If you go to somebody is manning a propane or womaning a propane grill or non-binary. Listen, you can do anything to a propane grill you want to do. Gender not specific. But if somebody's like grilling up hot dogs

and you got a bunch of chips and potato salad out there, what do you call that event? Good day at the park. I don't necessarily, I personally, in my like lexicon, I don't use the word

I'm going to a barbecue later. I just say I'm going to go hang out at a friend's house and chances are they have a Traeger grill. Interesting. Or two. But you don't have a name for that specific event. No, we're just going to go barbecue later. I just say, I'm going to go hang out at a friend's house and chances are they have a Traeger grill. Interesting. Or two. But you don't have a name

for that specific event. No, we're just going to go kick it. Yeah, I mean. The word barbecue is not in my vocabulary as much as it should be. But if I'm going to say,

let's say I'm going to go to like a barbecue spot, like a barbecue joint, like Bloodsos or Slab, which are two very delicious barbecue spots. That's different like i'm

going to eat barbecue i don't go to barbecues it was funny when you said kick it that right i got into a debate once about the difference between quote a kickback and a party this is a great okay okay segue i am down to also dissect this if you would like because a kickback and a party a kickback and a party and there's one other one what is the other one there's one other one. What is the other one? There's one other one. I don't know. I only go to kickbacks and parties. And sometimes you go to a kickback that's actually a party.

A pregame, pregame. Oh, and a pregame, yeah. And then the pregame turns into a kickback that evolves into a full-blown party. But no, okay, so barbecue, if we break down the root word of it, because I think this is really important. This, to me, is a very historical one. The etymology, it comes from the Arawak language, which are from the Taino people that were all across the Caribbean and South America. You go to Guyana, Suriname.

That's where they're speaking this language. But on the island of Hispaniola, they had a word, barabicu, which referred to a framework of sticks that they would set next to an open fire. So, you know, like, you ever see the chef's table episode with Francis Malman? Is he the old guy that cooks over, like, a flame only? Yeah, yeah, and he'll, like, build a fire on, like, the ice sheets of Patagonia and just, like, stick a lamb.

It looks like the lamb is crucified and he just puts it, like, next to the fire. Yeah, does he, like, have young lovers? Yeah, he's, like, making love to a woman since exactly, like, cooking a lamb. Cooking a lamb on a fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That guy, that guy. Like, I don't know. From your, Nicole, as a woman since exactly like cooking a lamb on a fire yeah that guy that guy I don't know from your Nicole as a woman yeah is that stuff cool or is that weird

because I get the kibitz watching it I like it no okay cool but I also think Khal Drogo is like the essence of manliness

so I don't know my barometer is off well he's hot he's hot that's you know so the the Taino people they would make

these barbicos and then the Spaniards got there. They're like, yo, that's a pretty god dang good way to cook up an animal. And so the term barbacoa in Spanish, which, yeah, which, you know, go to Chipotle, the most autentico Mexican restaurant in the world. Mucho autentico. No, but like barbacoa literally refers to digging a pit generally, filling it with coals, covering like a whole lamb, say, in the maguey leaves, the agave plant. Sure. And then cooking it directly over fire.

So like that's where they get that from. And it's funny. I was actually on the website of my favorite barbacoa restaurant. Which is what? It's called Aki Estex Coco. Where is that? I think it started in Mexico. Now it's like a mini chain.

And they open one in like Chula Vista that I've been to, but they just specialize in. Oh, rad. And there's one in LA, but it's like kind of deep cut place. But they do whole lamb barbacoa, the OG way. And they'll also do like whole rabbit barbacoa. It's pretty cool. I love the idea of someone coming from a foreign country and just like expanding. Same, expanding into the U.S. Dude, El Pollo Loco.

Like El Pollo Campero. Pollo Campero from Guatemala. Is another example. Like there's so many stories like that that just bring me joy, like truly. And the fact that they make rabbit and lamb. Do they do beef barbacoa? I don't think they do beef. Because like, no, because who does beef?

Only Chipotle does beef. Yeah, pretty much. Well, actually, barbacoa does mean in other regions uh a whole cow's head that is cooked yeah that's true yeah right and so it's a regional thing yeah barbacoa just has a bunch of different uh but barbacoa didn't mean barbecue barbacoa barbecue yeah no it makes sense it makes sense and on akiya's texcoco's website it it literally said mole is the OG barbecue sauce. And I was like, yo, that's pretty rad. Because we're so used to eating it on like boiled chicken.

That's kind of like how I have it. Oh, mole. Yeah, same, same, same. That's the way we're used to having it. But like cooking animals over fire, like if you were to define what barbecue is, a lot of people would say that, right? Using smoke, using indirect heat to cook animals. If you use that definition, then like people have been barbecuing for literally over a million years probably is when humans started to cook their food. I believe that humans became more human once they started cooking their food. And there's reason for that.

Did you read Sapiens? Have we talked about this? I did not read Sapiens, but my dad sends me snippets of Sapiens in order for me to become a more educated person. But I don't really listen to it. I just kind of skim through. And if I see like, I don't know, like some image that interests me, I like stay on it. I'm like nine hours into the book on sapiens. Is it good?

