A Hot Dog Is a Sandwich - What The Heck Is A Salad?

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Today, Josh and Nicole explore the question on all our minds: what REALLY is a salad?

Man, I love a good salad. But what is a salad? How is a salad? Why is a salad? Where is a salad? Who is a salad? This is a hot dog as a salad. 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 back to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. The show we bring down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host Josh Cher.

And I'm your host, Nicole Aniety. And today we're talking about a plague of misinformation out there. Well, to be clear, I really enjoyed our exercise right now. That was great. Would you consider that improv? I think so. That was improv, certainly. So what I like to do is like to write a little intro, you know, just to get the juices flow in.

And the intro was only Josh saying, I love a good salad. And then I said, but what is a salad? And then he expanded on that. You, yes, and my intro. And then you kept yes-anding me, and I love that. Love it. Love it, love it. But then also we get into the existential analysis of really all the parts of saladhood, which I think interesting.

When is salad? Ancient Romans. Right. Tell the people. Ancient Romans is the when. Tell the people where the term salad even comes from. The term salad. So anytime you see the root S-A-L, which is in everything, great book called Salt by Mark Karlanski.

That's right. The same Mike Karlanski wrote Kod. He wrote the book Kod and then... And then... Well, the history of cod and salt

are so intertwined, you see, because of salt Kod. And so he was doing all this research for his seminal book, Kod. And then he said, God, I have so much

knowledge about salt. He said Kod. He had to write a book called salt. And I've read it. And Mark Karlanski is wonderful. And what's the next one? After Kod,

there's salt. God is pepper. Could be pepper. The history of pepper would be cool. I'll tell you what. I'm already reading a book about the history. It's not a history of pepper. Silk Road. But I'm reading a book. No, it's called eight flavors, I think. It's about eight different flavors, that defined America. Oh, cool. I believe her name was Emily Loman. If I mess it up, I'm sorry, I'll Google it. Sorry, Emily. My bad, if your name is. But, so I'm reading a book about pepper. Really, really interesting. Interesting. Because here's the thing about pepper. So the East India trading company, after the American Revolution, they were basically like,

we're taking all of our supply lines and we're sort of disappear. Like, screw you guys. We're going home and we're not going to tell you where we've been getting all this, like, pepper and vanilla and all this stuff. I guess that probably would have predated. No, no, vanilla would have been in that trade. But anyways, so, like, literally American tradespeople were, like, we are going to try and recreate their trade routes and figure out where they were able to source the black pepper from. Wow. And so there was one family.

There was one family who basically just, like, went on these. excursions to Indonesia. It was the Sarawak people, and they basically found them, created like a, almost like a monopoly. And the British were like real pieces of crap to the Sarawak people. So the American troops got there and they're like, hey, dude, we got a bigger market right now. We'll pay you better. We're not going to have like stupid arcane trading deals with you. And so they became like the exclusive training partner and just brought like millions upon millions into the colonies. This is in the McCormick family. It's not the McCormick family.

No, but I don't know if they any ties to him. But anyways, salt. Sal. Sal. Sal. Sal. Sal. Sal. Salary. Salary. Salary. How much salt you get paid. Oh, I know money. Okay, cool. Love it. Yeah, well, salt was money. Salt was money. Okay, cool. So, so important. Um, but yeah, salami, any sort of salted bits of meat, you know, salutations, you know. Salutation is from, are you for real?

Literally everything comes from salt, man. That's incredible. It's salt and bread. Companion. Pan. Pan. Someone you break bread with is a companion. Right, right, right, right. It's all in bed.

It's just the history of the entire world. That should be the next book is bread. Oh, cod salt bread. Hey, I support it. That's a good meal right there. I agree. I wanted to build a meal, but I was just thinking. History of the potato would be interested.

God, I'm... Why don't you just, hey, instead of reading it, why don't you write it? That's literally... Why don't you become a food historian? That's my retirement plan is literally just writing just single, single ingredient books. literally reading a whole book about the tomato right now. Josh, you can literally do that. I know.

You can sell, like, you know what people used to sell encyclopedia Britannica? Yeah, just about food. Encyclopedia, Josh Tanica. Oh, that would be so great. And you have to do a collab. I don't sell at all. Pan Amojo. I didn't tell what salad means.

Sorry. We got the giggle fits today, man. Full disclosure, it's a Friday. We're having a great time. Salads, little salted bits of veg. Yeah. A little salted bits of edge. So that's the idea is that like the saltedness of it.

Like typically in ancient Rome they would have, you know, eaten raw greens and herbs with olive oil is massive in ancient Rome, great subtle area. So like pretty indistinguishable from a salad that we would eat today. It's like olive oil, salt, probably some sort of vinegar or citrus and greens. And that's still what like a French bistro salad is today. But when you say now, I feel like the definition, of salad has grown almost to a point where anything can be a salad.

And if everything is a salad, then nothing is a salad, right? Oh, yeah, definitely. So we're talking like the actual, I guess if you think of a quintessential salad. If someone, like, someone says salad, what do you picture in your mind? Of course. You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking a bet. I'm closing my eyes.

I'm thinking of a bed of some random greens, sliced cucumber, those little shreds of carrot and like a balsamic vin and like a little... God, I hate a shred of carrot and salad. I despise. Let me tell you, a garden salad, I despise. Same. Same. Same is the worst. But if I see a garden salad on the menu, I am poo-pooing it.

I'm never ordering it. But in my mind, that is what I think of when I think of a salad. And the little halve cherry tomatoes, just maybe five or six of them, just littered on top. That's what I think of when I think of a salad. I love carrots. I love carrot salads, you know? There's this like dish. I feel like it's weirdly kind of like Moroccan Tunisians.

shredded one? Shredded carrot, like shredded carrot, especially if it's been like, kind of like sauteed in like really hot oil or something. So it's lightly cooked and wilted. Right. Gets a little fat on it. And then has some sort of like spicy, smoky dressing and then some sort of dried fruit. Yeah, yeah, raisins.

