It’s corn! A big lump with knobs. I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re doing. It has the juice. I’m sorry, I’m very confused. This is a podcast about corn dogs and beef wellingtons? What, you want me to do it like in a British accent, like Gordon Ramsey or something? What do you want from me? Do you have that in your bag, do you have the range? It’s corn, a lump with knobs. It has the juice. Pretty good. 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 Hotdog Is a Sandwich,” the show where we take on the world’s biggest internet debates. I’m your host Josh Scherer. And I’m your host Nicole Enayati, I guess. And Nicole– So much vigor, I wasn’t expecting that much vigor. I came in with both vim and vigor today, and we didn’t have any Diet Red Bulls in the fridge, and so I’m running off of pure internal vim. Is vim anger? I don’t know what vim is. Vim is one of those words that we don’t use anymore, except when coupled with vigor, and only in like an ironic old-timey way. Vim means energy and enthusiasm. Well, I feel like that’s what vigor means. I feel like vim and vigor is now redundant. Vigor means physical strength and good health. Interesting, I am vigorous if nothing else. Nicole, we have a very special podcast today because– Oh my gosh, why? The thing happened! The thing happened in nature that sometimes happens where people send us a meme so many times on Instagram that we are forced to respond to it, even though we vitriolically do not want to. It’s ridiculous. And this has now happened. So thank you to everybody who bothered us on Twitter, on Instagram, on Reddit threads. We’re here now. With an infographic that is titled “The Wellington Family.” Correct. And we now need to respond to this. So we’ll put it up on the screen for y’all who are watching on YouTube. If you’re not watching on YouTube, we will just describe this to you. Of course. In painstaking detail. So the author or artist I believe to be unknown, but they claim that there is a Wellington family out there. And first up you have the beef wellington, which is the grandfather of the Wellington family, invented in roughly, they claim 1885. And then you have, say, pigs in a blanket, which is part of the Wellington family. It is the cool uncle slash aunt of the Wellington family. And then you have Pop tarts, which is the vegetarian of the Wellington family, Nicole. And then you have Hot Pockets, which are the hipster of the Wellington family. And then finally we have corn dogs, the black sheep of the Wellington family, typically seen at children’s parties trying to fit in, might be a serial killer, invented in 1946 according to this infographic. So today we must answer, are corn dogs a beef wellington? So is this like, we’re like basically, is it called genealogists? Are we genealogists today, are we like? Or like taxonomists? Are we tax, oh! I guess if this is a family tree, yeah, this is a genealogical chart– So we’re doctors today. We’re basically doctors. Our parents can finally be proud, which means my parents are alive again, which is great. No, they’re dead. I’m sorry. They’re so dead. Mine are gonna be proud of both of us though. That’s great, thank you to Morris and Shella. No, corn dog. Okay, we have to break down what a beef wellington is. Do you have any thoughts initially on whether a corn dog is or is not a beef wellington? Well, if this was Nicole from 200 podcasts before, she would say absolutely not. Like, that’s crazy! But now my mind’s been opened up to so many possibilities. So many decisions I can make. If we were like members of a hard progressive rock band in 1963 and– Which one? Like if we’re like a Robby Krieger of the Doors, say, right? They just did so many substances throughout their peak years, right, that 20 years after, their brains are just all turned to mush and they have just fully opened to the world. Like Ozzy Osbourne. It’s whatever, man. We’re like Ozzy, yeah! Exactly, that’s like us now three years into this podcast. We’re just like, is anything anything? Is the sun raisin bran? All I see is food. This camera, the cameras are food. This podcast, I could eat this microphone. It’s cotton candy, why is this not cotton candy? Oh man. There is some weird validity to this. Yes. There’s some weird validity to it. I agree, I agree. And to get– To the bottom of it! To get to the bottom of it, we have to talk about what exactly a beef wellington is. So describe to people the cooking process behind a beef wellington, what it actually is. Well, when I think of beef wellington, so you take a big filet of beef, a filet. A filet– A filet. A filet of beef? So basically it’s a tenderloin, and then you cut off a manageable piece. I like to think of it like it can be anywhere from the size of your hand to the size of honestly your forearm. And then you sear it, and then once you sear it, you put a bunch of mustard on it, and then you make a, what is it called when you chop up the mushrooms? A duxelles. You make a really fine mushroom duxelles, which is just a bunch of chopped up mushrooms. It’s a mushroom mush. You just cook down into a mush, and then you can use like some wine to deglaze or whatever. And then you take prosciutto and then you take puff pastry. Some people use ham, I think. No, is that false? I don’t know, prosciutto wouldn’t make sense because it’s Italian. This dish was invented like in 1850– What do people use if they don’t use prosciutto? A ham, I don’t know. So maybe some sort of ham, some sort of pork. Maybe people didn’t use ham back in the day. Maybe that wasn’t even traditional. Maybe some sort of pork product. Maybe prosciutto is like a neologism. Possibly, okay, and then you would wrap it, and then you would bake it, and then you would slice it, and hopefully you would have a nice medium rare center, and then serve it with a nice little sauce of sorts. A beef sauce. It’s a very fussy dish. So fussy! Which is like one of the reasons people have made it into a celebratory dish, right? Especially in America, fancy people. One of the only times I’ve had homemade beef wellington, it was when I was with my ex, and we flew to her weirdly posh family who lived in like upstate New York in a very not posh area, but one was dating a very posh man from Australia. Interesting. He