It's very fascinating. Should I start reading it? I'm also falling asleep while I'm driving. It's becoming a safety hazard. But that said, what I learned from sapiens is that the reason humans started cooking meat was because one, we got big brain energy. Physically physically we have bigger brains than every other animal right and brains yeah and it takes a lot more uh power to just fuel the brain so you need more food comparatively to other animals reason lions can

eat like once every four days or whatever and we got to keep shoving food down our gullets every day yeah that's the reason i eat like meatballs every three hours you know just keeping brain going because it's so big um but uh if you cook food you're effectively pre-digesting it oh sure and so like if you were to just suck down raw meat it would literally take longer it would cause more energy to expend while you're digesting and so cooking was literally just a way to start breaking the food down getting it getting more of it us faster. So barbecue makes us more evolved. Barbecue literally helped us evolve. That's incredible. And you see barbecue represented in the Bible.

You know what I mean? Where? They're talking about burning carcasses to sacrifice to God, you know, like Leviticus. Is that a barbecue or is that just a sacrifice? That's the question. Do you eat the sacrifice? Well, no, but the point is you're not supposed to eat it because it's a sacrifice, but you're making the best parts for God. That's what I believe.

That's my version of Judaism. When does he come up and get it for her? When do they come up and get it? No, but they literally, I think, describe like the pleasant godly aromas floating up from grilled meats. That's really interesting yeah yeah i had no idea that barbecue was in the bible yeah i mean like they don't use the exact word well you said it so now i believe it welcome to my life josh you say it and i believe it but now and then there is a you know massive tradition of predominantly black american pitmasters dating

i mean centuries ago and, you know, continuing now. I'm thinking like Rodney Scott, for instance, cooking a whole hog barbecue in the Carolinas doing incredible work. And so, you know, you now have this modern interpretation of barbecue, which is very regionally specific. So you'll get Daniel Vaughn from Texas Monthly. He is a full time barbecue editor.

So cool. What a cool job. What a cool freaking job. What a cool gig. But he wrote an article that was just called What is Barbecue? And he was talking about how pitmasters from North Carolina

are like the only barbecue is whole hog cooked over an open pit. And then people in Texas are like, no, no, no. It's got to be cow meat. It's got to be pure beef. And it's got to be cooked in an offset smoker.

So even if you're like not one of the people who thinks that, yeah, cooking hot dogs on a grill is barbecue, you know, there's still a lot of like hardliners who think that their style is the only way. I guess we call it grilling when I think about it. Like we're going to go grill stuff. Sure. Is grilling stuff barbecuing stuff? Well, so uh i was reading um his name is meathead goldwyn he's just a legendary barbecue is that his christian name

i don't know his name is craig okay but if you if you get a moniker like meathead and you're in the barbecue world yeah you're not doing that what's what would my nickname be mistake that's oh mistake that's my drag name yeah yeah my basketball coach he's calling me big country and i like that but I'm not particularly country. Big Country? Big Country Brian Reeves was a basketball player, but he was also known as one of the worst flops in NBA history.

But he would say it very excitedly. He'd be like, Big Country! And I'd be like, hey, Rob. Good to see you. Why didn't he just call you, I don't know, Botswana? That's a big country. That's a big country. I do have a Botswana tank top because I love their 4x400 meter relay team.

Yeah, you do. Yeah, yeah. Babaloki Tebe. I just call you Botswana. Nigel Amos came back from injury this year. Isaac McQuala. Great. I don't care.

God dang it. Don't freaking care. Anywho, so what barbecue actually actually is isn't that simple um but you were talking about grilling versus barbecuing yeah what's what's the difference to that where is the line is there a line should there be a line so if you're talking to someone like meathead goldwyn who you know uh basically said that if you try to draw the line between grilling and barbecuing, which some could consider direct heat versus indirect heat, right? So like grilling, for instance, right? You take the coals, you're burning wood down until they're coals, they stay hot, and you put a grate above them and you cook the meat directly on that grate.

Yeah. Right? That sounds a lot like grilling. But that's also what an open pit in North Carolina looks like. Well, there you go. You know what I mean? So it's like that is kind of direct heat. But that's also what an open pit in North Carolina looks like. Well, there you go. You know what I mean? So it's like that is kind of direct heat. But you move the meat away from that.

Yeah, you keep it real low heat. So if you want to call grilling just like high heat cooking. High heat cooking. Okay. But then if you think, you ever grilled like boning chicken breast? Of course. And it just burns on the outside. But you can't grill it on a high heat.

So you got to grill it on low heat. And at that point, on low heat and at that point it's like are you barbecuing but you're still grilling is does barbecue equate low and slow cooking i think that's what a lot of people would say which like it makes sense if you are cooking like especially a whole animal which there are some people who believe that barbecue only means a whole animal yeah you know what i mean that's not accessible it's not accessible if you do that no but then we also find ourselves you know uh i grew up eating barbecue chicken right like three times a week yeah sure which was we would throw chicken in an oven then put some bullseye barbecue sauce never heard of it on it and so it's like there's still a far cry sure from that but that's actually how we ended up in this weird place where barbecue became a word that.

A verb? Yeah. I mean, like, well, not even a verb, but like just a term that everybody is very casually familiar with. Sure. Yeah. Barbecue flavored potato chips. Yeah. We know what that is.

Yeah. We know what that is. We know what barbecue chicken is. We know what barbecue chicken is. And a lot of that comes from like the proliferation of outside grilling, which I'm really fascinated by. Because I don't know. proliferation of outside grilling, which I'm really fascinated by because I don't know. I always kind of assumed people were always grilling on a patio.