Yes, yes, yes. What is that, though? I've had that at like various North African, Middle Eastern restaurants. But I also grew up with that as like a weird, what I can only call and we'll get into this. And I mean, this lovingly as as a white American, they're like white trash salads. I grew up with that, like a Like a mayonnaisey coleslaw Well, yeah, I grew up with bad coleslaw my entire life

100%. That's like what I would consider kind of just like a white trash salad. You know? Okay. Is that an offensive term? No, I mean, I don't know. Are we allowed to say white trash? Yeah.

I mean, Logan, you know, do I? Yeah. I think it's fine. Okay. I was always, well, now is a slaw a salad? Is a sloth a subset of a salad? Yes. Okay, we can agree on that.

Kohl-slaw comes from, it's a Dutch. Sla? Or coal? Kohl? Kohl is Dutch or I believe German for cabbage as well. I was shredding cabbage. No, but what is, I remember looking at the origin of Kohl-Slaw a while ago. Maybe it's Kohl-z-law.

No, I think. Maybe it's legal. Yeah, no, Sla, Sla literally means salad. It's literally cabbage salad in Dutch. Well, Sla, salt, salt. So Kohl Sla is indeed, yeah. That makes sense. Kool Sla.

Cool Sla. Cool to be. Yeah, I was raised. Like, that was the kind of salad I was raised on, though. But then you get into this weird, like, the other day I was on Instagram as I usually am. And all I saw was a man cutting up a melon in these jagged shapes, making a dressing of fish sauce, like chili, lime sugar, mixing it up, pouring it on the melons and calling that a salad. I know. It gets weird when you think about stuff like that.

So, like, whenever I do. think about individual item salads, that kind of, or like, it rubs me the wrong way. Like, whenever someone, like, just takes, like, a shredded, like, colerabi or, like, a shredded radish and then puts a little vinegar and oil and salt on it and calls it a salad, like that kind of, I kind of hate it. Really? I, yeah. I think it's, so, yeah, that's Bonchan. Is Bonchon salad? Well, you get salad with your bonchan. Well, yeah, you get salad with your bonchon, where your bonchon is just like little cute bites. I think about this a lot.

I love, it's probably the restaurant I've been to the most in the last two years. Kura revolving sushi bar. David's favorite restaurant. It's just great. You go there, there's a conveyor belt, you got to sit towards the entrance of the conveyor belt because if you're at the end of the

conveyor belt, you're getting people's straps. Slim pickings. And you insert your little plate. It's like pretty affordable and the quality is better than it needs to be. But anyways, they have a side. from sushi, like little small plates. They have something that they would call Harajuku Summer Salad. Can I guess what it is?

I'm probably going to be so wrong. I'm guessing it's shredded Connie, shredded crab salad with like mayonnaise. You're already so far up. And pink glitter. No, but I love the Harajuku. Shout out to the girls in Hanabia, who identify as Harajuku Cor. Have you ever been to Harjuku? Oh, you've never been.

Okay, Harjuku was very cool. It was one of the coolest places I've ever been. What if I tell you that their signature salad during the summer, according to Kura, is just watermelon and cucumber chunks with salt and pepper? And it's delightful. Well, that's... We mean, like, we always get it in like a little bit of some sort of neutral oil. We always get it because, like, yeah, I like having little bites of watermelon and cucumber that are... Yeah, but that's, like, fruit salad, right?

At that point? Right? It depends. So, for instance, like, the thing you're talking about, the watermelon with, like, a dressing on it, because that's... seems to be something that a salad that we consider a salad. I mean, I don't want to consider it. But I don't, the dressing is make a salad. If somebody says, if somebody said like a little bit by the definition almost of like seasoned, I guess veg or maybe fruit, but all these things, if you talk about botanical fruits, whatever, people putting chilies, chilies and fish sauce and maybe shallots and herbs into watermelon.

Somebody said they're showing up with a watermelon salad. One, I would never want that. Oh, same. Ew. I don't like. I love watermelon. I eat watermelon, but I eat watermelon salad. Like with the feta and the mint.

I really actively don't like it. And I know a lot of people love it. We've like had it on last meals before. I don't like that. I can't stand the combination of watermelon feta. I think the way that the fat and the tang and the salt wick off of like this delicious, refreshing wateriness. I agree with you a million percent. You know what a great salad dressing on fruit is?

With the water of the feta. Think about it. No, no, no. Think about the best fruit experiences you've had ever. Dressed fruit with a little bit of salt and spice and seasoning. Yeah, the fruteros. The fruteros, right? Yeah, yeah.

Chamoy. Chamoy. Oh, I love. That's a watermelon salad. Chamoy is like, effectively, you could call it a salad dressing if you want to. It's a pickled fruit condiment. Yeah, I mean, it's acidic, it's spicy, it's salty. It has like the elements of a dressing.

Of a dressing, right? Yeah, absolutely. You know, you'd have a raspberry vinaigrette. That's a fruit based dressing. Chimoy is a pickled fruit. How much raspberry vinegar did you have in your house growing up? Like a lot of fat-free raspberry vinaigrette. Did you have the wishbone sprays?

We had the Wishbone sprays, yeah. Why did they do that? You know exactly why they did that. And there was zero calories. Well, yeah, because it was like a quarter second. It's like how Pam. It's like how Pam non-sake says it's zero calories. But that's if it's a one second spray, right?