was even so posh that he was a vegan, but he wanted all the posh people to feel posh, so he made everybody beef wellington. And actually, Andrew, if you’re listening, you did really well, and it was a very well done beef wellington. But that was like the first time I’d ever had it, like cooked at home and not at a restaurant that was trying to do something very fancy. According to legend, this is another one of those food legends that is probably not true, but it follows so many of the similar legends, even down to like the michelada or mayonnaise, right? They say it was to celebrate the winning of a battle. And so this was the– Oh, okay! According to to the fact sheet, 1815, it was in celebration of the first Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, and his victory at the Battle of Waterloo, I believe against the French on June 18th, 1815. And so they, you know, won the battle, went to a chef, went, ah, make me something to commemorate this! And then all the chef did was he made a French dish that already existed called filet de boeuf en croute, or fileted beef on croute, which means wrapped in typically like a puff pastry. Yeah, we made a lot of, what did we make? We made a lot of head cheese en croute, or some sort of like– Why, why head cheese en croute? Head cheese en croute, or it was like– Do people know what head cheese is? You should tell people what head cheese is. It’s it’s just a bunch of like, so basically it’s gelatinized pork parts. And the gelatin comes from boiling a whole pork head. Yes, basically it’s like sos. Have you ever had sos from Haiti? Sos? No, I never had. So I think it’s pronounced sous. Sous? Soos, sausay? I don’t know. So basically you take a whole pig’s head, and then you have all the little pig bits in there, and it’s like a very, very delicious cold serving of soup. But whenever you gelatinize it, you can cut it into little blocks, like so. So you slice it like cheese. Hence the name head cheese, cheese made from a head. But it’s not cheese. I’ve mostly eaten a lot of Vietnamese head cheese, which is like very heavy on the gelatin. And you put it in like Bon Me. But I have had some really good head cheese. I had this one, I had a head cheese en croute dish, you’re right, but it was fried. What? I had a fried head cheese dish once. Oh, cool. The point is, when we talk about wellingtons– Sorry, we got distracted again being food people. It happens. Brain don’t work too good no more, brain mush. Like Robby Krieger, we have broken through the doors of perception. Pate en croute, that’s what it was called. Pate en croute, yeah. That’s what it was called in school, and then you would like, you would literally, it was so much fun, you would first bake the croute partially, and then you would fill with– Croute means crust, by the way. That’s what croute means. And then you would fill it with stuff, and then you would bake it again, and then you would fill it with gelatin again. It was so involved. All of these en croute things, so involved. No, they’re super hard to make, and it makes sense that a lot of this stuff would’ve come from western Europe, in this age where you had all these royals and these demi royals who had chefs and stuff, right? Demi royals? I don’t know, what do they call like– Like demigods? Like the minors! There’s all some like, oh, I’m the Duke Of Lillysussex, and I do my silly little dance! You know what I mean? Lillysussex? I don’t know, they have all these little dukes and duchess, and little frog towns, whatever. I don’t what the hell they are, dude. Down with the monarchy. There is no king except King Lud, that’s what the hell I believe, Nicole. Do I need to Google that for later? What is it, down with all kings except King Lud. It was a rallying cry of the Luddite movement, which was not really just an anti technological movement, but more of a pro-labor movement, if anything. Neither here nor there. What I’m saying is a beef wellington, when you talk about the Wellington family, it’s not the Wellington family. You need to go up a step, you need to travel from like the Kingdom to the Phylum, or whichever one’s bigger. You need to go bigger from wellington, because wellington is just filet en croute, right? It is just en croute. En croute literally means in crust. A pie is something that is in a crust, right? That is a common thing. You would wrap any sort of meat in crust and bake it. That is called a pie, or in empanada. Empanada means to wrap in bread. That’s what the hell we’re talking about here. We’re talking about empanadas, we’re talking about pies. Empanada, pan, bread. So think about em meaning to en-robe, to envelop, to do an action to it– Josh, you just blew my mind. Empanada means to wrap in bread, right? It literally means like to breadify. Oh my God, pan-nada! Oh my gosh. That’s what I’m saying though. So a beef wellington, it’s just an empanada, it’s a pie. That’s what we’re talking about here. Out of respect for you, I have pulled up the taxonomy classification. So it’s Domain, Kingdom. Wait, what’s a domain? Like, what domain are we? Can I just do what I was gonna do before you interrupt me? So Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Get the hell, okay, let’s try and let’s see how smart Nicole and I are. Species, homo erectus? Homo sapien. Homo sapien. We are homo sapiens. Homo erectus is our cousin, and then Homo habilis is also our cousin. I was literally just like, well, I’m pretty erect, like upright, like, I walk. I walk. It’s not like I, not like that, but okay, we’re homo sapiens. And then what’s above that? What’s the genus or whatever? Primates? Okay. Maggie, can you look up all the answers to this to know how dumb we are? We’re primates, right? Okay, homo. Okay, homo sapien. Yeah, then we’re just homos. And then after that we’re, I’m gonna go primate. Human order? No, no. Or is it mammal? No, we’re primates! Human taxonomy, just press human taxonomy really quick. And then after primates, we’re mammals because– Okay, here we got it. Because we don’t lay eggs. Okay, we are genus homo. We are family Homininae. Hominidae, hominidae? Hominidae! We’re at hominems. Josh? Suborder, hepertines. So we’re primates, and then we’re mammals, and then we’re cordata, which means we have a spine. And