And then like thinking back to the past, I'm like, I don't know that that was actually the case. Well, it depends. Did you grow up in like a house place or an apartment place? Because you can't have apartments with grills all the time. But you still can if you just don't care about your landlords. I'll tell you what, because i have smoked entire racks of ribs oh my god you never got kicked out uh no no that's nice the only time i felt guilty doing something on my patio in an la apartment was deep frying a turkey on a just on a patio on

like a second floor it didn't explode but like there were some tenuous situations where i was like yo if this falls on Ronaldo downstairs, I'm screwed. Why didn't you just do it on the ground, like in the parking lot? Because Ronaldo was down there and like he wasn't doing so hot. And he sometimes was just like naked. He's a very old man. And sometimes he just wandered around naked and he'd like want to talk to you. So you wanted to put hot oil over his naked head? No, I'm saying I didn't want to like go down there and start deep frying a turkey.

And then Ronaldo comes out naked and starts yelling at me. Like balls out? Sometimes. He just had shopping carts just filled with hundreds of wine bottles and he would just keep them. He was one of those old men. I don't like those guys. I love old men, but not that kind of old man. He was trying his best. He lived an interesting

life. His family owned apparently one of the first Mexican restaurants. Interesting neighbors you have sometimes. I have very interesting neighbors. When you need to find a very cheap apartment in LA. I get it. But like, no, like, see, like, I never, see what we did. We never, like, we never went to barbecue.

We would just literally package our burgers and our hot dogs and maybe some chicken. And then we would also take cabob meat and then put that on a grill too. So like, we were like. Are you talking like in a public park? Yeah. Yeah. That's the way we like to do do it that's where i had barbecues growing up yeah but i don't know if i call them barbecues i know it feels rude and disrespectful i agree with that i agree pitmasters that are in there they're in deep and like they are their whole lives are dedicated to smoking delicious meats and it's like me and my mom are just like putting oil on a skewer. I know, I know, I know. But I guess it is barbecuing, right?

Is it barbecuing or is that just grilling? Some people would say it's not. Some people would say it is. But if you like. What's a carne asada? Is that grilling or barbecuing? A carne asada is the best freaking time of your life. Is that grilling or barbecuing?

Well, okay. So that's really interesting, right? Because barbecue is, despite coming from Spanish, despite coming from the Arawak language, barbecue is, I would argue, the most American food, right? It's our deepest American food tradition. What other food could you say is uniquely American? I don't think America has anything uniquely American about it. Like mac and cheese, even though the first word in that is very Italian. You know what I mean?

No, no. I mean indigenous food. Sure. Yeah. I mean like cornbread and what goes better with barbecue than cornbread right like for real like yeah no you're barbecue yeah and a lot of thanksgiving dinner that's the most american thing i can think of yeah pretty much and then that kind of didn't come to later and that was a very like sort of politicized

barbecue is like the og american food so when we're wow okay but now we've exported the idea of barbecue elsewhere. I have a question about that. What's up? You say it's the most American food, but didn't everybody do that kind of cooking anyways all around the world? Yes, you're correct. So calling it American is kind of like dumb. No, no, no.

I agree. Not that you're dumb. No, I agree. No, no, but everyone did it. So why are we calling it American whenever people were doing it all over the place? I know. That's why I wanted to explore this thing correctly. Because like, so, okay.

So mini kebab, one of our favorite restaurants in Glendale. Oh my God. I love mini kebab. Shout out to the Martirosians. Wow. Armin, he started a taco pop-up. They make the best flame-grilled kebabs that I've ever had, probably.

Yummy. And the wood they cook it with, you're talking about, you know, a very American tradition of barbecuing. You take the trees of the area, right? Texas uses white oak. Sometimes they'll use pecan wood. Mesquite in the southwest.

Cherry! It's very regional. Do you barbecue on cherry? I guess, like, cherry would smoke stuff, yeah. Cherry wood! Alderwood. But Armin from Armenia, he was like, yo, in Armenia, we would typically use dried grapevines. Oh, cool.

And he's like, I couldn't find them anywhere here until I like found this Armenian farmer who was growing them. And we drive up an hour to like literally clip grapevines and let them dry out a little bit. And so like, and he's cooking dark meat chicken. It's kebab, but like pretty freaking low and slow and tender over live burning grapevines, the terroir of Armenia. And I'm like, bro, that's barbecue. That's barbecue that they're making. Does he call it barbecue?

Certainly not. What does he call it? He calls it kebab, dude. He's making kebab. Yeah. You know what I mean? See, it's just so hard. Like this whole podcast

whenever we discuss like what things actually mean like if a hot dog is a sandwich what is barbecue is the ocean a soup like we're just looking at this all from being like two american kids i know sure sure sure which makes it so insular and hard for me to like accept but also for me really beautiful because you kind of like look you extrapolate the things you grew up with to the rest of the world what i'm. Okay. So we're talking about barbecue being a very American, very artisanal art. The best barbecuers are like, they're gods in my mind, not to deify people in the food industry more than they already have. I mean, they just, they just practice their craft for years and years and years and they

