Nicole, I’m just trying to understand the other pork chicken in love. Are you… Is that Randy Newman? Nope. 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 Randy Newman. And I’m, I’m in shambles. We gotta quickly explain where that intro came from. So what happened was we were trying to think of Phil Rosenthal, friend of the show’s theme song. Somebody Feed Phil. Uh-huh. And that was a brief excerpt, but when I started singing it I immediately pivoted to a bang up Randy Newman. 10/10. If you need primer on Randy Newman, the “Toy Story” theme song. ♪ You’ve got a friend in me ♪ ♪ You’ve got a friend ♪ It’s kind of like that. ♪ Short people got ♪ How are you so good at this? I think… Can I tell you what it was? Will Sasso on “MAD TV,” I think, used to do a Randy Newman impression. And I’ve probably only seen that, and never heard a Randy Newman song. Will Sasso’s the goat of “MAD TV.” Speaking of goats, today we’re gonna be talking about what’s the best animal to eat? Now, Josh, there’s so many animals. There’s too many animals out there. And here’s the thing I think about a lot. What’s the most delicious? They outnumber us. The animal kingdom. Obviously. That’s what I’m saying. If they all wanted to band together and rise up. But the thing is humans, an interesting part of our brain and evolution, which was spurred by the ability to cook animals, of course, making their digestion a lot more efficient, making our brains bigger and our stomachs smaller, and all of our digestive organs smaller, we’re able to believe in collective fictions, right? Collective fictions? Like a community is a thing, a state is a thing, that God is a thing. Sure, yeah. That’s able to band us together. But if the deer and the octopus ever could figure out a way to mobilize together they would overrun us, and then they would be having podcasts about which type of human is most delicious to eat. And the answer would be those- College graduates. In proximity to Taco Bell. Two different thought processes. Say we’re kind of perfumed like human. I thought their brains were just filled with knowledge so they were yummier. Ooh, I like those gooey little college brains of theirs- So they’re yummier. Filled with ideals. Ooh, I can change the world. yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaking of changing the world, what animal’s the tastiest? Do you have any thoughts on this? Have you put thoughts into this before? Do I have an animal that I typically reach for in terms of the foods that I make? Mm-hmm. I find myself more in the poultry family. I find myself eating more poultry. Well you and the rest of the world, I will say. Are the same? Yeah, effectively. So poultry is the most commonly eaten category in the world. So it’s chicken, it’s turkey, it’s- You fall into duck. And you fall into all these other sort of- Fouls? Fouls. Game birds. Game birds. Chicken has overtaken the world. Technically there’s actually more pork eaten across the world than chicken by itself. Is that true? Yeah. And a lot of that is coming… It’s really interesting, the politics of meat and meat production and meat consumption is really fascinating to me because pork is the most commonly, not the most commonly eaten, pork is the most eaten in total terms of weight, single animal in the world. A lot of that is coming from China. China has obviously- Oh. The biggest population in the world. Sure. More in China than India, right? I think there’s more people in China than India. Any who. I think it’s China, India, Russia. Or is Russia not as- No. Not as popular right now? China, India, U.S. three and then Indonesia four. Is that true? Yeah. Well I just think it’s so crazy because there’s how many Muslims in the world, three billion? A whole lot. Yeah, yeah. And that’s a large- Couple Jews. There’s a couple Jews in there. So that’s a large chunk of the world that does not even touch pork. And then there’s a lot of the world that doesn’t touch beef. Yeah. Oh sure, Hinduism. Mm-hmm, hm-hmm. But the thing so I cook more chicken, but I like to eat beef the mostest. That’s, I mean chicken is a hell of a lot cheaper than beef and so there’s a lot of economic reasons what goes into people’s meat consumption. Also health reasons. I eat a lot of chicken ’cause a UN World Health Organization report came out that was like hey, eating red meat probably pretty bad for you. But then people say a lot of things are bad for you, but I like to give myself one thing where I’m like “Well, at least I’m just eating chicken.” So I agree with you that when I’m cooking at home tonight I’m gonna go home, and I’m gonna marinate some chicken thighs. Yeah. I’m gonna bake ’em off til they’re crispy, and I’m gonna slather them in hot sauce. Yum. ‘Cause I spent the last several weeks just