then we’re… And then we’re animals, yeah. And then I think domain has to do with– Like godaddy.com, you can get your domain name. It has to do with cell structures. So like prokaryote versus eukaryote. No, no. Yeah, so I believe we are eukaryotes. I am the Eucharist. What we’re saying. I hate this podcast. You got it, I love this podcast so much. You gotta go up to like the genus or whatever. I didn’t learn anything from what we just went through. What the heck, man? And the genus is pie, right? Or the class, the phylum, whatever. The thing above wellington, it’s an umbrella. It’s pie, and then beef wellington is a specific type of pie in the same way– Beef wellington is a pie? Correct, it’s an empanada. It’s something wrapped in crust. It’s something wrapped in crust and then baked. Okay, I’ll hear you out. Or it’s not even baked, ’cause you can fry a pie certainly, and that’s still a pie. So a McDonald’s apple pie– Hand pie, hand pie. A hand pie! So a McDonald’s apple pie is in the same species or genus as a beef wellington. Okay. Right, we can agree on that? I can agree with that, I can agree with that. But now the corn dog throws us for a bit of a loop, because I agree. I agree that a hot pocket is also a pie, right? It’s not a sandwich. It’s a hand pie. It’s a hand pie, right? So we’re looking at this thing. I believe a pig and a blanket is also a pie. See, I can’t. Why? I can’t. It’s a hand pie, why is it not a pie? I just can’t, I just can’t. What is it? I don’t know! Tell me, you have to tell me! I’m not ready yet to answer. It’s the same thing as a beef wellington, a pig in a blanket. I understand that it’s not necessarily enclosed all the way, but neither is like an open tart, and that’s still probably a pie, right? So it’s like, what’s that thing in your stomach that’s not a baby yet? The little thing? Oh, a zygote! It’s like a zygote! Maggie, did I know science? Maggie does computer science, that’s science. What’s a zygote? If you can hit zygote or zygotes on triple word score in Scrabble, get that 50 point bump, especially if you hit Z on like a double letter, hitting on the triple, that’s huge. So I think pigs in a blanket is like the zygote of the family. Yeah, but then that means it’s still within the same species. We can agree with that, we can agree with. But you know what I don’t agree with in this. Pop tart shouldn’t even exist, it should be a toaster strudel. Well, I think they’re the same. I think a pop tart– They are not the same, Josh. Have we done that podcast yet? Pop tarts versus toaster strudels? Have we done that yet? Surely we have. If we haven’t done that before. Sorry we’re leaning on you so much, Maggie. We just really want you to feel included and loved, and feel like you know you’re part of, okay, so we need to do that next week or something. Yeah, toaster strudels. Toaster strudels are way better. Well… We’ll talk about it on the pod, shh. But they’re the same thing if you, we did our Pop tarts ravioli, yeah. Well, we got into the etymology of like ravio-jelly. It’s the same thing. Ravio-jelly means just to wrap in design- Is ravioli also in this too now? No, because I believe dumplings are different than a pie. Okay. Right? Well, how can you say that if you think that pigs in a blanket? Isn’t that just like a dumpling? No, I think a dumpling. No, ’cause you can have leavened dough dumplings. Dumplings are also a pie. But okay, corn dogs. Can I just say I might be in like the minority, but I hate corn dogs. Yeah, let’s talk about corn dogs too. I despise corn dogs. I, 99 times out of a hundred, would rather have a hot dog in a nice bun than a corn dog– Yes, yes! Even a bad bun, I don’t care. Same. However, there are some corn dogs, and there’s only one corn dog that I’m really thinking of, and that is Disneyland’s corn dog. Oh. It’s hand battered in front of you. It is gigantic, it is the hardest, shattering, crisp and crunch. And it is a deep dense crunch on this corn dog that I really, really love. The hot dog itself is really well spiced. My biggest problem with corn dogs is that you’re taking a somewhat sweet batter, right? The cornmeal tends to be very sweetened, and hot dogs to me don’t have the spice to match up to a sweetness. Hmm. Right? You can put relish and ketchup, that’s sweet on a hotdog, but those still have salt. Well, I’ve had the pickle dog actually. The day that I got my marriage license is the day that David and I went to Disney, downtown Disney, not real Disneyland, to celebrate. And we had a pickle dog to celebrate our union and it was good. Tell people about the pickle dog, right? Because that’s a term that most girls don’t use. So the pickle dog is a Disney exclusive. It’s where you take a hot dog and you shove it in a pickle, and then you take all that and you deep fry it with that corn dog batter. And then there’s a little bit of crusty stuff on the outside, and then they give you peanut butter on the side to eat it with– Jesus Christ, was it actually good? It was okay, it was good. The pickle juice was really hot and it burned my mouth, that it got down to my elbows and it really burned me. But, whatever. But no, that I like more than a regular corn dog. I think it’s because what you’re saying is there’s not enough flavor, but with the hot pickle juice, that’s a little bit sweet, a little bit acidic, a little bit of everything salty, it makes sense. But a standalone, I can’t do. I can’t do. But if you were to create like, so for me, the ideal situation of a corn dog would be to take a hot link. Like we’re talking about like a Texas red hot. Okay, that sounds good. And then take that, but not only like my ideal, if you take like a full, say like a bratwurst, like a thick coarse ground sausage with a natural animal casing on it, and were to cook that and then deep fry it on a stick, it’d be too much. The casing would be obstructive. It wouldn’t serve its purpose. So what you would need to do is you would need to take a Texas red hot mix, and you would need to put that into a smaller synthetic casing, and then just make an incredibly spiced hotdog to then match up to the sweetness of the corn dog batter. To me, that’s the only way this works. I don’t think it works anyway. I think cornbread should be cornbread. It should be treated with