know what they're doing. and it's and it pays off in your freaking mouth oh my gosh yeah whenever i went to texas i had terry black's barbecue and it was so good dude when i when i went to snow's i mean franklin la barbecue micklethwaite all these freaking places i don't know that one sorry um but it's funny if you look at a majority of americans there was a poll from yougov they asked about 8 000 american adults quote what main dishes are part of your ideal barbecue plate select all that apply what do you think the top two dishes were uh potato salad mac and cheese no like meats meats pork no uh ribs no chicken nope what the not in the top two fish burgers and hot dogs baby oh shoot so most people

when they think of you know part of your ideal barbecue yeah they think of a barbecue as cooking you know burgers well well yeah that's because that's their definition of barbecue sure and that's just the american definition i was trying to find out like where this idea came from and i found an incredible article from 1956 food writer clementine paddleford she traveled to the West. She like, yeah. Right. Clementine Paddleford is the most 1950s journalist name you've ever heard. Um,

but she traveled to the West coast of the U S to like, I don't know, sort of catalog this new, like American homeownership domesticity and what it looked like in the West coast. Uh, and she said everywhere, the barbecue,

no longer a new thing. Once a fad, now a solid in the way of home entertaining. I doubt if ever again fried meats will be in the running. Almost every Western home has an outdoor barbecue, and usually a second built in the kitchen for cold weather use. Now the barbecue moves into smart dining rooms and restaurants. Charcoal broiled meats are featured served from the barbecue, centered in the dining room, presided over by a chef in a high hat.

This is in the 50s. So it was like, you know, this proliferation of the outdoor barbecuing thing that kind of took it away from, say, the public barbecues in Fort Worth, Texas in 1885 where they just dig giant pits and cook whole animals for the town. They were like trying to sort of sell this, I don't know, kind of outdoor kind of rugged thing. More men were coming home from the war, learning what their role in the house was. Of course,

this is during the mad men era. So there's a lot of marketing behind the barbecues, bottled barbecue sauce in 1940. Nicole just came out from Heinz. Give me that. And so, yeah, I got Jesus,

I guzzled down bottled barbecue sauce. Yeah, you really do. But I'm saying like that to me is when this sort of definition switched to just, yo, we're cooking outside,

we're barbecuing, we're putting barbecue sauce on our burgers, on our chicken, that's barbecuing. So it like doesn't, you know, isn't necessarily faithful

to what I'd say the OG definition from all these beautiful artisans making their delicious foods, but it is something that's like in the lexicon. Well, my question is, again, again, with the international definition, like Korean barbecue.

I know, that's another big one. Japanese barbecue. Frickin' yakitori. Let's talk about Korean barbecue. Oh, I love it. Because that, one... I do love it. If y'all describe Korean barbecue to people

who may have never had it. Okay, so you go with your... Number one, you have to go with your friends, okay? You gotta your friends okay so yeah you gotta roll deep and you gotta go with a crew of at least four or more and you just sit around a table and there's a grill in the middle of your table and you are given raw meat to cook normally raw meat i mean they yeah and uh you are told to cook it yourself and you do at a high heat sometimes you can go lower but it's normally just a big old flame the servers always try and turn the heat down for you

and then you say no yeah yeah yeah no it's a battle yeah and then they and then

and then you just pick up the meat and you eat it yourself and it's really damned delicious Japanese barbecue is also very similar to Gyukaku

shout out I love that place like those like what are those if those aren't barbecue then what is right so that's what I'm fascinated about the word barbecue and how it's now right I love that phrase. Like, what are those? If those aren't barbecue, then what is? Right? So that's what I'm fascinated about the word barbecue and how it's now, right, transposed around the world.

So when I ordered lunch from a Thai restaurant, we're getting it catered for a shoot. I ordered the Thai barbecue chicken. And it was chicken that had been cooked for a long time, low and slow, over an open flame, just stained with turmeric and galangal. God dang it, it's so good but it's like is that technically barbecue is el pollo local barbecue el pollo al carbón

I mean is it cooked low and slow over live fire over coals if we say it is it gonna be okay and then but again like

the Mexican term for barbecue like someone when we were talking about is a hot dog a sandwich and people are like oh hot dog's a taco

and people are like yo you know in Mexico we got like tortas, we got sandwiches. We literally call things on Slicebread Sandwiches. We have semitas, we have bombazos. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We have all that. And so like in Mexico, it's like, yo, their barbecue is literally the OG word, barbacoa. Right? And so for them, like.

So putting chicken. That's an asada, right? Okay, so what's the difference between asada and barbacoa? Asada is just cooked on a grill. Asada is like cooked on an open grill and barbacoa is cooked in what's typically a dugout pit. I mean, now, if you're in a restaurant, you're probably making it, you know, in a more efficient, easy way to make money for a restaurant. Yeah. But so like once you go even just one country south, you're getting entirely different definitions of what barbecue is.

That's so fun to me. But then you get Korean barbecue, which, you know, they're not calling it barbecue in Korea. What do they call it in Korea? I don't know. Maggie, can you look it up? Like what is Korean barbecue called in Korean? I have a feeling that whenever my husband went to Korea with like all his homies, it's KBBQ. Do they call it that?

I guess to the Americans they do. So it literally translates to grilled meat, I suppose. But then even the term grilled is, right? Really open-ended. Like a grilled cheese that's just cooked in a pan, homie. Grilled cheese isn't even grilled. I know, that's what I'm saying. Some people confuse grilled and griddled.

