Nicole, these cooking Tik Toks are getting outta hand. They must be stopped at all costs. Don’t you guys have a cooking Tik Tok? Yeah, but we’re cool. Okay. 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. Welcome to our podcast, “A Hot Dog is a Sandwich.” I’m your host, Josh Scherer. And I’m your host Nicole Enayati. And today we have a very special guest joining us. Please welcome YouTuber and friend of Mythical, Jarvis Johnson. Uh, we talked about this. I have a Columbian cousin- It’s Jarvis. Jarvis, no, thank you so much for coming on the show. Yes. We specifically wanted to talk to you about the idea… Okay, so we were initially gonna call this does Tik Tok have a food waste problem? Right. Because you made an incredible video called Washing Food for Clout. Yeah. Good video. A great, fantastic video. I hate that you got scooped by Ryan Sutton from Eater. Oh, that did happen. But it continued. This led me on a dark path of every time someone was doing something suspicious with food I would get tagged on Twitter or Instagram, and I’ve also been DMCA’d by some of the people who do these food things, rightly actually. I think I did just take a clip on Twitter, and go “This is weird.” And I’m like “You know what, fair game.” Yeah. But yeah. So while it hasn’t been my beat as of late it is a place I spent a lot of my time, so I’m excited to speak about it today. When I see a conventionally attractive white woman in a very well lit kitchen pouring spaghetti- You know it’s about to go down- And processed cheese on a marbled countertop I think of you. And that’s what I want. Has anybody ever tagged you in any of our content? No. So maybe that’s a sign that you need to get a little more unhinged. I think we might need to. I don’t think it’s humanly possible for us to get more unhinged, but… Because we do get a lot of comments from popple. We try and not waste food. So for people that don’t know, what we’re talking about are these genres of Tik Tok, actually a lot of them explode on Facebook, but short form food videos where people will deliberately make food that is so, so, so terrible and unhinged. And its generally very large quantities that are obviously getting scooped right into a trash can, they get millions upon millions of views. A lot of times they’re doing it on a counter, and there’s no dishware to speak of. Nope. There’s always someone off camera who’s very surprised at what’s going on. Yeah. As if they’re not holding the camera, and in on the entire thing. There’s a very specific style. It has created its own rules- Yes. Within the genre. Yeah it does. When you hear music nerds talk about Dub step, and somebody’s like that’s not Dub step, Dub step has 32 half beats on a counter measure. Right. You’re like what? They really subverted the sitcom formula with this one. Yeah. The thing about “Community” is it’s a meta commentary on this format. That’s what it has become, it’s own medium. Yeah, they’re all semi, semi, semi believable. There’s that uncanny valley area where you’re like “God, is somebody actually doing this?” And especially for a food person’s perspective. There’s a video where the lady pours a bunch of jars of Prego sauce, which Prego ended up trending on Twitter because of this. Yes. No way. Yeah. They’re a fine jarred sauce. And every time I try a new jarred sauce- Sure. I’m disappointed. Might as well buy Prego. Rao’s is the best. Might as well, might as well. No Rao’s the best. Jarred sauce kind of sounds like an alternate universe verse of my name. Jarvis jarred sauce. Okay, so speaking of pouring food directly on countertop- Yeah. You know what I’m about to bring up. You know what I’m about to bring up. I do? Because there’s a very legit dish- Oh, the polenta. It’s called polenta . Yes, yes, I love that. And , hear me out, is a large wooden board. Okay. And it used to just be served on people’s wooden tables. Sure. And you make sure it’s cleaned and sanitized. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you take just a ton of polenta, and you pour it out while it’s liquidy, and you spread it across the table so it then kind of hardens, and then you take bolognese cooked with pork neck, little bit of that , that sausage, and you throw it directly on there. And everybody sits around eating with their hands. Or a Filipino feast. Sure, that’s another example. Similar thing, they’ll line the table with banana leaves- Yeah. Being directly on the top. So as a food person I’m watching these videos- Right. And I’m like “Oh, this might be slightly serious.” Right. You’re like “I’ll hear you out ’cause there’s a, “I can contort myself “into a reasoning that this makes sense. “This could be legitimate.” 100%. Yeah, but do you think they’re inviting their friends over after they shoot that video to partake in the food debauchery? They don’t have friends. I don’t think that’s happening. They are, they’re characters. They’re not real people. The people that are in those videos, they exit the world of that video, and they have whole entire lives where they’re not thinking about spaghetti on the counter, they’re thinking about what preschool their child is going to go to, you know what I mean? It’s a weird universe that they… This is their job. Sure. Against all odds, this has become their job, which is the way that I look at this. I think it’s a beautiful thing about the internet is that we have… We used to live in this homogenic media landscape where you listen to the radio, and there were like five artists. Elvis Presley was everywhere, and you had to be a fan of him ’cause what else were you gonna listen to? And then we had this media stratification where you can niche down into your most specific interests. And from that people have risen up, and found, much like the ice cream’s so good Tik Tok NPC thing. Pinkydoll, we love her. Pinkydoll. It’s amazing, but I think it’s a beautiful outcropping of the stratification of media. Everyone can find a weird thing, and some stuff bubbles up. And some of the stuff that bubbles up is weird to me. I don’t even know if I’d say that some of the stuff that bubbles up is weird. The stuff bubbles up because it’s weird, and that’s by design, right? True. We talked about these videos having a very specific format, and that’s all to gain some sort of- Outrage. Engagement and outrage. Yeah, yeah. And the fact that all these algorithms on all these social media platforms, all these publishers, they simply function on what is new, what is immediate and what is outrageous. Mm-hmm. And so- And what’s gonna garner interaction, positive or negative. 