respect. Interesting. I don’t like the combination of it at all, unless it has pickles in it. Maybe the problem is just that, ’cause, okay, I made a corn dog-esque thing that was really good in here once. Do you remember what it was? The gamja hot dog? No, the Korean corn dogs are fun, but Korean corn dogs are not corn. It’s actually a yeasted dough, which makes more sense. That, I love. That’s very good. The Korean corn dogs, they have it down to science and it’s done perfectly. That is the most perfect hotdog on a stick execution. I did a thing where I, it was our Bisquick battle. I made these like mini corn dog. They were like hush puppies, but I put crab and a bunch of scallion, old bay– It was so long ago! I know, we were babes back then. That was still one of the better things that I think we’ve made in here. Oh my God, what was that? Two and a half, three years ago? It was probably about three years ago at this point. Wow, it feels like yesterday, but also like a million years ago. I remember, because I took the corn meal, and I didn’t make it sweet. There’s no reason that it has to be sweet, right? Took the cornmeal, made it super savory with a bunch of scallion and crab meat, which is really dumb, and then made that a wet batter, and then put little Smokies, which are very heavily spiced. Yeah, that was good. Deep fried it, that’s really good. So corn dogs don’t have to be bad. And again, I’ll eat a corn dog gladly. You know? I just like, most of them that we eat are bad. You get the pre-frozen ones? They’re the bottom tier of frozen. I’d rather have almost any other frozen out there– See, where else do people get it? Do people go to the state fair all the time? Dude, yeah! Okay, there’s literally– Shut up. Nicole, there’s literally a show right now. What the hell is it on? It was on my Hulu, but I don’t know what network produced it. But it was about like, you know they have like storage wars and, I don’t know, coming off all that Dog the Bounty Hunter mission I guess. They have that, but for like state fair stand at the Texas State Fair. Some places do like $3 million in business in like a month span. I know, but I’m talking about the average person. How often does the average person eat a corn dog? It doesn’t matter how often! It exists and they’re moving product at the fairs, that’s all that matters. I’ll say in America, people probably eat more corn dogs than they do beef wellingtons. Oh yeah, you’re absolutely correct. Like in America, that makes sense. How often do we eat beef wellington? Especially outside of the show. We made it for the show recently, and it was just like, it was fun and it was good. It was just a labor of love. But yeah, I’m probably eating a Wellington once every five years. That’s true, that’s true. And even then I’m like, I’d probably rather just have a good well-cooked steak, or like a prime rib. Fair, fair– You know what I mean? So we’re talking about aberrations here, but the point is we have to talk about it. So do you think a corn dog could reasonably be considered a pie? I don’t wanna! We look at beef wellington, pigs in a blanket, pop-tart, hot pocket. Those all have something in common, which is a pre-cooked filling wrapped in dough and baked. But this one has a stick, the stick is a complete outlier. Not only the stick, it’s a wet batter and it’s fried. That’s true, yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s so many things, there’s so many things. I think the wet batter makes it completely unique from a beef wellington. Corn dogs are adopted. Corn dogs are adopted, right? Which doesn’t mean that you love them any less. Of course not. Well, I do because I just don’t like them. Oh, I thought you meant adopted kids. Oh no, I love, oh my gosh, I love adopted kids. More than bio kids? Now that’s weird. I just love children in general. I hate all children equally. Oh my gosh, no. You’re all covered in snot and you’re coming up and trying to touch me. Like, why do you pull on the legs of my pants? Don’t do that. One time I was at the farm for my birthday, and David and I were kissing, and then a little kid came up to us and said, “You guys are gross.” So that made me hate kids a little bit. But no, I love kids. I think the corn dog is adopted and has been welcomed into the family of beef wellingtons. No, you don’t agree? I have an upsetting opinion. I’m ready. The corn dog is a tamale. F off. What, no, no, no. Hold on, think about it. You need to F off. It’s like a loose corn-based batter that’s cooked around a central filling. Am I crazy here? Am I crazy, am I crazy here? Yeah! A corn dog shares so many more similarities to a tamale than a wellington. I disagree. I think the corn dog is more related to fried catfish than it is to a tamale. I like how I looked at the graphic to see what a corn dog is. Fried catfish, what is that? You gotta admit, fried catfish in a cornmeal batter is more closely related to the corn dog. But fried catfish isn’t typically made with a wet cornmeal batter, right? Fried catfish– Doesn’t matter. What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Yeah, you’re dry dredging it in dry corn. This is like a prepared– Josh, if we, no, go ahead. Imagine, imagine, imagine, imagine you have, you’re sitting at a booth, you’re sitting at a booth. You have a corn dog in the middle, you have fried catfish on the right, you got tamale on the left. That’s the world’s worst restaurant. They’re bleeding cash. They’re like, well, tamale, corn dog and catfish concept is a surefire hit. And then you tell the average person to say, put the thing in the middle next to the thing that it is most closely related to. Do you really think people would put it next to Tamale? Alexis de Tocqueville, Nicole. Alexis de Tocqueville– Is this a sports reference? No, he’s like a political philosopher from the 1700’s. Oh, of course I know who that is! Alexis de Tocqueville referenced the tyranny of the majority, right, and that they’re susceptible to demagoguery. Basically the average person– Are you calling me a demagogue? Basically, yes! That’s a terrible rhetorical– Are you calling me a demagogue? You’re the demagogue, Josh. The average person is too stupid to govern themselves, so they need somebody smarter to be able to govern that. And