They'll say fried to mean something in a pan. A lot of these terms are nebulous. The interesting thing with Korean barbecue is you'll go to some places um i think it's a place called suit bull jeep i believe in la sure sure sure where they do it with live coals i think really i think they do it with a grate and live coals that's rad uh and so you're actually cooking on live coals but then a vast majority are it'll either be you know a gas flame and then like a just a metal plate with a little bit of grates in it sure sure some places i went to one place that was like a slightly slanted cast iron wow fat ran down like i like the ones i like the stones that they come and yeah with the radish yeah that are my favorite yeah this place had

the cast iron they also they had an all-you-can-drink option oh yum um for like 60 dollars all you can eat all you can drink and turns out you do not need you do not need both it should be one or the other it should be one of that i went with kevin rigg oh my god and we were and he and i can can eat and drink like freaking crazy and that was a bad time that sounds like excess oh man we just wandered just blind and full. That's crazy. But then, okay, so we're talking about. What's up? Sorry.

I like this topic a lot. I do, too. I'm so intrigued. I'm trying to find the light, but I don't know. We don't have that much time in this podcast to find the light, maybe. I don't know. I don't know if there is any light to be found. I think maybe this is just a celebration of all the cultures that like to grill meat over live fire i love the way you frame that you know honestly you're right and i'll stop calling it a barbecue yeah what is i don't need to i'm not married to it what is with us

constantly defining crap like maybe we just gotta let things be as they are and just you said celebrate them like i freaking love all these examples of barbecue that we have on our on our sheet. Like, but, you know, you know what I like about this? What is that? This is a way to find commonalities. Sure. Yeah. Right.

To say, like, what is barbecue? Let's look at all the cultures that do stuff. Tandoori chicken. Yeah. It's live coals in a in a clay ceramic oven. Is it just a good ass Tandoori chicken? Of course. course, often. Bro, unreal.

But I don't know if I would call that barbecue. That's being called that's oven-baked. No, I mean, that's tandoori, baby. Okay, tandoori's oven-baked. That's just tandoori.

But that said, one of my favorite... Don't call it barbecue because it's not. It's live coals. No, man, you cook it in a tandoor. A tandoor is a tandoor.

Fair, fair, fair. Sorry, I just turned version. Yakitori. Yeah, I just said yakitori. What about that? You said it? Oh,andoor. A tandoor is a tandoor. Fair, fair, fair. Sorry, I just said version. Yakitori. Yeah, I just said yakitori. You said it? Oh, my bad. So, I mean, yakitori is, I mean, it's cooked over really high heat, which is part of it.

But, like, experiencing the pure flavor of, like, a binchotan Japanese charcoal. Special. You know, that is special. That's something really special. Brushed down with the soy. And my favorite thing about all this is now you get people, because American barbecue, the thing we're really talking about, is something special. Absolutely. Whether it is cooked over an offset smoker, which is to say you have the wood smoking in a separate component that is then moving the air over the meat in another chamber.

Sure. You know, which is Texas barbecue, I believe, is big on offset smokers. Or you're using the live wood over an open pit. Yeah. Doing that low and slow in getting a ton of smoke penetration, which to me is the biggest difference is the penetration of smoke. Yeah. You don't get that everywhere. No. And I'm trying to think of other and some people made not exactly like that. But that to me is like a defining characteristic. And now America being the melting pot that it is you get a bunch of like diverse pit masters who are like yo we make this sausage in cambodia right with like fermented pork and chilies and galangal and lemongrass and thankety thank what if i cooked that in an offset

smoker and made it a hot link right i'm thinking i'm thinking of the best maybe the best barbecue i've ever had was there were these uh vietnamese houstonian pitmasters who came and cooked with mexican american pitmasters from heritage barbecue also a daughter uh the heritage barbecue fam fan of the show big shout out to her i'm sorry i forgot your name but next time i'm at heritage barbecue but they did this like pop-up together and they were making like smoked brisket, like five spice smoked brisket bun mee. They were doing panang curry with, you know, smoked short rib stock. And they made this like the Cambodian hot link.

Oh, no, no, no. It wasn't a Cambodian. Oh, my God. No, it was ba la lot. Don't know what that is. Oh, my God. Oh, Vietnamese like ground beef roll that's wrapped in beetle leaf. Huh?

And the beetle leaf gives it's wrapped in beetle leaf. Huh? And the beetle leaf gives it right. Beetle leaf. They were doing beetle leaf smoked sausages, Nicole, in the American barbecue tradition. That is the beauty of this, right? You know, I don't care

how many like barbecue flavored things that make no freaking sense you get around the world. I don't care about how many people think that a hot dog, you know, equates barbecue

or how many times I have said that I'm going to a barbecue and I'm really just grilling up some pork chops that I got on Manager Special at the Ralph's. Yeah, yeah. The fact that American Barbecue is such an institution and has now like inspired people from around the world. Yeah, it's cool. Dude in L.A. right now is making a Basturma cured American smoked brisket. Is he? That's crazy.

Nicole, within like five miles of here. I know what you're talking about. I want to go to that. He hosts like private dinners for like- Can you just take me places? You talk about them, but you never take me

and it makes me sad. Because you're always, it's always Shabbat. I've known you for three years. I do things, I respect your religion. It is all, well, it's not my,

it's my culture, but, and I don't, listen, if I was a better Jew- I've known you for three years. Just take me to these damn- I go on Friday night and Saturday morning. Take me on Saturday morning. I touch electricity on Saturdays.