Yeah, a quarter second, I think. What's a quarter of a second? That? Have you ever seen the videos of people grabbing lighters, like really fast? Like, doing their like fast twitch muscles? Oh my God, it's incredible. But yeah, but it's literally just pure, pure oil in there. But like, anyways,

When when does cubed up watermelon with stuff on it become a salad is a really interesting way to

frame this whole discussion Yeah, because you would never call that if somebody said I'm showing up with a watermelon

salad or some fucking mint some feta It doesn't even be feta It can just be toasted almonds And

Who's putting toasted almonds I have that in the feta That's some weird pot look stuff that I'm not about But you go to

like a froutero and they put the chamo and the tihin and the lime Yum Yum I know

I know saying That's like the My mouth is watering And the thing You wouldn't conceptualize that as a salad And I don't exactly know why Is it a fruit salad? But would you ever

Eat a fruit salad? No, I'm saying like would you I mean, well fruit salad Fruit salad, fruit salad If you know what I'm talking about it. Fruit salad is mostly just cut up fruit in a bowl. No one's dressing their fruit salads, right? They should be.

You know, I do think some people started putting a little honey and a little citrus. Like a little, like honey, poppy, lemon thing. Yeah, I think people have started doing that. I think this is a little bit of a new... A little Nouveau, a little verjuw or something. Jiu or something? Yeah, I love the idea of putting for shoe on my...

A little Ceylon? Oh, I'd love to put Coo. I keep Ceylon in the house at all times. Ceylon is date syrup for people that don't know. It's the best, dude. I use date syrup a lot. Banana, I've taken probably about seven pounds of nuts home from Mythical in the last month. A whole bunch of nuts.

I think there was some sort of GMM episode where y'all was using a bunch of nuts. Oh, yeah, Colby bought a bunch of nuts. That's right, that's right. So I got like eight kinds of nuts just stocked by cabinets. I've been making nut butter. out of them. And roasting them, throwing them in the vitamins. Anything interesting?

Anything worth mentioning? No, I'm not really, like. Azel nut. I like hazel nut. When I think, well, see, you take a bunch of fruit, mix it in a bowl, maybe put something, something on it, maybe not, whatever. Call that a salad. Yeah, yeah.

Take a bunch of nuts, put them in a ball. What is that? Bowl of nuts. Why no nuts salad? There should be nut salad. There should be nut salad. Why no nut salad? Wet? Wetness?

Haroset. Oh, Haroset. Hariset is what we Jews eat during Rochechana? I think it's Roshoshana. Young Capoian. Younger doesn't have a lot of celebratory foods. What's Passover? Reader during Passover.

It's Passover. Yeah, it's Passover. Hereset is a fruit-nut wine mixture that is meant to represent the maror, which is between the bricks used to build the pyramids. Is that it? Yeah, you didn't know that? Jesus, no, it sounds right.

That's the imagery. I thought Maror was... The story of Passover. I thought Maror was horseradish. Oh, my God. What's the horse radish? You're right. Maror is horserousous, right?

Maror are the bitter... No, you're wrong, too. It's the bitter herbs. Oh, they're all metaphors. So we know it as halerg in Farsi. The Charriset. Hereset is known as halak. It's so funny because my South African-ass-grandmother would pronounce it.

Josh, you've got to have the hererset. You know, in Salio's France? Why do I call it Maror? What's wrong with me? What's something different? God, let's do it. Anyways. Sorry.

Hair a set, well, the thing is, your hair set is everything my hair set. What's your hair set? It's blended into oblivion. Mine is or yours is? Mine's is. Yeah. Yours is chunky. Some people, I leave mine a little bit chunky.

I like very, like, fine dice it. Yeah, so it's kind of like a piccognegaio. Some people just like rip it. Yeah, a little bit. But like, finer than that. No, ours is a smooth paste. Yeah, that's funny. Some people do that.

I know that. See, it's just so, it's like, we're both Jewish, but, like, are, like, the way that we're told about things are so different. Like, the way that your food culture is and my food cultures is so different. That's a cool little fruit salad, though. That's my favorite. But you, so you are considered Hereset to be a fruit salad. Like, a little. And do you cook your, do you cook your Hereset?

No. See, okay, but whatever. Yeah, you got to cook it down a little bit. Yeah, like, look at it. You got to jam it up. Look up. I'm showing Nicole, like, pictures of Harrisonette. Like, this is what I would have grown up on.

Look up Separtic. Look up Separtic. hair set. Even though I might... It's like apples, walnuts. Is it like that? Wine. Even more blended. Oh, God, that looks so good. Dude, my mom's hair set is bomb. She literally makes it for other people's saders. Sorry, that was a little Jewish tangent as we like to go on something. Oh, dude, does yours look like that? It's finer. It's literally a like it's a little paste. Yeah, it's like that. Oh, shit. It looks like Muhammad. It looks like chicken liver. Oh man. That's awesome. My mom's looks like chicken liver. Yeah, it's funny because ours looks like more like a salad like pico de gallo which i would say is a salad more than a salsa a

i would say but a salsa is a sauce salsa is for sauce but but you said that a sauce needs to make a salad huh oh it needs to be dressed with something yeah pico is dressed with lime and salt no no but like for real if you look at something like any sort of like shirazi salad and pica de gallo right okay those are almost identical i mean there's cucumbers almost identical, right? Okay. Okay, they're very... Okay, yes.

They're almost identical. And even if you go to Guatemala, I believe there's something called salsa chirmol. Mm-hmm. That is like Picotagia with radish. So it's like that's even just identical to Shirazi, except it's radish instead of cucumber. Okay. But that's called like salsa chirmol, I suppose like Shirazi salad. Is salsa...

It's funny. Salsa means sauce. But is it derived from salt? Sal. Oh, salsa, yeah, 100%. Salsa is... comes from like... it's like a salted liquid.