that’s how it sort of represent democracy. And is that you? Yes, yes! Nicole, we are cultural arbiters. Like despite the odds, we have like 160 episodes of a podcast that garner, a lot of people listen to us as authorities. What happens whenever, what did you call us? Demagogues? No, the other thing. Corn dogs? No, no. You called us cultural arbiters? Cultural arbiters, yeah. What if the cultural arbiters can’t see eye to eye. Then what do the people do? What do you do at home? Well I mean, it happens. Ebert and Roeper. Siskel and Ebert. Siskel, are they all dead? Yeah, I think so. One of them has like jaw cancer. That was Roeper. No, I feel like it was Ebert. Siskel’s dead. Maggie, is Siskel dead? Siskel’s dead and Ebert. And Ebert. Ebert’s dead? What about Roeper? Can you see if Roper is dead? Damn. Okay, so sometimes, and we’ve been living fine. They’re all dead? No, that’s a different person. Well, okay. Point is sometimes– What happens whenever the the authorities don’t agree? Then what do we do, do we just? No, you write a dissent. No, do we just separate and go in our different ways? I’m not ready for that! So Supreme Court, right? You can write a dissenting opinion. Isn’t that how it works? Like when the Supreme Court really bungles something and one of the justices feels that they really bungled it, they just write a strongly worded letter. They write a dissenting opinion. We can each write a dissenting opinion here. Roeper’s alive, oh great. Roeper, come on the show. Siskel and Ebert are both dead though, huh? Yes, yes. That was like when I found out that the drummer for Rush, Neil Peart, died. What celebrity death made you cry the hardest? I’ve never cried at a celebrity death. Really? But the one that hit me really hard, the only one that hit me really hard was Anthony Bourdain. For me it was Jack Ritter. Is that his name? John Ritter? John Ritter. Wow, you really emotionally connected. John Ritter from “Three’s Company.” Cried my eyes out. Why? I mean, you’re entitled to your emotions. ♪ Come and knock on our door ♪ Did you watch a lot of “Three’s company”? Yeah, of course. I grew up watching “Three’s Company.” Did you not? No, I don’t. Maggie, did you grow up watching “Three’s Company” with John Ritter? Dude, I don’t know. My parents wanted me to connect to the olden times they wish they were part of. I don’t know, corn dogs. Corn dogs. Not beef wellingtons, they are not related. They’re adopted, but they have been welcomed into the family because it is right to be inclusive and to love everyone equally. Hear me out. What? No, that’s a pipe dream. Nobody loves their kids equally. When I have kids, I’m absolutely gonna have a favorite. Am I ever gonna tell them they’re my favorite, no. Oh my God! Are you kidding me? Who do your parents like more, you or your brother? You know! Oh my gosh, totally my sister. Oh, they like your sister more? But that’s what I’m saying, they had a favorite. It is very clear, I was the favorite of my parents. The point is that you’re living in a pipe dream. You’re living in a world that is never actually going to come to fruition. But Josh, this isn’t real. This is just a graphic. It has been manifest real! It’s like the way that I don’t know if there’s an actual deity called God, but I know that every time I sneeze I say, “God bless you.” And so that makes it real, right? You say, God bless you? I don’t say God, there’s a silent God bless you. Or I say God willing. I say inshallah. Inshallah, right? That means that I have presuppose God’s existence in some way because I have made manifest via my sort of thoughts and actions. Okay. I think that’s the same thing with this. It has now been put out into the world that there is something called the Wellington family, and there are aunts and uncles in it. And so now we need to parse through it. I’m telling you– Corn dog is the black sheep of the Wellington family. Yeah. It’s the black sheep because it’s adopted, and it was made to feel as if it was a black sheep. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. You got this, the whole Wellington family, they’re all blonde hair, blue green eyes. Corn dog coming in. They’re, you know, got jet black hair, brown eyes, wondering what the hell happened. So they’ve, yeah, there are phenotypic differences between a corn dog and a wellington. But we still welcome them. We still welcome them! Because they deserve to feel welcomed. We love them. And they’re delicious in their own right– But you hate them. Not my favorite, but that’s okay. You don’t like them and you don’t love them, but you will treat them with respect. Always. That sounds terrible! What do you want me to say? I don’t know, this analogy is awful. I don’t like corn dogs! Do I have to like them because they’re part of a certain family? Do I have to allow myself to be less than just so I can be inclusive? I don’t know what you want me to say right now, Josh. What’s like the worst product in the freezer aisle than a corn dog? Taquitos. You think taquitos? Dude, frozen taquitos are great. What? I mean, they’re not like good, but it’s just a toasted corn tortilla filled with a spiced goo that you can dip in other sauces. I don’t care for taquitos. You would rather, no, get the hell outta here. You would rather have like a Foster Farms Turkey corn dog then a Jose Ole taquito? I would rather have a taquito be in this graphic. Oh, taquitos are much better. Right? A much better Wellington than a corn dog. A taquito belongs there, and a corn dog, a corn dog can come to the party. Sure, but the taquito is like the son, that sort of biological son that disowned the family. Fair, okay. And like went off and taught English in Korea for three or four years. I know exactly who you’re talking about. And then they sort of came back and they were like, hey, I realized that family’s really important to me. I was very lonely out there by myself– So that’s corn dogs? No, that’s taquitos. That’s taquitos, got it. Because taquito is a wellington. Taquito is an empanada. It’s not sealed off, but. No, but– It still serves its purpose. I actually, God, I was watching a cooking show and somebody, there was a Mexican chef and they made an empanada, but they were making Oaxacan empanada. Have you ever had a Oaxacan empanada? One