I'm going. So what do we learn from this beautiful conversation, Josh? OK, if you really are to define barbecue. OK. Right. I want many people have tried who are a lot smarter than me. I'll quote Meathead Goldwyn here.

He said, there are many legitimate definitions including verbs, nouns, and adjectives. There's even a legal definition which we didn't even talk about but I'm sick of talking

about legal definitions after the freaking hot dog because I just want to talk about food. One definition won't do the job. When you cut through the haze, ultimately, it is smoke that differentiates barbecue from other types of cooking.

There are forms of barbecue all around the world, but it's the presence of smoke that unifies them all. So listen, though, if you're closing a charcoal grill, you know, spray it down a little bit. You're getting some smoke on there. If you want to consider that barbecue, you can. I don't know if I necessarily would. to that barbecue, you can. I don't know if I necessarily would. That said, cooking meat over open fire or with the beautiful perfumey power

of low and slow smoking, baby, one of the most pure pleasures of life. Smoke means every day. Nicole, we've heard what you and I have to say now it's time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling around there in the twitterverse time for a segment we call oh you're just not going to say it this time? no

opinions are like it doesn't sound right if I just opinions are like casseroles did that scare you? I didn't like that. You just, you went silent on me. I thought you had a little mini stroke. No.

All right, first up, we got Mary Cassette 5. Onions are the best vegetables. So misunderstood, so versatile. Yeah. Yeah. I love onions. Who doesn't like onions? There's a lot of you.

Emily Fleming does not like onions. What? She says they're rude. Like raw ones? Raw ones can be intrusive. I agree. Sometimes you get a real stank onion and like you put it on a bagel with lox and you're like, yo, that onion's like a little too stank to be here right now. But if you know how to treat onions, yeah, they're like literally the best vegetable.

I agree with that. Yeah. I have a funny story about onions. Do you want to hear it? Oh, my God, Nicole the best vegetable. I agree with that. Yeah, I have a funny story about onions. Do you want to hear it? Oh my God, Nicole, so much. Please. So whenever, so I had like a big group of girlfriends and we would all go to Westwood after school, okay?

And then one of my friends was going to meet up with a guy and kiss him for the first time. Oh my God, what? Yeah, yeah. And then we- Like French style? Yeah. Oh my God.

They were going to kiss at the Westwood parking lot. Oh my God. And he was an 818 guy and we were through and so it was kind of like a little bit of an impassioned romance you know what I mean

oh my god Montague's and Cappy let's be right exactly and then so we all go to In-N-Out and then she orders her

her burger she goes can I get a burger and then she looks back at us and then looks at the cashier and says no onions please Jesus

so that was my onion story did you like listen i will i will be tongues deep in another person after eating kimchi and just ferment i do not care i want to be yeah do they kiss of course they kissed i don't know at the westwood parking lot back when you were a kid, though. That was like the kick it spot. That's where you would like hook up. No, you'd be like one for nine though.

I'm like, bro, dude, he's going to, bro, he's going to kiss her today. And then he like, you know,

they come back and they'd be like, do you kiss? He's like, no, dude, time wasn't right. So for me, I don't know if it's different having a group of guy friends.

You were like one for nine. Dude, I hung out with a bunch of like brutish, like Persian boys. Listen, they don't know what that means. They don't understand like social cues very well. They learn the older they get, they get better,

but still really like the social cues are not there. So that was my onion story. If you soak onions in ice water, it can take out the astringency. And I really like that. Scott Conant, is that his name? Yeah, Scott Conant. He doesn't like red onions.

Aaron Leasley says says beef is not that good and inferior to wild game such as elk and venison i don't know what i don't love elk and venison that much um but i will say i would rather have lamb nine times out of nine than beef. Lamb to me, the more I get older, Nicole, the more my tastes refine. I realize that I just vastly prefer lamb. Are you serious? I think the meat is more tender. I think I love that strong gamey flavor. I love that it smells like blue cheese and grass out the pack.

I just, I really. And I'll have like birria de res, right? I'll have beef birria and I'll be like, man, this is just significantly less good than lamb or goat, which are both popular birria meats. That's so interesting. Yeah. I just, I'm kind of on this. I do not eat that much beef anymore in my own home. If I'm cooking red meat, I'm cooking pork or lamb.

I don't cook a lot of red meat at home, but I love red meat and I love eating it so much. What's your favorite way to prep red meat? What's your go-to? Just bistro steak, pan sear, butter. If it was up to me, I could eat a steak a day and I would be a happy girl, but my body won't allow that. I did eat like a pound and a half of filet mignon on set the other day.

It became weirdly trendy in foodie circles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, no, but I also ate like a pound of dates. And so that evacuated everything real fast. Anyway i also ate like a pound of dates oh and so that evacuated everything real fast um but anyway it became like a weird foodie thing to be like filet mignon's not good rib eyes are the only way screw that i don't know man i'm kind of sick of rib eyes i it's just there's so much intramuscular fat yeah and there's sometimes the meat's pretty tough i love the deckle on the outside that little outer ring ring. Sure, everyone does. It's great. But also the best application of beef is...

Kabob? No, because I would rather have lamb kabob. No. I'd rather have fish kabob. No, no, no. I'd rather have chicken thigh. Lamb kabob more than beef kabob? Yeah, dude.