utterly gorging myself on Po’ boys. You were going hard. You were going hard. I was going really hard. I need to calm it down, man. I’ve eaten too much gumbo over the last couple weeks, I’ll tell you what. But boy was it good. But I think if we’re talking about tastiest animals to eat, I think we should try and divorce ourselves from economics, from politics- Okay. From convenience and be like what are the tastiest animals to eat? Okay, if I’m not thinking of tastiest, my top three animals that I do eat is definitely chicken, beef and salmon. Those are the three- Oh salmon, so much salmon. I eat a lot of salmon. Do you even like salmon? I like fish. Well I love raw salmon, but I don’t love to eat raw salmon all the time. But you’re not making raw salmon at home, right? No, no, no. I love raw salmon. I like cured salmon. Received a fat filet of salmon cooked, you like it? Yeah, I do actually. Also I think about the health benefits of Omega-3 fatty acids. That’s what I’m saying. Hair, skin and nails. Biotin, I don’t need it, you know, I just eat the fish. But those are my top three that I find myself eating the most. But if it wasn’t up to me I think it’s a different story. Yeah. Because I think back to whenever I first started really falling in love with food, and considering it a career and an option for me was when I was in culinary school, and we were eating duck all the time, like two times a week ’cause we were learning how to cook it. and let me tell you I truly think duck might be the most delicious meat in the world. Wait, hold on, that’s a very strong case for duck though. I know it’s poultry, and I know that it still falls into the category, but, oh my gosh, a properly rendered duck breast, what is it? Duck like Confit, the cracklings, I love the flavors. Well think about the curing capabilities too. I know, duck prosciutto, which I first learned in school. So whenever I first fell in love with food I fell in love with duck as a result. And do I still love it like 10 years later? Yes, I do. If it’s ever on a menu… I don’t normally… The thing is it’s so special to me, and it’s so fatty and unctuous, and hard to cook well. Yeah. That I barely ever get it, but when I do get it I just remind myself “Oh yeah, this is good. “This is special. “It’s the best.” There’s a very strong case for duck being number one. I wonder though if you and I grew up eating more duck if we would feel different about it. Never grew up eating duck. Most people in America didn’t. Like you said, it was something special, something epicurean. But taste for taste, man, it’s great. Julie and I just got into a little bit of an argument about a duck dish that we ate that I think was the best thing that I had in New Orleans. Just got back from a trip to New Orleans so that’s gonna be my whole personality- It’s okay. South Africa was cool, but now I’m excited for New Orleans Josh. Yeah, I’ll bring up South Africa later. But New Orleans Josh is here. And I bought an anklet, and I was rocking an ankle bracelet with- Do you have it on right now? Dude, no. When I rock loafers, oh my God. Any who. We went to a spot called Toups Meatery, Chef Isaac Toups. Okay. And he had a special on the menu that was a whole duck. Most of the time I don’t like whole duck, ’cause like you said you take the dark meat, you Confit it, cook it low and slow. A lot of fat renders through it. But the breast, it can get dry, if you confit it it just turns into that tuna salad consistency. Yep, not good. And so you render the fat, cook it rare, whatever. But he did a whole smoked duck that was smoked for 24 hours, marinated in bourbon, so super sweet. Served it on heirloom grits with pepper jelly. No pickle, no crunchy things. Just smoke, fat, heat, grit, bam. We ate the dark meat first. Well done. And it was so smokey and so cured in sugar and salt that it ate like ham. Yum. And then I was worried about the breast. I was like “Well it’s gonna be dry.” Somehow, someway this breast was so freaking tender and meaty. And there was so much subcutaneous fat ’cause it was smoked so low and slow that it didn’t have that hard heat to render it. But the amount of just fat and unctuous duck meat, and the fat and skin absorbed so much flavor- So special, right? That was a special dish. Julia was like “Well, I love the taste of duck, “and this just tastes like ham.” ‘Cause it was smoked. ‘Cause it was smoked and cured. But, to me, one of the things about animals, we’re not just talking about the taste of the flesh, right? This is a reason, because we talk about the structure, the intramuscular fat, where the joints are, where the skin is, where the fat is. The animal structure is part of- The yumminess. The yumminess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is why when