100%. And there’s a negativity bias in humans in general, so if somebody calls up your house, political pollsters. So many of the political polling numbers now are weird because the method of data collection has changed. Who’s gonna answer the phone at four p.m.? Somebody who freaking hates Gavin Newsome so goddamn much that they need to tell a stranger about it. Or someone who doesn’t have anything that they feel like do… I think that there’s an older generation that I’m not a part of who when they get a phone call they’re like “Let’s chat.” That’s me. That’s not something that I personally, and maybe it’s not generational, maybe it’s cultural too, or just specifically how you grew up. But if someone calls me it feels like an emergency. Do you have a landline? Not anymore. Yeah, me either. I don’t have a landline either. Yeah, it’s been a while. But when I was in middle school I had a friend whose dad didn’t have a landline, and I was like “That’s crazy.” What do you mean you don’t have a land line? How do you talk to your friends? You get on the internet. I love answering scam calls, and then just having nice conservations with them. I do too. But that’s more for the bit. One thing I wanna get into is, and I know it’s foolish to try and put anything into a good/bad binary especially when it comes to the wild world of the internet. Okay. But one could call these videos bad for society. They’re deliberating one. I agree. If you make a video like this it simply begets more videos like that. Especially if they’re successful. 100%. Anything that’s successful will inevitably have 100 copy cats ’cause we all wanna figure out how to crack the algorhithim, how to break through, and then when someone does it people are gonna be like what about that succeeded? I wanna try to mimic it. 100%. Breeds copy cats. And then everything, all these algorithms are shaded towards negativity, they’re also shaded towards extremism. You watch one video about is there a slight issue with the vaccine? And then five videos later it’s like well, Obama was a shape shifter and a lizard so that means that the aliens are gonna rebuild the pyramids. Or even the Mr. Beastification of things where things need to be bigger and bigger and bigger to the point of… I think Mr. Beast videos are an incredible… How did this get made? It breaks my brain on what it is, but they start, and are like “We’ve got the biggest explosion, “also we drove a car into a hole.” Tony Hawk’s here. Yeah. Dude, the Yacht video. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But even Mr. Beast has said that he can’t give away more money in his videos because it’s crossed over to the point where people don’t believe it’s real. People are like “If I get $10,000 that’s fine, “if I get $50,000, “but if I give a million dollars “people are like ‘fake.’ “But I really did it.” There’s literally somebody that’s being shorted money from Mr. Beast because nobody will believe. So the logical end goal for some of these videos where somebody’s pouring crap on countertops, and you know it’s gonna get wasted, to me, I don’t know this man’s name, however he goes on there, and he goes “This is how I make peanut butter and jelly,” and this man will have 10 gallons of jelly, there will be a single piece of white bread- Oh yeah. He’ll have 10 gallons of jelly, and then he pours it, and then he says “Perfect.” Does anybody know what I’m talking about? I know who that is, yeah, yeah. It is the pure, logical end result of all of these videos where they’re like what if we skipped all of the things that we thought made this format successful, and we simply wasted 10 gallons of food? Yeah, that reminds me of the Grimace shake phenomenon. Yes. Where we kind of witnessed in real time it started, someone made a little joke, and then they were like I need to yes and, I need to escalate this. Yes. And then it escalated to the point of people completely missing the point, and going into a McDonald’s, and slapping the shake out of someone’s hand, and making a huge mess. And it’s like what have we become? Horrible times. What are we doing? It’s like in any friends group you start pranking each other, and then one person’s prank is I’m just gonna hit this person in the back of the head with 2 x 4’s, isn’t that funny? And we’re like Alex, Alex, you always play to rough. It was Alex in our friend group. I will say this, Josh- It sounds like an “Ed, Ed and Eddie” episode. I will say whenever I see those 10 gallon peanut butter pouring on a single slice of bread there’s also creators that actually, they take that 10 gallons of peanut butter, and they show you useful ways to do it. So I’ve seen those things as well. That’s a weird carbon write off that isn’t real. It’s not real. No, no, I swear. You actually see the peanut butter levels go lower, and he’s like “Okay, this is the last scoop of peanut butter “guess I’m just gonna put it in a shake.” So for all that craziness and clicks and reviews or whatever there’s actually people on there that actually want to show people how to use food if they ever- How to shop at Costco effectively. Yeah. People are buying things at Costco, buying things in bulk. There’s actually some, it’s a small percentage. There’s people out there, they exist. Somewhere. Yeah, dubious. I’m dubious to that claim. I don’t disagree at all, but I do think the market for practicality is probably smaller than the market for spectacle. Yeah. You’re literally talking to people that make $500 Big Macs, so… And we ate that whole Big Mac. You gotta pry us away from those $500 Big Macs. We also do waste a lot of food. It is simply this is… I’m gonna have generally unpopular, and self emulating beliefs about this. After you. Nobody is going to like me for my general stance on this. This is the only way you and I know how to make money. Good for you for figuring out how to make money without wasting food, Travis. Okay. Who’s to say I don’t waste food in my private life? Well that’s actually something I was gonna get to. So we waste a