Are you kidding me? It sits there and people don't know how to... No. I hate lamb kabob. No, dude. American barbecue. Texas barbecue. I mean, that's the best expression.

You get a big old barbecue beef rib. Oh, the dinosaur ribs? Oh Texas barbecue. I mean, that's the best expression. You get a big old barbecue beef rib. Oh, the dinosaur ribs? Oh, yeah. I mean, Korean barbecue, too. That's a great expression of beef. Caterpie. Oh, I love meat. That's freaking fantastic. But I think it's just my rejection of, like, the American steak. I love steak. I love a good prime rib, though. Dang, maybe I do like beef. I love prime...

If I could... Okay, I would eat prime rib every day. I go prime rib over pretty much any steak. Wow, I love prime rib. Thanks for reminding me. It's just sumptuous. But no, lamb, in wild game, it's just too lean. It's too lean for my blood.

I like every now and then changing it up and having like a bison burger or like, you know, like having a little bit of, you know, venison carpaccio. Like stuff like that is incredible. Venison tartare is a lovely time. Yes, I do. I've had venison. Raw venison's great. I love it.

And more people should be eating it, you know, because it is delicious, but nothing beats beef in my house. incredible venison tartar is a lovely time yes i do i've had venison's great i love it and more people should be eating it you know because it is delicious but nothing beats beef in my house all right at zafrica by toto cheese and chocolate yeah yeah like what i used to i used to actually um curate cheese and chocolate boards i don't know if i told you this dollar for every time nicole talking about curating a cheese and chocolate board. I don't know if I've told you this. I had a dollar. For every time Nicole talked about curating a cheese and chocolate board, I'd have four dollars. And it was what? Four times.

I'd have four dollars. I've talked about this four times with you. This is the fourth. I don't know. Tell me about it. I feel like we both repeat stories all the time and I don't keep count of your stories, but you always repeat them

and I let you express yourself. Must be nice. Okay. Yeah, I would just pair like cheese as the chocolate. Manchego works really well with a 67% dark from like, from like, you know, Madagascar. Just does. I don't feel like I'd enjoy that. That's fine. It's not for me. And that's totally fine. I love

cheese and chocolate together. More people should do it. I don't even like a chocolate in my cheesecake. Okay. And that's me. And listen, that's fine. You can have your own things. Um, I feel like it should make sense in my mind, but it doesn't. I guess I don't even like, because cheese has umami, right? Yeah. It's acid, it's fat, salt, it's umami. You know what I mean? But chocolate has all of those notes too.

I don't know if chocolate has umami. I don't think I like umami in chocolate. Chocolate definitely has a source of umami in it. Yeah? I believe you. But like miso and chocolate, I don't even love. I love miso and chocolate. And a lot of people like that.

I like salt and chocolate. I love salt and chocolate. But like miso and chocolate, I don't even love. I love miso and chocolate. And a lot of people like that. I like salt and chocolate. I love salt and chocolate. But salt's just good. Captain underscore Ramius says beer can chicken is the biggest gimmick of all food things. I've never done this before. Oh, my God. Okay. So I have written recipes for beer can chicken.

I wrote a guide down how to do it at Maxim. And I think I even called it a gimmick. But I was like, it's a cool gimmick. Yeah. So beer can chicken for anybody who doesn't know. I also made a recipe for malt liquor chicken, which I took a 16 ounce tall boy of old English and put it up there. What? Malt liquor has a lot more sugar in it, so it caramelizes nicely. But what you do, typically you could pour some of the beer out and you could brine the chicken in it, marinate it, whatever. But you take the beer can,

you shove it in the chicken's cloaca. Yes. And then you put that on a grill or a barbecue or whatever. And so the chicken's standing up. So it has the opportunity to cook and drip down. And it's actually kind of good to stand a chicken up like that and cook it because the breast is getting less heat, right? Because it's near the top. And so that's actually pretty good. But what happens with the beer can, people say that, oh, the beer steams the chicken

from the inside. And no, because if you know anything about the temperature at which steam is created 212 212 which like if you're grilling a whole chicken you would never get to get to 212 you would never want to get to the point where you're boiling that so all it's doing is insulating the heat wait what do you mean what can't coals get to like freaking like 400, 500 degrees? No, they definitely can, but if you're cooking a whole chicken,

the temperature at which it would boil beer wouldn't make sense. Hmm. I don't know. To actually, because like chicken's internal temp, right,

should only get up to what, 155? Should is a word. Sure, sure, sure. But who the hell is making sure their chicken's at 155 when they're grilling?

Bro, if you're, that's how I am. Because you and I are anomalies. We're not the average American. We have food. The average American, the only cooking tool you should get is a meat thermometer. Nobody has one, though. Use your bare freaking hands and get a meat thermometer.

My chicken breast is dry. There is one way to fix that, and it's temp check your freaking meats. Yeah, I agree, but people don't do that. They don't do that. So the beer literally just stops the inside of the chicken from cooking because it's insulating heat and it's sucking all of it up trying to get to that 212 and it never does. So it is a gimmick. I think we need to do a test on this. I agree.

I don't agree with your science, Josh. This is an alternative science fact. It is just it's such a fun thing, though. Yeah. You know, to see a beer can shoved in a chicken cloaca. Did you know? So I get the gimmick. Okay, Josh, this is going to blow your mind.