you go to a place like a sausagery? Love it. It’s great. And they were revolutionary in LA, opened up maybe 10-12 years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. God, the fries might be the best in the city. Oh my God, fire. Belgian. I just want fries and beer right now, that’s all I want. Thick ’ems, thick ’ems. But their sausages, they would have aligator sausage and rattle snack sausage. Yeah. And duck and rabbit sausage. And it’s like that’s cool, but you’re grinding this into oblivion, you’re mixing with spices, you can’t taste the character of the animal. I think that’s the point. I think the point was to get people to say I had the rattle snack and rabbit sausage. Correct. I’ve eaten rattlesnake before. Yeah. It was cool points. No, 100%. And that’s totally fine. But you’re missing out on the actual animal, right? Yeah, the actual taste of the flesh, yeah. And so the duck, even though it tasted like ham, it was like all that fat and flesh- Was it ducky? It was still kind of ducky, yeah. But, man, duck is a good… Also Thai duck noodle soup is probably my favorite. Pecking duck? Peking duck. Duck a l’orange. I love it. I mean I made a Fessenjoon which is this old school Persian dish, which was- That’s a good duck application. Traditionally made with duck. So I think duck might be my numero uno favorite animal to eat. Damn, that’s a good one. Because I don’t eat it all the time. I initially had it as number five on my list. Yes, we did create- You made a list? I made a list. I made a list. Okay. You wanna know what’s number one off the top? I can tell you. So, hi, my name is Nicole, and I’m going to be reciting Josh’s top 10 animals to wat, which is a typo of eat. Number one, Josh loves shrimp/other crustaceans including lobster, crabs, et. cetera. Mm-hmm. Yeah, just go through the list, and then we’ll- Number two- Analyze it. Pig, preferably the, I don’t known how to say that word. Preferably. Preferably. Preferably, sorry. The weird kind. What, like the hairy ones? Yeah, mangalitsas, kunekunes, large blacks, red waddles. Suckling. Number three, mutton, hogget, lamb. Now Hogget- Okay, now this is where I have a problem with you. Go ahead. Because mutton and lamb are the same animal, they’re just slaughtered at different ages. Correct. Okay, so- And mutton tastes different than lamb, 1000%. You can’t tell me different. Of course. But veal tastes different than beef, but they’re both the same animals, and we’re talking about what’s the best animal to eat. Well that’s like… Well then you might as well just say caviar and sturgeon at that point. That’s actually pretty good. Normally Nicole’s not great with the logic. I kind of like that. Me? I am the most logical person that works here. Yeah, I guess you could put sturgeon in the same… The sturgeon kind of jumps up to at least a number eight spot here if you’re including caviar. ‘Cause sturgeon meat is fine. I’ve had smoked sturgeon and all that. I love smoked sturgeon. It’s okay. Smoke any fish. I like it more than white fish. Well I lump in another couple things. At nine you’ll see I say big ass fish including salmon, swordfish. Now when you say big ass fish- Yeah? Do you mean big fish or fishes with big butts? I mean, listen, I don’t body shame. I don’t like this BBLs on fish movement where you got all these mahi mahi out here trying to live up to the image of Kim K. She’s like thin again. Did she take the butt out? Yeah. What’s going on with these people? Josh, she took the butt out. She took the butt… Kim Kardashian took the butt out of her butt. Yeah. This is a confirmed thing, we’re not gonna get sued for libel are we? I mean we might, but I’d love to meet her and Nicole. You know she’s a lawyer now? She needs a lawyer. Let’s go to my- Sorry, mutton, hogget, lamb number three, number four chicken, number five duck, number six goat. Mm-hmm. Number seven clams and other molluscs. Oyster, muscles. Eight, cow. Can’t believe cow is number eight for you. Cow is not that big for me. Big ass fish. We specified number nine, big ass fish. Yeah. 10 octopus, encephalopods. Yeah. Do I have to say the last one? Yeah, say the last one. All the things that Joe Rogan says you should eat. I associate Joe Rogan with a lot of venison. Oh does he? He hunts a lot of his own meat. Can I tell you something? Yeah, yeah. I don’t listen to his podcast, so I don’t know much about him. I don’t listen to it often, I get clips and stuff like that. Yeah. But I feel like he eats a lot of venison, which I enjoy game meat. What is venison considered, game? Yeah. Venison’s a deer, right, and so- So game. I’ve eaten a lot of… Yeah, game. But I don’t know- Buffalo? No, I put buffalo in cow. Are buffalo- They’re probably- Related? Similarly related. Okay. They’re both bovine I believe. Bison. Bison, buffalo, cow is all one category. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’ll go with that. I’ve eaten a lot of water buffalo. I’ve eaten a lot of venison. Oh, cattle and buffalo are different species. Well okay we’re lumping a lot of things in. Are you a Taurus? I am a Taurus. Then you are a buffalo. I’m a Taurus sun and a Taurus moon. I knew that about you. Yeah, something else. Okay, so number one, I have shrimp and other crustaceans. I initially had this lower on the list, and then- I like shrimp. I thought about how much I love specifically shrimp, and I don’t think there’s a better animal to eat. I love shrimp. And if you can lump in things like lobster and crab- Yeah. Any sort of langistine, chub lobster. Those are the best animals to eat. I think they’re hard to eat sometimes. I like the… I’ll throw crawfish in this too. Risk and reward. It’s like you’re digging, you’re digging. I don’t like digging through the carcasses all the time. Why not? Well you know you can pay somebody to dig through the carcasses yourself. You can get peeled, de-veined cooked shrimp. Yeah. You know what I’ve been doing as a little treat to myself? You know you got to a store and you buy yourself a little $4 kombucha, right? Yeah. Like a fun little treat. All the time. What I started to do, at the meat section at my local Ralph’s grocery store you can buy a $5 little grab and go cup of shrimp cocktail, and I’ll eat the shrimp cocktail in my car. With the kombucha? No, I stopped buying the kombucha to save money ’cause I don’t think kombucha does anything. I’ll throw that one out there. I think the probiotic thing, utter scam. I eat yogurt and stuff. I’m not a person that needs probiotics. I am a person though who needs shrimp cocktail in my car. I call it a shrimp carktail. That a good one. That was good. That was payoff. That was kind of like me digging into crawfish. Yeah. Long story, but the payoff pretty good. Payoff for the crawfish, you get one pinky nail size little nubbit of meat. It’s tough to eat, but I love shrimp. I love shrimp. I think shrimp is just the best. Head on shrimp that you get from a crawfish boil, mm, mm. Seafood boil, sorry. That’s what I’m saying. But you get the structure of the animal is what we were talking about. I love pulling off the head, and sucking out the juices through the head. Yeah, I do too. Little sea bugs, dude. They’re great. I like sea bugs. I like sea bugs. I don’t think they crack the top five for me. No. Okay, what do you got next? So I have duck as my first one. Honestly, cow, I love steak. Mm. I love meat. Mm. I love meat so much. I just think about it, I really freaking like it. And I know everyone’s like “Oh, you shouldn’t eat that much red meat.” I don’t care. Yeah. It’s yummy. And there’s plenty of people that eat a ton of red meat and have good lives. It’s so yummy. What’s your favorite thing about cow? ‘Cause for me I have mutton/hogget/lamb a couple spots above cow because to me anything cow can do I think lamb can do better. Really? Yeah. I take lamb over cow almost any day. What’s your case for cow? Well what do you mean? It’s delicious. You’re talking just flavor for flavor cow better than lamb. Yeah, cow better than lamb. Lamb can sometimes taste really gamey and really strong and off putting. Beef is quite the… It’s a neutral straight umami meat flavor which I really enjoy. Yeah. And I think there’s a lot of applications. You could sear it, you could stew it. Everything you can do beef is fine. Also it’s such a large animal there’s so many different pieces you can eat. That’s a good case for cow. Cheek meat is different than tongue meat is different than the rump roast is different than ribs. And I love that so much. It’s so different. That’s a good case for cow. ‘Cause every animal has roughly the same amount of parts because they’re- No. Humans ability to believe in a fiction. We only believe that short ribs exist because somebody cut a cow into it that way. A cow don’t know it got a short rib. No. We know it got a short rib ’cause we eat it. Yeah. The tri-tip was invented- Random. 