Sorry, yeah, sauce also comes. So what are we going to do? Josh, what are we doing here? Okay, okay. More salads. Remember that one time we talked about if nachos are a salad and you pissed me off the entire podcast? Yeah, because there's a worldview that I think is overly simplistic and kind of a

reduct you out absurdum argument where every food is either, what is it, a soup salad or sandwich? Is that what is a soup salad or sandwich? Yeah, some weird, is it a cube rule or is it different? Cube rule. Cube rule is different. This is the soup salad sandwich. This is the Holy Trinity, the trichotomy. Oh, okay, okay. Why do we love doing things on threes as people? We love... Three is a holy number. Yeah, we're obsessed with the number three. Yeah, really are. Okay. Another, another thing I want to... Another idea I want to throw my hat into... I want to throw my hat into the ring. I said a lot of words right now. What about when you cook something? Yeah. You cook it and the items are cooked.

Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. No, come on. I think salad should be cold. though. You've never had a warm salad at a restaurant? I have. I like that. Ew, you know what I hate? A grilled Caesar salad. Gilled Caesar salad is. That's the worst. That's the worst. Why are they wilting it? Well, I like cooked lettuces. You can throw lettuce in soup. There's nothing saying you can't.

You can cook a lettuce. It's just a matter of like, does it make, does it make it better or not? You know what I mean? I don't like cook spices. I've had this restaurant, Alamento. They had a brazed lettuce. TBT. Do you remember the brazed lettuce? Tartine. No, what's it called? Terrine? Burstetta, it was like a brazed lettuce.

I don't remember. Braised lettuce on toast. But it was like a really cool dish, and it was just a way that you'd never had. Was it chicarees? It was like escarole. Yeah, it sounds like they're bitter herbs. But they're not like... I mean, bitter greens.

You know, the friset, right? Like, friset is one of those really cool things that you can like will and play with, whatever. I don't... But I think, okay, if we're talking about, like, how to make a good salad at home, we talk a lot about, like, sweet green and how sweet green now it just feels like corporate slop and it's a tech company or whatever. But there were a lot of things that sweet. Green did that people didn't know you could do, right?

I agree. They were very innovative. Adding cool cooked grains to a salad. Adding roasted vegetables to a salad. Totally. Almost something like a savory granola, like a crunchy... Totally. A topping.

Nut seasoned topping, something like that. And things that are still like healthy and good and hearty for you. Sure. But people didn't know that you could do stuff like that. You're so right. No, no, no. I agree. A roasted veggie salad is totally a salad.

And there's... And so, like, I've taken a lot of my own cues when I'm making salads at home that like you can... Blister some cabbage. You blister some cabbage and cool it down. You know what I mean? Blistered cabbage coleslaw? Dude, it's awesome.

That literally sounds like something on a menu from 2000. You know? I would eat the crap out of that. And so I think like, you know, take a really liberal view of salad. You kind of end up in a really delicious fun place. I agree. I agree.

But I do think definitions are important. I think we should try to find out what a salad can't be. Let me ask you about the term word salad. Because there's another element to salad. I hate that. I hate that. You get the word word salad? I hate that.

I don't know when people say word salad. I hear when people accuse me of creating word salads. I don't, because I think everything I say makes so much sense. I agree. Honestly, as someone who has hung out with you a lot, everything you say has a point. I'm making word lasagna's out here.

Yeah, you are making word. Word rotini. 100%. Oh, God, I haven't had one of those in so long. What were you going to say? Well, I was saying there's something about a salad that seems to be like, it's mixed up, you know what I mean? It's kind of mixed up.

You know? Is pokey a salad? What? Is pokey a salad? Poca is its own thing. As someone who just got back in Hawaii. But see, but so tuna salad. Well, so I think that's where they're getting the term salad is like tuna salad is tuna that has been mixed up with other stuff.

You know what I mean? But why, tell me why pokey is in a salad. It's mashed. Well. Lomi, loamy salmon. Yeah. Mixed up, mashed up. Pico de gallo.

Mixed up. You like to put your hands in pico de gallo. Yeah, I do. I do love mash it up. No, 100%. So Lomi, I remember talking to a Hawaiian fisherman who he was really big on trying to revive local reef fish. Awesome. And so Poke means to cube, right?

And so they wouldn't have had, I believe this is what this dude said, that the native Hawaiians, like they didn't, they couldn't go out far enough and fish for big enough fish. Like they weren't allowed to? No, just like didn't have the technology. And also they had everything they needed, you know, around the local reefs and whatever. And they were, like, very skilled sailors or whatever, but, like, they weren't catching 300-pound tunas and stuff. Sure. And so, like, Japanese fishermen came in, did long-line tuna catching. So suddenly, Poke, you could cut into big cubes.

You could cube the fish. But a lot of the fish, if you've ever caught, like, a three-pound fish, that's a, like, solid fish. I've never. You can't get big enough fillets to, like, really cube, right? Okay. You know, so anyways, they're using a lot of bony rockfish, stuff like that. The OEO is a really great fish. So loamy, loamy means to massage or pound as opposed to cut and dice.

And so like a lot of those fish would have been massage and pounded because the fillets just simply weren't big enough. That's very, very interesting. You know what I mean? But yeah, you're right. It is mixed with traditionally before soy and all that. It was like cuckooey nut, salt and obo seaweed. Yeah. Pokea salad.