certain amount of food here. Sure. We do take a lot of efforts to not waste it. Absolutely. Every Friday we put out, this is just our confessional episode to you, by the way. But every Friday we put out all of the groceries from our fridge, and we just put ’em on the table. All of our co-workers come with literal tote bags, and shop for themselves. That’s right. I get first dibs though. Me too. But we do that. And we make monthly donations to the Hollywood Food Bank. That’s right. We physically drive food wherever we can. There is necessarily going to be a lot of food wasted on any sort of food shows. That’s a given. And any restaurant. And any restaurant. And any grocery store. In your home, 30 to 40% of all food in America ends up in a landfill. Ridiculous. For the first time in human history we have figured out how to produce too much food for the human population. And there are people, several people in America, that are hungry and food insecure, and the reason they are not getting food is not because food shows are putting it in the trash. That’s right. It is because of supply chain issues, and there is no profitability in helping the poor. That is simply it. We have hundreds of millions of tons of cheese sitting in caves. Oh yeah, cheese caves. Cheese cave? Do you know about the cheese caves? I only briefly heard about the cheese, I would love to learn more. If anyone’s got a- Caves in Missouri. So much of it has to do with farm subsidies. So World War II we needed to figure out how to modernize the American farming system so they built refrigerated trucks, and they had this big public works program to getting electricity out to these rural farms, trying to get us to just completely quintuple the amount of American dairy production so we could powder that milk, and send it to the troops to beat Hitler. Right. And we did. Hitler’s dead or in the Yucatan Peninsula somewhere, who knows. But then we came back, and we’re like “Oh God, we have too much milk.” Right. And so we basically, So much of the economy ran off of these dairy subsidies, and American farmers have always been a huge part of both the economy, and the political lobbying process that we’re like we have so much more milk than people can drink, or than we feel like getting to them, so the government cheese program was born. Mandatory school lunch milks everywhere. Yeah, the Got Milk campaign. The Got Milk campaign. We had a poster of Shaq with a milk mustache. Good times. In our library. Is there a similar reason to why corn is in everything? It’s almost the exact same reason. Okay, cool. It just became- I like to learn so this is great for me. You’re in the right place. All of it has to do with, it was 100 years ago more than 40% of Americans lived on farms, and now it’s like 4%. Right. And so everything has been consolidating via vertical integration so you get these monstrous companies- Yeah that own everything, yeah. Sure. That own everything. Top to bottom. Yeah. And also monoculture farming basically destroys the soil to the point where we can’t even rotate different vegetables and different crops in there. Right. So they just need to grow more corn to find more market for more corn to then patent more corn seed. So the point is the food waste problem in America is so invisible to so many people, and we are all a culprit in it. Sure, yeah. So of that 30 to 40% of food that gets wasted every single year a lot of it’s in the industrial side of it. Yeah. You put 100,000 apples onto a truck, some of those apples are gonna spoil, some of them are gonna bruise. Naturally. All this stuff. Dairy subsidies, farmers are paid to just spray milk into the ground because there’s… That’s a real thing that happens because they have no market for it. Right. And packaging that milk, and getting it to people would be more expensive than just spraying it in the ground. Dumping it, yeah. But then in our own homes we buy so much food in such large quantities. Mm-hmm. I remember a roommate bought a 10-pound bag of spinach from Costco. Do you know how big a 10-pound bag of spinach is? Yes. I just think of how not dense a spinach leaf is. Correct. The whole size of the fridge almost. It was a MyPillow. The MyPillow guy came out. Mike or whatever, yeah. That’s funny. And I had to make a giant tray of sapankopita just to try and use up this person’s spinach that otherwise would have gone to waste. And I feel like you were one of the few people who could go “How can I do this?” 100%. Because I’ve bought a tiny bag of spinach, and not used it. Same. ‘Cause I couldn’t… Too complicated. Correct, correct. We’ve all been there. We’ve all been there. We’ve all been there. We buy aspirationally, right? Oh, true. So true. That’s very true. I’m gonna be a new person. New Jarvis is gonna buy a whole head of cauliflower, and cut it up himself. Ooh and it’s gonna be so tasty. Oh no, I’m tired. And I don’t wanna do anything actually. I have a whole bag of parsnips haven’t touched in a week. I got carrots wilting- Just rotting. In my fridge right now. Just rotting. Yeah, it’s really disappointing. I told myself I’d make anything peppers tonight with a little mirepoix in there. Yeah. I’m not gonna wanna do that. No, no, no, sir. I’m gonna order Zankou chicken, cost $18. Yeah. Oh, oh, but it’s so good, the Zankou chicken. Oh my God Zankou chicken gave me food poisoning, can’t do it anymore. Every time. The point is food waste is such a multifaceted issue that we are all sort of part of in our own ways, but that doesn’t neglect the fact that these videos are so hyper visible, and then also sort of lead to more. But, again, they’re a business. Yeah. Sure. If all of our videos were like “Here’s how to use your parsley stems.” I wish, yeah. We wouldn’t have a job. Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Oh, 100%. And I think that, again, spectacle sells. And I think that that’s the market, the attention market, I guess, that we exist in now. You have to figure out how to grab people’s attention with food if that’s your beat. If you wanna do food entertainment, oh my God, that’s something that’s been done for decades and decades, people wanna see something new and interesting, so then you get the mad scientists of Tik Tok that start. I was watching something in the car where somebody was… After I parked here. I got here 10 minutes early, and I was parked, and I was like “Let me just watch something.” And my friend had sent me this guy, I think it’s Eli’s Kitchen or something. Mm, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where they’re food processing some bologna, and they’re pouring some dairy in it. I was like “I think it’s supposed to look gross, “but then he actually tries it, “and is trying to go for something “mad scientist style.” I didn’t stick around, I was like “No thank you, this is too nasty for me.” But some people are like “Yes, even grosser.” Yeah. I mean we made Gordon Ramsey’s beef wellington, but with only ingredients found in a 7-Eleven- That’s right. And wrapped a bunch of pureed hot dog that had basis in French cookery, made a sort of farce with egg whites, much like you’d make a seafood muesli- Bad times, bad times. Bad items. We didn’t eat that. That went right in the trash. We tried it. That video got us millions upon millions of views, which pays for us to have healthcare. And that also led to paid integrations- Yeah, sure. That, again, are the cornerstone of the business. And the way I think about that is Eddie Burback. Eddie Burback. We’re all friends with Eddie. Friend of the show. Terrible person. What? I’m sorry. He’s a monster. We’re always saying this, always saying this. Sorry, why? I think he’s great. His mustache is fantastic. How many carbon emissions, and how much gas did he use up to drive to every Rain Forrest Cafe in America. That’s it. It’s one of those, you could ask that question about almost everything that everyone does. Everything. Which is the thing. If you choose to take that angle, then you’re gonna find problems with everything. 100%. That’s very true. So anytime you are producing anything there’s going to be an amount of waste. And if you’re coming at it from an environmental angle, which a lot of the food waste stuff is, methane production coming from land fills. Absolutely. Or even just a general ethical angle you’re going to be able to find anything that you can sort of, I don’t wanna say complain, but minimize it, but that’s a real thing. Can you back up. I think I understand something, but maybe… The audience is probably smarter then me, but I’m just gonna say it. So, my understanding about the landfill problem is the simple minded person like myself would go “Oh, it’s food, it’s biodegradable, “it can just go in the ground, “and kind of feed the soil.” Yeah. But what I understand is when there’s so much bio waste packed and packed and packed in these landfills it just generates a bunch of methane. Yes. Which is bad for the environment, and doesn’t actually, it kind of is too, it just doesn’t work. Yeah. That whole process doesn’t happen. No, if we were actively turning every piece of food scrap into compost, one, America eats too much Velveeta to turn into compost. For real. And then it’s also the packaging, and all that stuff that’s going in there. But that’s the way I understand it. But then I think there’s something so unique about food waste in videos that get people so riled up, and reasonably is that you can imagine that spaghetti on that counter, and you’re imaging a hungry child. Sure. And that spaghetti could have gone into that child’s mouth. Yeah. Yes. If you’re watching someone make chocolate sculptures on Tik Tok, chocolate doesn’t have the same nutritional value whereas making food where the ingredients could have been something they ate that night for dinner. But they couldn’t have been, I guess is my point. They simply couldn’t have been. Because we have, in every single step of the process before that spaghetti got to that lysoled countertop to be turned into commerce for the person, for Rick Lax the Facebook magician who’s the ring leader of all this. I heard recently that, okay we should talk about Rick Lax later because I’ve heard that Rick Lax Productions is not around anymore, and some of the people have gone on to do their own outrage content, and then other new people taking up the mantle of food waste. Or of the ridiculous countertop food situation. The Buzzfeed “Why I Left Rick Lax.” “Why I Left Rick Lax.” Anytime you watch those teary eyed videos you just smear Orville Redenbacher popcorn all over your face, and then say “My friends are coming over later, “this is gonna be delicious.” What was I talking about? You were talking about- I was mad about something. So people get angry because they can imagine that food being fed to someone. Yeah. At every single point in the production process of that food, from the growing of the wheat to the packing at the pasta factory, to the stocking of the shelves, to that being transported on trucks, at every single point in that production process something was wasting significantly more food than the person who actually put it on the counter, right? Ooh, so what I’m hearing is that this is more like pushing consumer responsibility where it’s actually corporate responsibility, this tried and true thing that happened with capitalism I guess. 100%. Okay, yeah, where everybody’s like recycle but then really the people who are doing all the waste, these big corporations that we can’t, as individuals we have no ability to regulate. Dried pasta, dried pasta’s a bad example ’cause that can sit on a shelf for forever. Yep. But one interesting thing is, we’ve talked about this on the podcast before, sell by, use by- Expiration date. Expiration dates, but when you say expiration what does that mean? For human consumption, right? ‘Cause they’re now saying sell by. And there’s no scientific basis in any of these. They’re saying sell by or used by so if you used by on that, yogurt is the best example. Yogurt, okay. Yogurt’s already rotten. Yeah, yogurt- It’s already the point. Yogurt just makes more yogurt. Yogurt is how they figured out how to consume milk before… Before history was written down they’ve been making yogurt. Yeah. Right. You’re putting it in the fridge, that’s gonna last forever. Yogurt turns into more yogurt. If there’s mold on it don’t eat it. Remove the mold. But if you, the average consumer- But if it’s in an airtight seal the mold, you know- Its’ just more bacterial growth, which is how yogurt is made. It’s like getting mold on blue cheese, it’s like well that’s the