1960 some guy just cut a cow differently- Sure. And now tri-tip suddenly exists. Yes. We have drawn fiction from objective reality. The thing is on a cow is those things is big. Big and plentiful. Big. Big and plentiful. You ever have an animals ribs that you shouldn’t eat like goat ribs or something? Lamb ribs. It’s not that you should. Or lamb ribs even. They’re good, but they’re- I had lamb ribs one time at a place called Picca. Picca. Do you remember that? Oh Peruvian restaurant? Chef Ricardo Zarate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went there and I had their lamb ribs, it was so delicious. But did I feel bad? No. Am I supposed to? No, no, no. I’m just saying you can get, God, eight different cuts from the rib area- There you go. Of the cow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Large format. Lamb you kind of got the ribs and that’s it. They’re so small that you gotta serve them all. So cow is a more fun puzzle to figure out than lamb. Yeah, there’s a lot of yummy stuff on a cow. And I feel like around the world a lot of people eat it with the exception of a few. Yeah. What do you think the best cow consuming cultures are? Oh Korea. Korea. Korean barbecue, baby. Yeah. So much eat. America. Hanwoo beef. America. You ever had prime rib in Texas? No. Neither have I, but I’m sure it’s delicious, let me just say. Prime rib’s a British thing, isn’t it? Am I crazy? I feel like Texas is like serve a steak, big old porterhouse. I don’t know. Okay, por… I want it rare, you just wipe that cow’s ass, de-horn it and send it in. Looks like they eat it everywhere in the commonwealth, including the United States and Canada. I don’t know. There’s something about… Americans love beef. Yeah. And I love beef ’cause I’m an American. Persians not so much. We do a little bit of lamb and a little bit of beef. What else? I think Korea and America. All beef hot dogs too. The hamburger. I mean, yeah, I love burgers. Hamburger is good. Cheeseburgers is my favorite food. Cheeseburgers is my family, yeah. Cow utterly deserves to be up there. Did you just say- Utterly. Cow utterly? Have you ever had- Utter? Cow utter? No, but I’ve seen videos of people cooking cow utter. Yeah, I never had it either. Do you want to? That’s a good one. What? Where can we have it? I’m sure we could find it. There’s a spot in Santa Barbara, California, I believe called Lilly’s Tacos, that serves is it tacos , like steamed, or maybe they call it barbacoa, but it refers to a whole cooked cow’s head. I know utters ain’t near the head, but they just basically have all the individual cow parts. You can get tacos de labios, tacos de ojos, tacos de orejas. That’s ears, eyes, lips respectively, depending on which order I said it. Yeah, I don’t know which order you said it. But anyways they just steam the whole cow’s head. Which is cheek? To your point, so many individual parts of the cow that are fun to eat. Even just parts of the head. And all those things taste good. I’ve never had before, bit I’ve seen them on the internet, and it’s kind of spooky. It’s a little spooky. I’ll tell you what though, once you put it in a taco with some and a little bit of salsa, man, that’s a fun time. It’s good eats. You’ll wanna get some beers in you too. I’m kind of coming around to cow now. This is part of my steak reactionary- That’s okay. Steak reactionism, right? That’s fine. The podcast doesn’t really mean anything. No, this means nothing. We’re gonna have new opinions tomorrow. Let’s get into the whole, you were criticizing me for having mutton and lamb as the same thing. This pisses me off Josh Sherer. Nicole’s pissed off. I’m pissed. I don’t like when Nicole’s pissed. That’s not true. You find enjoyment in it. I really do. In fact, I spur it like a cattle prod. I go and she gets all mad. But okay so mutton is an adult lamb. A lamb is… They’re all sheep. Yeah. But if you go to the store, and they have a pound of stew meat that is lamb, and a pound of stew meat that is mutton, sorry for touching you, those would be two different… They’re two different expressions of meat. So is a rib eye and a porterhouse. They’re still part of the cow. No, stop I, stop it. Again, this is a collective fiction. The sheep does not know it is either a mutton a hogget or a lamb. Josh. Whenever adults go to jail, they have to be 18 and above, right? Because they’re adults. I’m tracking where you’re going with this. I was gonna start by saying I like lamb chops, and now Nicole’s talking about the cercarial state. I started watching “Oz.” Have you ever seen it before? Never too late to start, huh? Have you ever seen it before? No. Greatest show I’ve ever seen on HBO. Do I confuse you with my choices? All the time. Okay, good. And let me just say it’s like an adult has a different thought process than a child. And a lamb is a child, and all of their bones aren’t fused together, and meat tastes different. The meat does taste different, but I think it’s the same… Listen, if we go by a theistic thought process here I think God just created one thing called a sheep. Uh-huh. And then that’s the animal, right? Yeah but we, but we as humans, as butchers- Okay. Are you… What? Go. Oh, sorry. We as humans, as butchers, we put a different label on both of those things. Yes, they are the same animal, but it becomes one edible thing, and then another edible thing due to time. So a lamb in America, I believe, is legally defined as, someone