Pokea has to be a salad. If tuna salad is a salad, poca got to be a salad. They even mix it with mayonnaise. Yeah, of course. A lot of pokey at the, you go to, what is it, food land? Oh, yeah. So it doesn't like you go to Food Land. You get that freshly defrosted, carbon monoxide, pink ruby-treated tuna,

mixed with the spicy mayonnaise. That's the same ingredients as Subway's tuna salad. Yeah. And also, like, people call Connie salad, like fake, what is it, fake crab salad? Like, that's called a salad. And a lot of the times that's served on the side. Well, because I think that's coming from tuna. Jews.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Someone was asking me, they were. We were like, were you here for this? Who was asking me? It was in this office. Like, what is the general blanket term for stuff mixed with mayonnaise that we call a salad? Like chicken salad, tuna salad, egg salad, potato salad.

Those are all just little bits of things mixed with mayonnaise that we decided to call the salad. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. You know what I mean? Herring salad I grew up on. Okay. Deli salads. Who owns the delis? You know?

Italian. This is Italian. But like, you know, there's... So there's, like, separate... I would love to draw, like, just an entire chart of salads here. I'm really into drawing. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Do you want to do it over here? I think so. Okay. I love that. No, I agree. So deli salads are their own thing. Yeah. But I don't...

When I close my eyes and I think of a salad, that's not the thing that I think of when I think of salads. I think of leafy greens. So I don't know. I don't know if this is a thing in all of Vietnam. But my... My stepmom, she exclusively called lettuce salad. Sure. Like, that was the thing where she was like, do you want salad with that?

And, like, a salad and salad were entirely different things. But for her, like, lettuce was literally like, oh, this is salad. You know, you would get the spring rolls, the imperial rolls, and you would have big things to lettuce. And she would, yeah, like, wrap it in the salad. You know what I mean? So, like, there is something that, like, lettuce equals salad. I wonder where that comes from, though. Me too.

I'm very curious. Because the salad that I grew up on, I actually. I got a fair amount of shit for this when I was talking about how a lot of Americans don't think they like salad because I think Americans don't do salad very well compared to a lot of other cultures. Fair. And of course, when we're talking about stuff like that, you need to talk about, like, well, what is an American to you when you say Americans don't? Because I'm referring strictly to my own upbringing of, like, white boomer dad divorced from any of his German or maybe part Welsh heritage who grew up in, you know, an era during the Cold War. forming its own sort of Americana identity around, you know, whiteness probably. Right.

So anyways, my dad made bad salads. And that's why Josh is doing a podcast about salads now. Yeah, 100%. But did you grow up with a lot of salads in your home? Yeah. Oh, all the time. What did salads look like for you? Shirazi salad was the salad.

And then my dad would feel a little cheeky so he would go to the Ralphs and buy a bag of coleslaw and some fish that was 50% off. And my mom would roast potatoes. So that would be salads. my sister is the one who showed them how to make like a salad. Like she would buy avocados and bell peppers and she would chop them up super fine and be like, I saw this on e-news or whatever. Oh, funny.

Yeah, yeah. So like she kind of introduced them to like the concept of eating salads at home. But another thing I want to talk about, since you were talking about white people salads, Minnesota salads that aren't really salads. Do other countries have like, like Minnesotas? You know what I mean? You guys know what I mean Because other countries have Texases

Other countries have Florida's I went to Sardinia in Italy That was for sure some combination That was some combination of the Texas Florida of Italy for sure Kind of its own island out there No one really knows what's going on Entirely different culture

I don't think they want to be Italian You know the Sardinian They speak a weird variety of Spanish They speak like Alguerese Whoa And Alguero is literally like a Spanish Or Catalan dialects Really?

That they still speak I was talking to Jose Andres about this. Things like jello salad and ambrosia salad and frog eye salad. So those are all based off of like, I mean, it literally is. It's wasp. It's wasp food, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Yes. And I don't mean to like-

Funeral food, right? But like literally the funerals were at what I believe were generally Methodist or Lutheran. Lutheran maybe? Baptist? Not Baptist, though, but like strictly not Baptist. Oh, okay. You know what I mean? Like this was its own brand of.

Northern Europeans, a lot of them have Scandinavian roots, Northern Europeans in northern states, like Wisconsin, Minnesota, in that like Eastern North Dakota area, that were going to these very Protestant churches that develop their own cultures. And around this time when a lot of these box ingredients were available, so you'll have a lot of these, you know, frog eye salad and Snickers salad and stuff like that

that are using these like big American corporate products I think is like really, really interesting. You know what I mean? It's rooted in time and place. And it was past almost like an oral tradition in the church cookbooks. Right. You know, cool whip mixed with boxed pudding mix, mixed with apples. A little mayonnaise for good measure.

Sometimes a little mayonnaise for good measure. But like that, you know, it's intuitive. It's little bits of things seasoned with a goo. Served in a bowl for a lot of people. So things like this, like pretzel salad and frog-eye salad. I forgot about pretzel salad exists. You know who talking about that? Molly A?

Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton taught you about pretzel salad? Yeah. She actually had a, I think, a collab with Betty Crocker. Wow. And she had strawberry pretzel salad as one of the box goods that she would sell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. RIP Dolly.

RIP Dolly. I love it, though. I love the... I wish I could eat more of it, you know? We could make it, dude. We should do like a church cookbook party. Oh, that would be great. I would love to make straight up Ambrosia salad.

Ambrosia salad, dude. Funeral potatoes is Mormon. Oh, I'm sorry. You got to get your... You know what's so crazy? Mormonism is entirely separate from all that too. I've seen like so many... I've like tried so hard to understand all the sex of Christianity.

Oh boy, there's a lot. I've watched videos on trying to like get that information in my head. I have like a weird block with it. Like I know the names of them but I don't know like the actual like the difference between a Lutheran and a... Presbyterian. Calvinist? Are there Calvinists? Are there Calvinists around any?

I don't know. John Calvin was a big reformer. I don't know if Calvinism is. That feels old-timey. Yeah, does it? See, like I saw it on a... I like actively tried to learn about it so intently. Yeah.