of my favorite dishes! Wait, do you have it at Monte Alban? Hell yes! Underrated Oaxacan restaurant on the west side of LA. So good, so good. They had a empanada with mole Amarillo, the yellow mole, and it’s not like an Argentinian empanada that we would think of where it’s like a crust that is baked, but it’s just a big handmade corn tortilla. Freaking delicious. And they just put a lot of just stewed chicken with yellow mole, and they just flap it over and kind of mash it a little bit, and it all kind of steams together. It’s really good. And you just grab it and eat it. But that’s an empanada because it is… A Wellington. I was gonna say wrapped in bread, empanada, right? It’s the same thing, it’s a pie. It’s all, you know, it’s an open-faced pie, Nicole. That’s what we’re talking about here. And corn dogs, corn dogs simply don’t fit the bill. It’s a wet batter that’s fried. It’s not the same. It’s a tamale. It’s not the same. It’s not a tamale either, Josh. You would say corn dog batter. Let it sit, maybe make it a little bit less– What if you were making tamales, and then someone threw a hotdog in the middle of a tamale? You would punch them in the face. That absolutely exists. There are definitely. Okay, so you mean to tell me there’s tamale de weenie? Absolutely people have made this. I’m looking it up to see if anybody has made this. I don’t know if they have, but in the history of the world, somebody has to have put hotdog in tamales, right? Maybe Spam! Maybe Spam. What does it matter? A tamale is a vessel, and also a tamale, a tamale should maybe be the, also the word tamale. You know like the word tamale? That’s just like a very weird, this is a super pretentious Giada De Laurentiis type thing. I don’t know. But the word tamale like doesn’t exist. It’s just tamal? It’s tamal, ’cause then the plural is like tamales, and the singular is tamal. But then in American adoption of the word, somehow tamale became the thing, and also they’re like very American. Like red hot tamales are like really popular in the southern delta. I do like hot tamales. Yeah, same. So what do we, what’s the consensus today. If you were to take corn dog batter? Okay. Make it a little bit less liquidy. Okay. Or even just let it sit, let it hydrate for a while. Let the corn soak up and do its thing. Put that in a corn husk and steam it. Okay. Is it not like a tamale dulce? It’s not nixtamalized corn, I get it, but it’s made of corn, it’s made of field corn, it’s made of maize. Thank you so much for watching. But then if you take a hot dog. We’ll talk about this when the camera stops– If you stack 15 hot dogs together. I don’t think, lemme tell you, I don’t think we’re gonna solve this. Josh, Josh– You wrap it in filo dough, I call it a hot dog kibbah. I don’t think we’re going to come up with a consensus today, but we have definitely set the groundwork for some other people out there to discuss if a corn dog is a beef wellington, and that’s the most important thing, Josh. We are shaping people’s futures. We are creating discourse for those that cannot, and I think that’s really important. Calzone. All right, Nicole. We’ve heard what you and I have to say. Now it’s time to find out whether in a segment that we call– “Opinions Are Like Casseroles.” I guess. I’m shy. And before, Nicole, stop doing that, it’s creeping me out. Why, what? I don’t know, there’s something so weird about this that makes me throw up. It’s like those NPC streamers who just go like, ah! You know what I mean? It weirds me out. Why is me putting my fingers like in a pointy– It’s just got the same energy. Why is my boo-boo fingers a problem? Before we get to “Opinions Are Like Casseroles,” we’re doing a new segment that we’re calling reviewer review. We’re gonna give a review for one of the many five star reviews that we have on Apple Podcasts. And if you want to be one of the many people who have given us five star reviews, many people are saying, many people are saying, that’s all. Many people say that we’re the best podcast out there, and so they give us five star reviews. And so if you wanna be one of those many people, you can do it. And if you don’t give us a five star review– Yeah, stroke our egos and then we’ll congratulate you for stroking our egos. Does it do anything material for us? Do we get more money, do we get more advertising? I don’t believe so. But we need it, we need it. But hey, it’s a new segment, it’s an extra two minutes listening to us talk. And I know how valuable those two minutes can be. For in here, we need it. So this is Knight’s Alchemy, titled Fun. “I don’t personally know much about food, but it’s still enjoyable and I learned a lot, I think.” Knight’s Alchemy, I’m gonna give you a four and a half out of five stars for this review. Yeah, and be sure to rate and review this podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts, and leave us a comment on YouTube about what you wanna hear us debate next. Because I love that they gave us five stars. What I don’t like is they seem unsure of themselves. They say they think they learn a lot, and they don’t know much about food. I’m really thirsty, can I have some of your drink? Yeah. Thank you, sorry. I finished all my drink and I’m like dying. I thought you’re about to launch into a weird advertisement, I was very confused. I was just thirsty. Hey, buy one of our mugs! We don’t sell ’em. No, we don’t sell ’em. But buy ’em from us. Just send me an offer. It says, don’t talk to me until I’ve had my hotdog water, because it’s funny! Hot dog water, funny. I’m gonna do that whenever we actually sell these. Yeah, funny. All right, let’s get into our first opinion. Shalom! So I don’t know why this took me 30 years of the existence to discover, but about five minutes ago I dipped a salty, hot baked rustic potato in some yellow mustard, and it was probably the best snack I’ve ever had in the moment. Hashtag drunk food! Blessed. See y’all later, bye. What is their accent, I love it? I don’t know, it sounds familiar. It sounds hardened. What do you mean? It’s like a hardened accent. Like a true grit? Like it was hardened by an industrial area and snow. True grit. Like they’re from either Montana or Pittsburgh, but they’re kind of the same things to me. It’s just like harder than