point. Yeah, the cheese is mold. And I’ve talked to actual food scientists bout this, but there’s a huge lobbying effort to be like don’t let them put sell by dates on it because their goal is to get you to buy more yogurt. Yogurt companys’ goal isn’t to feed you nutrition, their goal is to get you to buy more freaking yogurt. Right because they have quarterly sales goals. Yeah, they gotta make money. They can manufacture, the cynic in me can say if numbers, if sales are not where they need to be, they can just move that date back, shrink that window- Mm-hmm. Of consumability, and now you have to replace it more often, and make them more money. Correct. And that actually does happen. But that’s why they lobby so they can use those sort of labels on it. My thing is there just needs to be more corporate responsibilty, and then for people, don’t, you don’t need to go to Costco, right? Right. I love Costco. You don’t need to buy, if you’re feeding, if you’re John and Kate plus eight, it was the other ones that were even worse. Kind of. The Duggars are worse. That’s the one. The Duggars are worse. They’ve got drama for sure, but let’s pretend it’s 2004. Single Ladies is on the airways. Yeah, no, listen, the Duggars are bad, but they probably needed Costco. They needed a lot more than Costco. But they needed Costco. But most people don’t. And Americans significantly over buy. Sure. And 30 to 40% of not only all food in the production system, all food in refrigerators goes to waste. Anything you see online, I know it’s hyper visible, and it hurts to see that, but it is a drop, drop, drop in the bucket, and it is a necessary part of our jobs. Breathe. I buy paper towels at Costco. Me too. Which is probably wasteful, I should probably use reusable towels and wash them, but then I’m like “Oh no, the water consumption.” I can’t do the math. I don’t know how to do the optimization, like what is the right thing to do? How do I be a mindful consumer? I think you’re trying your best. I would like to think that everyone on planet Earth is trying their best, but I think whenever they wake up they’re like “I can’t do this anymore.” So they have a come to Jesus moment with themselves, and they’re like I don’t wanna use paper plates anymore, I don’t wanna use paper towels anymore. But not me, I still use both those things. Yeah. Thoroughly. Do you guys think free will exists? Ooh. Why are you asking me that right now? Because if we’re talking about consumer responsibilty- Yes, of course it does. Which I want to believe could be a thing, but I don’t think it is, I think we’re all just sort of subject to market forces. Free will definitely exists. I think that, okay, hold on, I think that free will is, we need to zoom in a little bit from free will because that is a deterministic whole universe thing, which we’re not gonna crack that today. We have five minutes left. But I do think that what you’re saying about market force is very valid, because the average consumer has so many concerns in their life that are not “How do I be the most efficient mindful”- That’s true. “Responsible consumer.” It’s like I’ve got bills to pay, I’ve got mouths to feed, and if there’s a little bit of food waste while I’m feeding those mouths that’s not my biggest concern. Yeah, it’s not the end of the world. That’s not the end of the world. And so the inertia, the friction, you’re going against the grain to combat those market forces. And so to your point I think that the average person, or en mass we are all going to just go with the flow of these market forces. Whatever’s easiest, yeah. Whatever’s easiest. It’s like we’ve got so many stressors in our lives. And so you have to choose to add a new stressor to your life to go against those market forces. There’s only so much stress we can take, you guys. Is there any validity in urging people to consume content on the internet more efficaciously in the same sense we can urge them to consume better in real life? So for instance- No. I have pledged, because I’m a good person, to stop watching the videos on Twitter that show up in my feed now that say teacher knocks student out. I get those. They’re everywhere. It makes me so mad. Oh, the fake ones? You’re watching, you’re watching- The fake ones? Crazy clips. Over there in the classroom, oh what’s the teacher gonna do? Is he gonna go right cross, an upper cut? And I realized that I was watching, I’m like “I hate myself for this.” I’m gonna block all these accounts. Good for you. Gonna never consume that again. Yeah. I’m mad that those have just entered everyone’s feed. It feels in the most dystopian thing. I’ve never had so many thoughts about an algorhithim before this moment in time with Twitter. Whatever, I’m seeing my friends’ posts out of order. Yeah. That was the whole thing, chronological feeds. But now I’m being forced to watch fights and grotesque videos. The morbid curiosity of society now leaking into- You’re talking to two rotten.com kids. I’m like “Why is this happening?” It makes me so mad. Elon, stop it, please. Please. This is my call. This is my plea. Well at the end of the day we’re all simply salmon swimming upstream hoping against hope that we can do just a little drop of good in our communities. Everybody spay and neuter your pets. Are you guys still gonna go to buffets after this? I actually don’t go to buffets. Good for you. You can pry my all you can eat buffets out of my cold, dead, bloated hands. I heard there’s really good buffets somewhere though. I’ve heard Vegas has really good buffets. I go to Reno, I’m a Reno guy. Okay, cool. Vegas has the best buffets. Have you gone to Vegas? I don’t like buffets. I think they’re whack. I think they’re a waste of time, money and energy. Oh, wait, while we’re here, how do we feel about 7-Eleven food that’s been heated for God knows how long? It’s food safe, I trust the science as long as it’s above 140 degrees. I agree, I agree. Okay, cool. God bless 7-Eleven. I figured that’s what… ‘Cause I’m like there’s no way that this huge corporation is feeding people poison. But I also understand why people are like “That’s gross.” Poison… The last botulism death in America was from gas station nacho cheese. Damn. Nacho cheese. Botuli, that’s an old timey disease. Yeah. That came back. But speaking of botulism, as we’re