Because I think Jesus is cool. Yeah, Jesus, by all accounts, do great stuff, man. I, like, I'm very interested in it. Are there any Calvinism? Like, does Calvinism still? Like, Quakers and, like... Just like Quaker... You have Quakers call themselves friends.

It says it's very much active today. Oh, hey. But there's like churches that'll be like, oh, this is the, Calvinist church. This is the Tribuco Canyon Calvinist church. So I grew up next to Tribuco Presbyterian. Trico, yeah. Some of them allow women to be pastors and someone, you know, like there's a lot of, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's got all those kinds of things. I've always been very interested, but I would love to do a church, like a church style for faith.

I think Lutheran. I think Lutheran is what those people are sending to be. I'm so down to do that. I remember growing up whenever I would go to Mexican markets and stuff, I would see like those really beautiful mosaic jellos. Yeah. And like they would have like a little container of like the jello mosaic. What I think would happen is whenever the mosaics wouldn't like flip over completely in like one piece, I think they would just cut it up and put it in a tougherware and mix it with cool whip. And I remember seeing that too.

And I was like, mom, let's get a salad. I'd be like, eh? And she'd like put it down right now. So I think, I don't think we got any more clarity today. And that makes me not as upset as I thought. I thought we were going to really crack it. What do you look? So check this out.

It's got marshmallows and toasted coconut. And it's got canned fruit. And it, I think, listen, we, there's this old adage like, hey, did you know that Inuit people have 30 words for snow and we have the one snow. It's like, well, no, we also have, we have every word for snow that any other culture would have because we can just use multiple words to describe it. Like, in Germany, what? Like sleet? No, like, like, um, wind driven snow, light snow, flurried snow. Like we just, it's different. Yeah, sure, but like in Germany, for instance, right? They smash the adjectives together. In America, machine gun is two different words. In Germany, machine gun is just one word because that's just how. the language's function. Whether it's one word or two words, the point is we can use other words to describe salads, right? We can say this is a jealous salad, this is a Snicker salad, you know, Sikerset, whatever. And so, you know, we use more complex tenets of language to talk about things, but I kind of love that it's just so loose and it's just a bunch of chopped, mixed up stuff

in a bowl. And aren't we all just chopped and mixed up stuff in a bowl, man? Nothing beats the feeling of traveling to a new country and connecting with people in their native But standard study methods rarely give you the specific vocabulary you actually need. That's where Rosetta Stone's Sapphire comes in. It's their biggest launch in over a decade. It takes Rosetta Stone's research-backed, fully immersive framework, where you absorb the language naturally through visuals and audio without dull memorization, and it introduces cutting-edge personalization.

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Nicole, which of those 25 languages do you want to learn? Korean, obviously. Oh my, you, I feel like you'd be a really good Korean speaker. That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me in my entire life. And of course, you would say, Anong. Gan samnida. No, Myanmar.

Gansamida. Anyways, we need to take Rosetta Stone. Visit rosettastone.com slash hot dog to redeem your 20% off. That's rosettastone.com slash hot dog. Gonsomitas, thank you, right? And then me enhamlida is you're welcome. I don't know, but anong means hello. Yes.

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Give now, volunteer, or speak up at Feedingamerica.org slash hunger action month. Hi, Nicole. Hey. Hey, for you and I have to say, now it's time to find out what other whack it is. It's time for the second we call. Opinions, I like casseroles. All right, let's get to that first opinion. Hopefully it's a hot take so we can give a hotter take so we can get clips that get views and then people hate us for them.

We just get negative attention from every hot take. Even me just saying an opinion, just a casual opinion. Hey. Hi. Hey. What's that? Okay, yeah, you're right. Hey there, this is Tom from Minnesota. Oh, Minnesota.

I've got to know. What is the deal with squash? What do you mean? So I am the food rescue coordinator for a nine county area in southern Minnesota. Sick. I get so much squash into the food rescue program to all the food shelves and all that. And it always goes bad because, like, nobody eats the squash. And yet there's so many people growing squash, and I don't understand why there is so much squash being grown by production farmers all over.

And I only eat squash probably once every couple months, so I don't get it. But either way, why so much squash coming into the – why do people grow so much squash? Why do these mass production farmers grow so much squash? And why does Walmart and other retailers keep ordering so much squash if nobody's, actually eating the squash. How many more times can I say squash? Anyways, love you guys. Love listening to you on my drive is delivering food to these food shelves.

All are awesome. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you. I have a theory. I think squash is easy to grow. So I think that's why people keep growing it. But I think they might need a little bit of a facelift in like the PR department on like

why squash is cool and why squash is edible. I will say squash. I love squash. I think it depends. I'm curious what kind of squash he's talking about because squash is used... You think like a soft skin squash or hard skin? Because that's the way I determine squash.

I'm picturing like him... If somebody says squash, I'm probably thinking they're talking about butter nut. Are you? I think of yellow squash. I think of like a zucchini-s-style, like a crook-neck. Like a summer squash. Like a summer squash. Squash is great.

Squash is... A patty pan. Oh my gosh. Those remind me of our mitzvahs. I'm really curious if it's a regional thing. Maybe squash grow up there. So, like, squash, one of the indigenous American plants, right? Corned bean squash, the three sisters.

And they all, like, they were planted in rotation because I believe they preserved the fecundity and nitrogen content of soil. Fecundity, nice. Fecund. I haven't heard that word in a long time. But, like, I wonder if it has to do if these, because most, I don't think squash should be grown typically by, like, large farming conglomerates. I know large conglomerates own most things, but they tend to be involved more in commodity crops and then stuff like you think of like Taylor Farms Lettuces or Driscoll berries. You know, I don't know how many like industrial squash operations are. I'm sure they're a fair amount.