here, you know, is what it sounded like. Sounds good. Hot salty potato, yellow mustard. Yum! You know what this is? Gimme that. Anytime… Controversial statement. Anytime one culture sort of like diffuses. What is that, is that a big motorcycle? Anytime one culture sort of diffuses across many country lines, some weird things kind of happen to it, and it can sort of dilute itself in a way. So you take like a German potato salad, with like nice wholegrain mustard and other aromatics and things folded in. Like potatoes and mustard is a thing that makes sense. Sure! It feels very Germanic to me. Okay. And then you travel that across the ocean, and you just end up eating a baked potato with just yellow mustard on it. It’s ingredients for something greater than it can be. True. Or like spaghetti napolitana in japan, right? You take napolitana, Neapolitan spaghetti, right? And then that turns into ketchup spaghetti and hot dogs. Yes. You know, a delightful dish in its own right. Ditto with this rusted potato and yellow mustard. Potatoes are a completely blank slate. You get acid salt, and you get that mustard funk. There’s nothing wrong with that. Nope, this sounds good. But it is a bit of an uncanny valley dilution of something– I don’t think food can be in the uncanny valley. I think it can. No. You ever see the hotdogs that are sliced to look like octopuses? That’s not uncanny valley, that’s cute AF. Dude, that’s uncanny valley. Dude, that’s cute AF. Or they make like the rice balls that look like a bear? Okay Josh, you just don’t like cute things. I don’t like cute things, I’m not a very Kawaii person. I love cute things. Maggie laughs. Hi, my name’s Stacey. Hi Josh and Nicole. Hi Stacy! Hey! [Stacey] So my food hot take is that the best all-purpose shredded cheese to keep in your refrigerator is Monterey Jack. I’m not saying it’s the best cheese for every application. I’m saying it’s the best all rounder that you could possibly keep for the average person who’s not gonna have like 30 different cheeses. I… You go ahead, you’re a big Monterey Jack stan. I’m a big fan of Monterey Jack because, okay, so cheddar, right? It can be a little bit too sharp, even a mild cheddar. Yeah, even the crystalline compound is just not for meltage. That’s what I’m saying! Mozzarella, you don’t get enough sometimes. Sometimes the texture of mozzarella, if you’re using non-traditional mozzarella application, it’s a bit rubbery. To me, Monterey Jack, it’s like a perfect neutral cheese. It’s a good all-purpose cheese when you’re cooking. I think whenever you want like cheese pull. I think whenever you want a touch of saltiness, a touch of creaminess, I think Monterey Jack is a great thing to throw in there, in addition to other cheeses. It’s very non-offensive. It’s got like a very mild flavor profile. Also even like the color, right? Not like a yellow cheddar, it’s gonna melt white. Pure white, yeah. You know, a neutral color palette. I agree with this, and I often do stock Monterey Jack. I use it in quesadillas. Really good in quesadillas. I’ve done it in a pinch on chicken parm, and it works just fine. Oh really, okay? Last night I made a chicken parm, but the only thing I had was like, Julia bought like a fancy cheese. She bought a young manchego, and I had to use a young manchego on my chicken parm. Pretty bad. I’m not surprised! Pretty bad, does not. it just melts, it just breaks immediately. But you put Parmesan cheese over the mozzarella, right? Yeah, but I tried to use the manchego as a sub for the mozz. That’s your problem. I wasn’t gonna walk to the store. Also it was already like a healthy baked version. We didn’t like fry it, so it was like whatever. Might as well. Fair. Yeah, Monterey Jack. Monterey Jack would’ve saved me in that pinch. Good opinion, Stacey. Hi, I’ve been listening to you since the episode “Is Cereal Soup.” In my opinion, it’s that the original Pringles with coconut milk whipped cream is the bomb. Thanks for being here so I can listen to you every night. Love you guys! Yeah, oh my God! I’m unwell. Wait, wait. They know, the coconut milk whipped cream is better than the original whipped cream. It’s not better, but it’s a good substitute. I think it’s better, and the almond milk is way worse. Oh, there’s almond? They an almond milk whipped cream, and it comes out broken like half the time. Oh no, no– There’s not enough guar gum in the world. I will say coconut whipped cream does serve its purpose, and it’s really good, it’s a good sub, but it’s not the same. But you’re pairing it with classic Pringles? Yes. Honestly, I love that stuff– That’s a great combination. That’s a really good combination. I want it, like a great, the most common dessert that Julie and I eat is like we just have a can of whipped cream. Cute. We both are nostalgic for the can stuff. We’ve tried like batching our own sort of whipped cream– It’s not the same. No, I need the can. We’ll just cut up fruit, maybe macerate it a little bit with some sugar or whatever herbs we have on hand. And then we’ll take something crunchy and put it on top. Graham cracker, cereal, whatever, the best is potato chips. The best, a little bit of salty. Wow. A little bit of salty, even some corn chips sometimes. So adventurous. Little bootleg mango, corn chips and whipped cream– You two are so crazy! We get a little wild at night, you know? This is a great opinion– That’s personal! Next opinion. Hi Josh and Nicole, my name is Grant, and I’m from Wisconsin. Love the name. But that doesn’t really matter, ’cause my hot take isn’t about Bratwurst or some Mayo filled party casserole. Go Badgers! My take is about coffee. Iced coffee, actually, in that instant coffee makes better iced coffee than any other method. Love the show, don’t you know? Okay, there’s the Wisconsin part. Oh yeah! Oh yeah, don’t you know, I saw “Fargo” like four times. Mike Yanagita, yeah! Frances McDormand? Yeah! She’s incredible in it, man. One of my favorites. William H. Macy? Yeah, oh yeah. I watched that movie recently as well. I love “Fargo.” Oh, I’d love me some “Fargo.” I would watch it again. That’s pretty good. That was a good accent. I want give you your flowers. I didn’t feel like doing the full pole and trying it myself. I just don’t have the energy. I don’t have