wrapping up, that’s another Tik Tok thing, pink sauce where it was like- Oh yeah. With the bloated bottles. Make this and I don’t know how to ship this, and then it’s not refrigerated. And then there’s a huge risk of maybe one of the worst things that can happen with all the nerve damage and stuff. You know, Botox is botulism- Oh honey, I know, I can’t frown. But by all means use it in a controlled environment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can’t tell, but I’m so upset right now. But that’s so scary. On one had I’m like “Yeah, go off, be your own boss or whatever,” but on the other hand I’m like “Please don’t feed people this.” Yeah, there’s limitations. I’ve eaten a lot of oysters from shopping carts so I’m immune to it. Nicole, you and I are essentially snackperts, wouldn’t you say? As an aportmonto of snack and expert? Heck yeah. The only thing I love more than pormontoes are snacks. And so as snackperts we can say with great confidence that nuts.com is a snack paradise, and it’s just a click away. We recently indulged in their butter toffee pecans, and god dang it I’m hooked. 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And shop the new GMM pajama set now at mythical.com. All right, Nicole and Jarvis, we’ve heard what you and I have to say, now it’s time to find out what other wacky ideas are rattling out in the universe. It’s time for a segment we call- Opinions are like Casseroles. This is a pretty jingle-based podcast. Ooh, that’s fun. There was a lot of unison. I wanna join. Can I say it? Yeah. Opinions are like Casser… No one said it with me, but that’s fine. Role the- Three, two- clip. One. Opinions are Like Casseroles. I thought it was gonna be a three, two, one, go. Oh I see. I’ll do that. Three, two, one, go. Opinions are Like Casseroles. It feels good having a permanent third host. Permanent, yeah, I’m here every week. All right, let’s listen to some voicemails. Wait, can we get into the note that I had written on our research document that- What? We never got to get to? What do you wanna talk about? Well I just simply wrote hidden media economies journalist David Farrier, “Tickles” documentary on competitive endurance tickling. What does this have to do with food waste? And I couldn’t remember why I wrote that or where it tied in. Hidden media economy’s, ’cause I think that’s like Rick Lax Production- Right. That’s a hidden economy. Similar to the competitive endurance tickling media economy maybe. Which is something that sounds like a combination of words you just made up now. Nope, that’s the official- No, no, no. That’s what they have to call it so people don’t think it’s a sex thing. Endurance tickling sounds horrific. That is torture to me. I’d be really good at it. And why do you add competition to it? Right, I don’t know. Nicole, you should sign up for… Well, they mostly want young, fit men. Oh, sorry. I can turn my tickle on and off. What? You can try to tickle me, and I have no reaction. Do I have to? No, you don’t need to do it. Don’t touch me. You don’t need to. That’s a thing that in school, going to public school, if you’ve ever talked about how you were good at being tickled, someone would tickle you, and so I’d just be like “No, no, I’m laughing just thinking about it. “Don’t touch me please.” Let’s get to that first opinion. I forgot about that. Yeah. This is less of an opinion, more of a question, specifically for Josh, but, Nicole, if you know, please answer away. Thank you so much for that. Do y’all know, I’m from North Georgia, do y’all know why in Georgia, Atlanta especially, we eat our wings with fried rice? I have a few theories about Korean immigration here, but I don’t know. If y’all could figure out, please let me know. I have never heard of- Me either. I’m gonna do a quick Google real quick. Y’all talk amongst yourselves, we’ll issue some hypotheses. So I’m gonna say something that maybe is gonna get me flamed in the comments here, but I went to school in Atlanta for four years. Okay. And I ate a lot of wings. How old were you? I was 18 to 21. Got it. GT or Emory? Uh, Georgia Tech, yeah. Nice. And I never experienced this, but I feel like maybe I wasn’t going to the real spots. I’m gonna say strip club culture. Oh. What’s it called, magic- Magic City? Magic City. They got the Lou Williams wings on there. Yep. You find a lot of these combinations that people would find, quote, unquote, weird, and there’s a lot of debate about it. One big one is fried fish and spaghetti. We’re talking about red sauce spaghetti, which is served at a lot of soul food restaurants. There’s a great soul food spot in Culver City that serves lasagna as a side. Dulan’s? No, no, no, it’s a new one that actually it burnt down recently, which sucks. Aww. But it serves lasagna as a side, which is cool. Chicken and waffles, Atlanta’s known as a hot bed. Yeah. And as the origin goes Black church services were so long they would start in the morning, and they would just go through the evening, and they would serve people food. And so there were waffles at breakfast, and then they’d have leftover waffles. No food waste. Hey. The fried chicken would come out during lunch, and people would be like well we still got waffles leftover we’re gonna eat it. Brilliant. And so that’s at least the origin story. So fried rice and wings, it might just have something to do with it. Could be, maybe Korean restaurateurs opened up Chinese American restaurants- Sure. Which that’s popular in freaking every culture, every culture loves Chinese food. Yeah. And then if wings were also something that Atlanta’s definitely known for. Maybe Korean Chinese restaurant owners started frying up wings, and serving it with fried rice. But that’s something I never heard of, and it’s fascinating. Yeah, it does make sense to me that if an item is just popular in general in an area you would just throw it on your menu. Sure. To get the extra business. Best way to do it. And then maybe people just put two and two together, or maybe some entrepreneurial mind decided to combo them. Combo number one, chicken and fried rice. It sounds good. There’s nothing about that sounds like it wouldn’t work to me. Sure. Especially with the right spice combo. I’d eat it. Fried rice, it’s a delicious, cheap, filling food. That’s a great meal. 100% eat it. Wings and fried rice, I’m in. I’ve never heard of that though, think you for illuminating us on that. I did, I Googled it, and a Reddit post just came up saying best chicken wings, fried rice and fries combo in Atlanta. And the first comment is just “That’s very specific.” And yeah so it must be a thing. Fun. Do we have any of those weird combos in LA? I’m thinking the sushi bars that’ll have kimchi on the menu because a lot of sushi bars are owned by Korean people in LA. Mm. But I can’t think of anything. Yeah, I’ve seen a lot of those combos, specifically Korean, Japanese combos, which is great for me ’cause sometimes you have a little bit of craving of both cuisines. 