But I wonder if these are smaller farms if they are doing rotational farming. Maybe I don't know enough about squash production. I wish I knew more about farming so I could give you a better. An interesting thing about working at, you know, food rescue operations, food pantries and stuff from what I found is, you know, at least in Los Angeles, we, We have very diverse populations. We have a lot of Latino people from all over, Latin America, from Venezuela to Cuba to Mexico to Central America. A lot of Armenian people. A lot of, we've been getting a lot of, obviously, Ukrainian refugees.

And it's really interesting when we get a lot of rescued vegetables and stuff to see, like, who eats what. So you'll have, like, once we just had a ton of Wahio chilies. And so a lot of Latin American people were like, oh, hell yeah, and this is during the holidays. And they were like, dude, we're making Pesole, we're making tamales. And then, you know, of course, a lot of Ukrainian people, they'd just be like, oh, is this spicy? And I go, yeah, and they're like, oh, no, thank you. Cucumbers. Every culture eats cucumbers.

Every culture was stoked on cucumbers. We got asparagus. All the Eastern Europeans are like, oh, hell yeah, dude. And then a lot of the Latino folks were just like, oh, no, thanks for good. And so it's kind of funny to see, like, who cooks what. And so squash, to me, feels kind of very old-timey in a way. It feels not very contemporary. Interesting.

But like calabacitasitas, you know? You get a Mexican chicken soup, and there's likely just big old nice chunks of squash that just soak up that broth, you know? I think people have to use squash now as, like, in a substitute or like an additive instead of like a standalone veg. Yeah. Because people are turned... I think people are turned off by squash because they don't know what to do with it.

But I think utilizing it like... And like a bread is a great idea. Or like utilizing it in a soup base or using it in like... In like a frittata or something like that, I think is a good way to use instead of just cutting up the squash and roasting it and eating it. I don't think people are eating their squash like that. Because it's just not cool anymore. Like how you said it's not cool to eat anymore.

Yeah. It's also like... It's a pretty labor-intensive problem. If you're using, like, honestly, one of the reasons I buy a lot of zucchini and yellow squash, cookneck, all that, winter squash, is because it's so easy. It's so easy. Literally, it's easy to cut. It's easy to cook. You can add in anything.

But if you're talking about, like, hard skin squash, spaghetti squash, acorn squash, whatever, they're, like, really labor-intensive processes. And people just don't want to do that stuff anymore. Even, like, something like a butternut, at least. You can peel that. You can get really big, nice chunks out of, like, an acorn squash. There's, like, not a... Are you talking about, like, the payoff of, like, breaking it down isn't worth it? Payoff, not even that it's not worth it, but, like, people ain't got the time and there's a time and knowledge gap in terms of, like...

Yeah, scooping out the seeds. Yeah. And honestly, that's a big thing that I've noticed at the food pantry and something that, you know, we had been talking about is, like, is there a way? Because if there is a lot of prep involved in vegetables, some people just feel like, I don't have the time and the equipment and the knowledge... You want to, like, process it for them? Yeah, you know. Yeah, isn't that, like, a weird, like, fine line, though, like, legally? Yeah, yeah, 100%.

So you can't always prepare food, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I don't know. That's interesting. What would you say you would use squash in? You know what I've always wanted to do? Tell me. There's a dish.

If we're talking like a big ass pumpkin squash, like Kabocha style. Sure, yeah. There's a dish that somebody makes in the no reservations episode to Armenia. Or it might have been parts unknown. Oh, I know exactly the one you're talking about. It's just like, I think they're in the Nagorno-Karabok region. Or the Artsakh, Arsach region. But anyways, this family, like, stuffs a whole pumpkin with, like, rice and meat and whatever.

Gampa. Gumpa. Gama. Gapama? Gapama? Gapama. Gapama. But it's just a whole, like, rice, meat, herb, aromatic stuffed pumpkin.

And then, oh, my God, they roast it. And it all, you know, the way you'd cook, like, a biryani or something. And then they just, like, cut the pumpkin straight down into wedges. And it, like, falls open. The rice falls over this steamed pumpkin. One time System of a Down sang the song, Gapama. I don't know how to say this word.

But like they sing it at a concert. What? They sing, there's a song about that dish. In the System of a Down? Oh, in Armenian. In Armenian? Not like, not in one of their albums. I mean, they might have put it in their albums.

I saw a live video of them singing it. It was really cool. That's really cool. Next opinion. Hi, this is Kylie from Baltimore. It is. Balmour. 4.45 a. I hate that for you.

I'm recording this. I was listening to the pod and you were talking about Mexican Indian food. And I just had to submit this because I've had a note tap in my phone for a very long time that's just titled Mexican Indian food. And my two ideas that I had so far as a very avid at-home creative chef. were to make like any sort of enchilada by taking the meat and the beautifully spiced Indian graves. Yeah, yeah. And then covering them, smothering them in that. Brilliant.

I think it would be delicious inside of a tortilla and maybe baked or broiled until a little crispy on the outside. Oh, hell, yeah, dude. And then also Gulab Jambu Churros. So, the chiro dough. Sounds delicious. I've seen people soak those in syrup before or cover, you know, you cover them in cinnamon sugar or whatever. But what if we did them and we dipped them in rose water cardam syrup? I think it could be delicious.

I think so, too. I have so many other random things in the back of my head for that. But if you have any ideas for this weird upcoming dinner party, I guess I'm going to do, let me know. Be curious to hear your thoughts. Thanks. Love you guys. Been listening to you for so long. Thank you. You're so sweet. Yeah.

I don't think she needs our help. I mean, I'll gladly. I'll gladly give it. How about you? It sounds like she's on the right track. I think you have great ideas. Sounds like she's on the right track. You want to give maybe just one idea? What?