that energy right now. But I want you to know that you did a really great job. Yeah! I mean, yeah. What are we talking about? Instant coffee, the world runs on instant coffee. So good, so good. So many places, people talk about coffee culture elsewhere. They’re like, oh, if you ever go to Turkey, and they pull the coffee this way. Yeah, Turkish coffee is good. It’s like, yeah, or Vietnam, even talking about the cafe culture in France, and yada yada, and that’s all true. But also every single place also just has buckets of instant Nescafe. I love instant coffee. My mom used to be an instant coffee lady, and it like definitely skewed me to like it too. But not that much. And you can control the amount of– It’s fun! Liquid, and then you can control how strong it is. Which for iced coffee, it’s something that’s getting diluted. One of the reasons it’s tough. If you are at home and you only have a drip coffee maker like I do, and you want iced coffee? You don’t have the Nespresso machine? No, I don’t even, I don’t like espresso like that. And I don’t like milky coffee drinks, really. Got it, got it– Like I love American drip coffee, it’s just my favorite. I hate drip coffee. Really? Ugh! I know my Italian roommate used call it just dirty water, and I think they’re right. I like espresso. No, I’m a fan of just watery drip coffee. It reminds me of being in like diners, you know? You liked being in diners? I love diners, yeah! I’m okay with diners. I love a good American diner cup of coffee. I want to feel like I am in Italy. But like the instant coffee, you can control the amount of water in it, so that way, put it on ice, shake it, the water naturally dilutes it. And I agree with that. And also you’re changing the nature of the coffee. Dalgona coffee. Could it be done without instant, right? Couldn’t be done without instant coffee. Instant coffee is a revelation, and also caffeine is just a drug and the American government needs to– Regulate it? Give us more, no, the opposite. They need to give us more unregulated stimulants. I wanna chew qat. Oh my God– I wanna chew qat. Anybody out there who can get me some qat? Oh my god. I would like to chew it all day.. That’s the betel leaf? No, I think it’s its own thing. I believe the betel nut is like– Isn’t qat betel nut? Is qat betel nut? Look it up, look it up. I know qat is really popular in Yemen. When I was in Israel, I was drinking a bunch of qat juice and it was great. I don’t know. I think qat, I think khat is just like its own like leaf, and it’s delicious. Oh, got it. Also Q-A-T can be played in Scrabble. One of the few– Oh my God, somebody get this guy a Scrabble. God, I’m gonna go home and play so many games of Scrabble. You should just online with people, with listeners. I don’t know, man. I don’t know, that seems vulnerable. So on that note, is that it? Is that the end of the podcast? Should do one more? Let’s do one more. Let’s do one more. Maggie, can we do one more? Maggie, do we have room for one more? Hi! I’m currently listening to the episode called “What’s the Best Office Snack.” And Josh just said the words, “Crawfish are just okay.” So I wanted to let you know that I’m scared for your life, because the Cajuns are going to come for you, but– What? Since you are familiar with boils, what are your favorite non-traditional items to throw in a crawfish boil? We like pineapple, also eggs because they soak up all the spices. One thing that did not work was grapes. That was gross. Okay, bye! Hey man– Wait, wait. What did I do that the Cajans are coming for me? You said crawfish is just all right. Oh, yeah. I mean it’s like… I like it whenever I go to the seafood boil places and then they put ramen in it. I don’t know that I’ve ever had that. Really, am I imagining it? I don’t know. I’ve had it once. Maybe I did it myself, maybe they did it for me. No, that sounds awesome. It was good! Oh my God. Yeah, after you finish, they just put it and then they shake the bag, and then you eat the bag. Eat it with the juices of the bag. Holy smokes, I don’t know that I’ve ever had, I don’t know that I’ve ever had anything like non-traditional in a seafood boil, but the possibilities are endless because it’s such an intoxicating elixir. Imagine it with like curly ramen noods, like Korean ramen noods. Yeah, that literally sounds like the ideal. Yeah. Or like, oh my God, if you just took like frozen dumplings, because now I’m imagining this hot pot. Oh yeah, yeah. But with the Cajun spices, I wanna put fish balls in there. Oh! You ever go to Hotpot and you get the fish balls that are filled with like– No. Do you not get fish balls at all? No. Do you ever go to Hotpot? Well, like twice. We should go. Okay, we have so many plans that you promise to do but you never do them. I hurt my back and then I got strep throat. And you have Shabbat, and everybody has robust social lives. Sounds like excuses, Josh. If I was important, you would make time. No, I will. Will you cancel your plans for me? I have before in the past. When, when? I will never cancel a baby shower or a brit milah, but I will cancel other things. You lied about a brit milah though. You lied. That was to be on camera with you! I don’t go, oh, you lied for content, you lied for clout. That makes it okay? Thank you so much for listening to “A Hot Dog is a Sandwich.” We got new audio only episodes on Wednesdays, and video versions here on YouTube every Sunday. I throw more hard-boiled eggs into random things. I think that’s the thing I believe in. I had a hard boiled egg today. What did you eat it with? Salt and pepper. Real imaginative, Nicole. All right! For more Mythical Kitchen, check us out on YouTube. We launch new videos everywhere. We’re always doing stuff out there– I just said that! Nicole, they don’t care. If you want to get featured on “Opinions Are Like Casseroles,” give us a ring and leave a quick message at Dog-Pod1. The number again is Dog-Pod1. If you wanna be featured on “Opinions Are Like Casseroles,” dial Dog-Pod1. For more Mythical Kitchen, check on our other videos. We launch new episodes every week. We will see you next time. We got new episodes coming out. Audio only on Wednesday, videos drop on Sunday. We’ll see you next time. 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