100%. I’ll think on it more. Hello. Hey. Hi. I am a longtime, no, I’m- Short time. I’ve been listening to a Hotdog is a Sandwich for one year. It’s a child. I like this podcast. Thank you, buddy. My controversial opinion is that any white meat, say breaded chicken or breaded fish needs to be dipped in apple sauce. Whoa. Needs? Hey oh. Needs? Nicole, flame this child, get him. No, I’m not. No, that’s up to you, buddy. I hope you’re doing well in language class. Again, that doesn’t sound offensive. I think the one place where I draw the line is needs. I agree. The needs was the kicker for me. I will say though I had so many thoughts like that when I was a kid, and when I was discovering what I love about food. And I think the thing that they identified very accurately is that fat and starch loves acid. Mm-hmm. Okay. So you get something, even if it’s baked there’s generally some sort of oil on the breading, right? Sure. So you have a breaded piece of meat, I would put tarter sauce on fried fish. Right. What you want in the tarter sauce is the acidity from the pickles, mayonnaise, capers, lemon, whatever. Apples tend to have a lot of acidity. So I think what you’ve identified is actually really, really smart that you love acidic foods with that type of main entree. Yeah. And so that’s very astute of you. I will try this. That’s nice of you. Maybe this is gonna sound like a ridiculous combination, but when I was younger I was at my best friend’s house, and his family was Jewish, and it was around a holiday time, I’m not sure which. This is a Hanukah story, baby. Yeah. And I had never had a Latke before. Mm-hmm. And someone told me put the Latke in the applesauce. Mm-hmm. And I was like “What do you mean?” And then I tried it, and I was like “Whoa, this is great. “This is awesome.” And there’s something about the friedness of the potato that feels like it would fit into a fried chicken situation, so in my mind I’m like “Yeah, that seems fine.” 100%. Applesauce, I’m in. Controversial opinion of mine, I drink applesauce. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hate applesauce. I love it. I’m a huge fan. What? Great way to consume an apple in three seconds. Oh my gosh, I despise applesauce. What, even on Latkes? You don’t do that? Oh my gosh, no, I’m a ketchup on latkes girl. We both grew up- We’re two different kinds of Jews. Well no, I grew up dipping Latkes in ketchup as a form, not that I had to try very hard to assimilate, but that was one of my assimilative things. Oh, this is just McDonald’s hash browns. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But now I’m firmly sour cream and applesauce on the same bite. I can’t. I just don’t know what it is. The texture is so mealy. And it reminds me of vomit. I can’t do it. I get that, but I remind myself that that texture is motivated by the freshness of an apple. Okay. It that texture I was experiencing with anything else I don’t think I would be on board. But you can’t go wrong with an apple. I like apple juice. I like a raw apple that I can crunch into. And I like the juice. The applesauce in the middle- That’s almost the only form of apple you don’t like is sauced. Yes, correct. So next time you’re chewing on an apple, you take a bite of an apple, you chew it, right before you swallow it, you go “I just made apple sauce.” I’m gonna go like this. I think about that way too much. Like mouth wash. Next opinion. All right, so I absolutely love you guys, and the podcast. And I totally wish I knew you in real life. Sounds like Britney. Come find us. You seem like you would be the best friends you could ever have. Get that geo guesser guy to find us. Anyways, done with that lonely depressiveness. Hot take, ketchup belongs on white people tacos. And by white people tacos I mean hamburger with the taco seasoning that you get from the grocery store, cheese and lettuce. If you think about it, it’s practically a hamburger on a tortilla. Let me know. Jarvis- Jarvis you got a strong- Take this one. You have strong opinions. Well, when she said hamburger I wasn’t thinking of ground hamburger I was thinking of a hamburger patty, and I was like “What’s going on?” Well so that actually has origins in Mexico City, a journalist named Jose Ralat I believe for Texas monthly wrote about the origins of the hamburger taco because of something that was going viral on Tik Tok was a Big Mac taco. Sure, I’ve seen those. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love those. Mexico City. Yeah, they actually have deep origins. I’m going to Mexico City soon, so I’ll have to find a hamburger taco. I’ll legitmately send you the article. Go to . Oh yeah, I’m down. I’ll go in the field reporting. Did you grow up eating the hard shell tacos? A bit. A little bit. I definitely had many flour tortilla tacos- Yeah. Yeah. Before I ever had a corn tortilla taco. But I do feel like- Same. A switch flipped in my brain, and maybe just a little, my little elitism jumped out where I’m like “Ugh.” I used to live in San Francisco, and there were just so many good tacos around. In Mission. And I lived in the Mission. Oh there you go, yeah. So it was just like I can’t go back. I would buy arepas from a guy in a truck outside my apartment, and was not thinking about how the food was being kept, I was just like “It looks good, “I’m just gonna not question it.” Same, don’t question. By truck you’re thinking of a good truck, it was a Ford F-150. Dude, tamales, , , yeah, from all sorts of shopping carts, and just random coolers on wheels on a dolly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m in. I have a lot of trust. I