Did you know that beer can is, if you say it in a Jamaican accent, it sounds like bacon? Did you know that if I speak in a Jamaican accent, I. I'm not telling you. I'm just saying, I never told you to do it. I said, did you know that if you did. There was a website devoted to it. You'd click on a Rastafarian man's face. Really?

And one said beer can and one said bacon, and he said the same word. You never went to that website? No. There was another one, too. It was the whole website. And that was what we did for entertainment as kids because we didn't have TikTok. We'd go click on the Rastafarian man and he'd say beer can and then he would say bacon, but it sounded the same. I just remember badger, badger, badger, mushroom, mushroom mushroom but that's just don't remember that oh sorry okay all right

i had coleosis 07 bananas covered in sriracha and fish sauce is the best way to eat bananas oh my god oh my god listen listen listen listen listen bananas the way that we eat them in america are not is not the only way to eat bananas. You know what I mean? I don't know if this is an actual recipe or if this dude's freestyling, but I watched a video yesterday of a savory banana roti being made in Thailand. And that was the thing. It was bananas and eggs.

They were making a banana egg roti. And that's part of it. I think we need to go to Sweden. You got the banana pizza. America, they're wrapping bananas in ham. Nicole, you seen what they you got the banana pizza. America, they're wrapping bananas in ham. Nicole, you see what they're doing with the bananas in America? They're wrapping them in ham. So I'm saying it's not just with peanut butter.

It's not just, you know, in banana pudding. Banana and fish sauce is an audible gag from me. We're going to go try it. Josh, no. Why not? The sweet, the sweet, you know, playing off the salty fish sauce. It could be good. That's really screwed up in my mind.

An audible gag for hours. Just, I can't, I can't even. Yeah, listen, if I actually imagine doing it and I'm trying to put myself in that place, that is not a pleasant experience for me. I'm sweating. I don't know. I would dip cucumbers in fish sauce, you know, in sriracha.

Yeah, that's fine. What's a banana but a yellow, mushy, sweeter cucumber, Cole? I'm going to throw up. Okay, hold on. Composure. You got this. Wolf Jen says, I dip my peanut butter and jelly sandwich in chicken noodle soup. My friends hate it, but it's the best sweet, salty combo.

I feel like someone else did this too. Yeah. This is a... I don't like it. Yeah. I mean, it's okay I don't like it. Yeah. I mean, it's okay. I feel like it's just your childhood. It's like that's your comfort food.

Yeah. It's the grilled cheese and tomato soup. Yeah. Transposed. At TristanH172, I like this one. Is cheese a loaf of milk? Absolutely. What do you mean?

What do you mean? Of course it is. It's a milk loaf. No, it's not. To turn meat into meatloaf, you loaf it and you cook it. That's all you do in cheese. You're cooking it and then you're loafing it. You're letting it sit.

I'm so sorry. You know what's a loaf of milk? Milk with gelatin in it. That's a loaf of milk. It's not a loaf of milk. That's milk jello. Yeah. Well, it's the same thing.

It's a loaf of milk. No, it's not. No, no. A loaf of milk. Josh. Because milk jello can't stand up at other temperatures. Wait, we got to do one more. We got to do this last one because I love it.

Mr. Morgan Blazing says, Somalians make everything up. Yeah, no, they're like magicians. They're like David Blaine out there just lying to your face. Is David Blaine the first David magician you think of? I think of Copperfield. You think of Copperfield?

Of course. I feel like David Blaine lies less than David Copperfield, too. David Copperfield is so charming. He even lied to people, though. Look is so charming he's in his old age he's incredibly handsome as well david blaine he made the statue of liberty disappear that's messed up who did that is david copperfield look at that man david blaine like swallows glass and ties his lips together yeah see that's different david blaine's just like i'm gonna survive 90 hours

submerged in a block of ice and then he just does it that's not even a magic trick that's just like, I'm going to survive 90 hours submerged in a block of ice. And then he just does it. That's not even a magic trick. That's just him being a freaking madman. David Copperfield is just like, I'm going to have editors scrub out the Statue of Liberty. And that's the kind of lying that sommeliers do to you at restaurants. They're trying to upsell you on wines. They're like, oh, that wine, that's really nice.

But, you know, if you really want a better wine, you pay me $70 more. David Copperfield looks like John Stamos, except a little uglier. Look at him. Handsome. Oh, he's hot, dude. He's a dark-featured, handsome man, angular. No, I think sommeliers, I think they lie a little bit. Yeah, they lie as much as anybody does.

Like they say, this tastes like dandelion from new zealand and you're like uh-huh well no here's the thing i believe that they're not lying when they say that what i believe they're lying about is when you go i think i really i think i really taste the minerality and they go yeah that's when they're lying to you is when you say wrong stuff and they're trying to get you know their tip and trying to sell wine so they're lying to you is when you say wrong stuff and they're trying to get, you know, their tip and trying to sell wine. So they're not going to tell you that you're wrong. But again, all wine is subjective. But moreover, sommeliers are scamming you in the same way that mechanics, dentists, jewelry salesmen, teachers with their GoFundMes.

No, I'm kidding. Fund public education. What is wrong with you? What? What's wrong with you? Well, on that note, thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. If you want to hear more from us here in the Mathical Kitchen, we got new episodes for you every Wednesday.

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