Oh, I'm happy to give ideas. Yeah, just give her one idea. I love the idea of Angela Lottis because like to me, probably you can make any sort of Indian Taco, what have you. But like, that's kind of a bit of a lateral move because you would already. use some sort of like roti or or uh subj something like roti or non or paratha or chapati or something and like using it corn tortilla it's like well is that that much different but but but if you actually like enchilada that and you let those bake in there that's like a new experience of letting something like uh yeah jelfraise gravy kind of soak into that corn tortilla uh that's really fun um yeah

Man, ditto with that Gulab Jammoon Choro idea. I think you should play with a bunch of scratch-made salsas. I did this thing. I did a big Indian-Mexican blowout dinner, and I made just like a kind of tomatoo green chutney, salsa verde. It was delightful. I did a mango pickle, chili d'ar bowl salsa. That was so sick. I had one wild failure of a dish, which I was calling guacamole tarca, which I thought I could take, like, hot butter, like a hot butter, tarca, and pour

that on top of guacamole and I thought it would be good. What happened? The butter just kind of got tepid and then the guacamole just got kind of warm. But I don't know. I kind of thought the idea of like the hot butter on cold guac would be fun. And then also I put too much chop masala on the chips and the Kalanamak. I didn't like it. I got some words for you.

Rogan Josh Soapes. And that's all I'm going to say about that. You could do like barbacoa, but like with the flavors. of Vindaloo. Oh my God, that's a good idea. Have you heard, do you know about the etymology of Vindaloo? Um, I think so. Does it have to do with like the spice that was used?

No, it's literally, uh, uh, was it wine and garlic or vinegar and garlic? I think, yeah, wine and garlic. But is it like Vind, like da Alio, like Vandalia. Where did I hear this? It's a Portuguese dish. Yeah, that's what it was. I think I saw a video on this. It's crazy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crazy. The Portuguese brought it. over and I don't remember. I remember learning about it. It's a go-in dish, which is like, you know, very heavily calling it. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Know a lot of Indian cats the last name, De Silva.

Cool. Yeah. Hey, Josh. Hey, Nicole. Hi. Hi. This is Andrew from Philadelphia. Go birds.

Go birds! Now, I love a good PPNJ, but I have one friend who introduced me to something very, very special, called the PBM. Peanut Butter and Mustard. Oh, sir. It's like the next best thing to put on a peanut butter sandwich other than jelly. That's great. Try different mustard. Try Frenches.

Try Dijon. Try a honey mustard. I would recommend that you put it on like a multi-green bread. You can also try it with white bread too. Just give it a shot. PBM. It will blow your mind. A little bit of tie action in there, kind of those flavors.

That's pretty much what it reminds me of, like almost sort of like a pad tie. It honestly, I thought it would not work at all, but it definitely did. Please give it a shot. Let me know what you think. I got all the... Go bird. Okay, hear me out. Okay, chunky peanut butter.

And then? Like a little bit of frenches and thin, thin, mandoland red onions. Yeah, you can do whatever you want, you know. That doesn't sound good? That sounds fine. You're lying. We're stretching. When we're talking about pat-tie and we're talking about peanut, one, no peanut butter

and pat-thai, you know, there's some crushed peanuts on top, you know, 100%. But, like, I get the idea of any time there's something savory with peanut butter, it reads as Thai for us because as Americans, most of us grew up with a Thai restaurant somewhere near us because of how remarkable and prolific the Thai government was in ceding people to money to open Thai restaurants in a really cool way. But better than a PB&J is tough. PB&Js are delicious. PB&Js are like really one of the elite.

And also, PB&Js are one of those things that make me patriotic. They're eight-year. It's like women's gymnastics and PB&Js, you know, that's like two of the most patriotic things, I think. Sometimes figure skating too, especially this past year. Love figure skating. You know, what they call them? Like the, like, Blade Angels or something?

I don't know about that. That sounds weird. I feel like they call them the Blade Angels. I don't like that at all. Do they call them that? I don't like that. But I do love... They call them the Blade Angels.

I do love figure skating, and I think it's a beautiful art form. I think like a sweet Bavarian mustard. I would get down with that because I love mustard. I really do. Red and butter pickles, if you're going to do that. Red and butter pickle? 100%. The, man, best pickles.

I finally got Julia to start eating pickles. Oh my gosh She's never a pickle girl Wow are you for real Famous Dave's sweet hot pickle chips Oh my gosh It just does not get It doesn't get better than that

Straight up It's so good You should get her The devil spit ones So good Yeah yeah I'm so I'll try it though

I'll I'll try it At lunch You looked at your fake watch To do that Yeah I was trying to see the time It doesn't It's like I need lunch

But you don't wear a watch Hey you should get a watch You're not a watch guy? I'm not a watch guy Not a car guy No not a night Just like so you actually know what time it is.

Oh, man, I got a phone. It's like that Paul Red joke. I don't know anything about Paul Redder than he's cute. He's cute. And I love you, man. He's like, yeah, man, moved from the mainland to the big island about four years ago. And that's the last time I wore a watch. And Jason Seagot goes, oh man, it's really great.

You really just living in the moment, you know, not caring about. He goes, no, no, I have a phone that tells me how time it is. Anyways, on that note, thank you so much for stopping by a hot dog. We're going to do this sandwich. We've got new episodes coming out every Wednesday over on YouTube and wherever we get your podcast. If you want to be on opinions, right, casserole to hit us up at 833, three, dog pot one. Why don't I know to speak sometimes? Talking hard.

Very much. Why say many word when few words. Still do, though. Hard but good. We got other YouTube videos, Mythical Kitchen. You know the deal. There's so many good shows out there. You should watch them.

Bye.