would have eaten the pink sauce. So ketchup? First We Feast actually produced a really great documentary on the Black taco movement in Los Angeles. I was gonna talk about Sky’s Tacos. Sky’s Tacos, Taco Mel, I mean Keith from All Flavor No Grease, he does a kind of different variety, but a lot of them are actually ground turkey as well. And a lot of people do put ketchup on them. That’s right. And also if you think about taco sauce you’re getting picante sauce. Not Pace Picante sauce. But taco sauce from a jar. Ortega is the brand that does it. Taco sauce is literally an invention for white people that was just a hybrid of ketchup and actual salsa roja. So wild, yeah. And a lot of this has roots that go back 50-60 years. And so I’m all for it. But I do think it’s funny when people say white people tacos because I’m like they’re kind of just like non-Mexican tacos. Yeah. ‘Cause it was also big in the Black community, especially in South LA. I was gonna bring up Sky’s, and I actually had their ground beef tacos. And it was sweet and a little acidic, and I’m like there’s gotta be ketchup in this. And I didn’t go up and asked them, but I tasted it. With my table I was like “You guys taste the ketchup?” And they’re like “Yeah.” And it was actually decent. Do I like it more or less than a street taco? Eh, I don’t really know. but there’s precedent for it to exist. I wouldn’t just put straight ketchup on a white people taco though. I wouldn’t do that. I probably wouldn’t either. But I would put probably a pretty sugary sauce on there. We have so many sauces. Putting salsa verde on a white people taco doesn’t taste right. Yeah, that’s true, that’s true. I agree with you. It’s like putting real hot sauce on a Taco Bell burrito. I love doing that. I need the tomato paste and the . What? Yeah, yeah. I love using hot sauces from my house to put it on the Taco Bell. Don’t taste right. Do you just use the regular Taco Bell sauce? Yeah, Fire. I think Taco Bell- I like Fire. I like the Fire sauce. Taco Bell Fire sauce is good. I like adding, I tear a tiny little hole, and I just dab it on every bite. Same, same, same. The first bite has gotta go, it kind of hits your palate first, you sort of force it in there. Yeah, sure. God I want taco Bell now. All right, one more. Megan, we got time for one more? Yeah. Time for one more. Hey, Jeff, Nicole, this is Tommy from Aurora. Say hi to Jarvis. I’m calling to see if you guys- Oh, he just did. Can settle a debate my brother and I have been having for the last few months. So in his opinion he thinks that chilaquiles are a nacho, and in my opinion they are closer to a lasagna- Oh. Replacing the noodles with a tortilla chip. If you could help us figure this one out that would be great. Love the pod, bye. I know what this is. I was not expecting him to say it’s closer to a lasagna. Have you guys seen the lasagna soup Tik Tok thing where they take up the lasagna noodles, and they put them in the soup, and then they pick it up, and it’s this big starchy tomatoey mess? Hmm. No. Chilaquiles is lasagna soup. It’s not lasagna, it’s not nachos. It’s lasagna soup. Like deconstructed lasagna soup. Yep, it’s lasagna soup, that’s it. I will not be taking any questions at this time. There’s so much, y’all there’s so much to explicate here. So if we wanted to find- Take it away. If we wanted to find a Mexican equivalent of lasagna, something that’s layered, you could look at New Mexican style enchiladas. So enchiladas typically in Mexico are not baked. It’s something that the tortillas are fried in oil, then they’re dipped in sauce, rolled, and that’s it. And that’s the way that I prefer them. A lot of Americans tend to bake them, a lot of that comes from New Mexico tradition. I like it. But the difference in New Mexico is they are typically stacked, they’re not rolled. And, again, New Mexico- Yeah, who makes enchilada stacks? Her family dates back to 500 years ago in New Mexico, so that’s a very valid food culture that I would call a part of Mexican food culture. So there’s that. Chilaquiles are kind of thousands of years old. Whoa. I love chilaquiles. Chilaquiles is an word, it predates the Spanish conquistadors showing up to the shores. It did not look like it does today with Tostitos chips sauteed in La Victoria salsa. But that’s actually a really, really old dish. And then nachos were, gosh, 50-60 years ago, a chef literally named Ignacio or nacho in I believe, so I think they have completely divergent histories, albeit looking similarly now. I don’t think lasagna is anywhere close to chilaquiles. You think they’re enchiladas? Yeah, yeah, New Mexican enchiladas are the Mexican lasagna. Wait, what were the Tostito chip equivalent historically for chilaquiles? Maybe you said that, and I just wasn’t… No, no, no. So chilaquiles just comes from the word greens and chiles. ‘Cause they would just make a sauce with greens and chiles, and put it on tortillas. And so tortillas actually pre-date leavened bread by thousands of years. Mm. So did Tamales actually. Tamales a really cool one. And so, yeah, it just likely wasn’t I mean that still sounds good. Yeah, ’cause processing cooking oil probably would have been harder back then- Right. They didn’t have a lot of big animals to make lard. Sure. And so yeah all these delicious tortillas, chiles and greens. That’s a winning formula. That’s a $17 brunch dish. Right, yeah. Lasagna soup. It’s lasagna soup. All right, I think that about wraps it up. Jarvis, thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, thanks for coming. I feel very educated, I learned so much today. Where can the people find you? Um, uh, at my house. No, you can find me on YouTube- Don’t go to his house. If you just search for Jarvis. I think it’s YouTube.com/Jarvis. I also have a podcast called Sad Boyz, a comedy podcast about feelings. And, yeah, catch me wherever. Oh yeah, we have a podcast, it’s called this one. You’re listening to it. We got new episodes of it out every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. Nice. Every Sunday the video comes out on the YouTube. If you wanna be featured on Opinions are Like Casseroles, you can hit us up at 833-DOG-POD1. The number again is 833-DOG-POD1. And for more Mythical Kitchen, check out Mythical Kitchen. We’re here. See y’all next time.