can fact check this, but I think it might be slaughtered before six months. So sad. To be considered lamb. Which is interesting because in other cultures, I believe, the differentiation between lamb, hogget and mutton, hogget would be a teenage mutton and then mutton would be an adult. Yeah, lambs are six to seven months. That’s so sad. Chickens are slaughtered. Pigs are slaughtered in six to seven months, and those are just considered adult pigs because we have just abused science to grow them giant and fat, which is why they’re the most commonly eaten animal in the world because they’re so easy and cheap to produce. Can I make my third best animal to eat ones that are made in a laboratory? Yeah, abominations of science, come on. Just a lump of flesh and cells just going like “Kill me.” Yeah, turn that into a hamburger. I want that one for my number three. So it’s duck, beef and abominations of society. Those are my top three animals to eat. I mean think about how the synthesize proteins, and they create… Literally they scrape cells off of like a cow, and then they go in a Petri dish, and then the cells multiply, and then they make lab grown meat. That’s kind of awesome. Is that gonna be a thing in 50 years where we’re sitting here- I think it’s gonna be a thing in five years, maybe five months. Going it’ll never happen, and 50 years from now- You think we’re gonna do this in 50 years? I don’t know. I’m gonna be 80. Enchilla, enchilla. Mutton. Better than lamb ’cause they’re different things I’ve heard, mutton and lamb. No, lamb tastes better than mutton. No, you let the animal age and mature, the gaminess only increases, gets a more beefy flavor and texture. Not everybody likes gaminess. Ages of animals, let’s switch here. I have chicken at four. I eat more chicken than anything. Chicken is perfectly good enough. A chicken thigh is my most commonly eaten meat. I eat chicken breast. Chicken bre, yeah, I mean same. Chicken breast is the most commonly- You eat the thigh, I eat the breast. Yeah, get some chicken wings when I’m drinking. We usually use the whole animal between us. There’s a difference though. The difference between lamb and mutton, chickens are slaughtered so, so quick in America. Yeah. And American chickens really don’t have any flavor. I feel like the person who studied abroad for two weeks and came back saying Barthelona about American chickens. But you have coq au vin. There’s a very specific chicken. I don’t know if it’s . It’s like the yellow chickens. The yellow-esq chicken. It’s a different kind of chicken they use. And when I was in South Africa, it’s getting brought up again, I ate a chicken that was several years old. It was called, let’s see if I can hit the accent, . Okay. And it was literally raised for several years. And the difference between that chicken, and an American chicken, just miles apart. Better? Yeah. The bird flavor in that was so intense. Wow. And cooked with so many spices. It’s boiled slowly whole. Really fantastic. I think chicken when done right has a fantastic flavor. Sure. Also, fried chicken, baby. That’s the best food in the world. That’s the best food in the world. Love fried chicken. We haven’t talked about pig meat. What do you wanna talk… I love cured pork products. Same. A lot. And cured pork products, I think, objectively better than cured beef products. The proteins- I agree with you. React differently when you’re curing them, right? 100%. I love cured pork products. What, like braciola? What am I gonna do with braciole? No, it’s a perfectly fine thing. Arugula on it? Or even pastrami, that’s a cured beef. Oh no, I like pastrami more than I do prosciutto. Sure. They’re different things. But the world of pork- Salumi. Yeah, salumi or charcuterie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s so, so much bigger. And for a good reason. The protein structures react differently to the curing process. Sure. Beef always gets this heavy snapiness to it. Yeah, very much so. Which is fun in something like pastrami, corned beef, whatever. The variety of what you can do with a pig- Yeah. That’s fun, man. Pork belly, yum. Mm-hmm. You can cook pork belly 50 million times in 50 million ways. So pig, and also I think it has a neutral enough flavor profile. I put pig, the weird kinds, because heritage breed pigs are really fun. Yeah, the funky little dude. Yeah and you get mangalitsa, pork blade chops- Red. It’s bright red flesh. Bright red. Thick fat that just melts if you- Looks like picana almost. Almost like picana. It’s got the big fat cat. Pig meat, again, it’s raised very commonly because it’s so, it’s cheap and it can feed a lot of people. Sure. Especially in a rapidly urbanizing market. And there’s insane stats about how pre World War I and, of course, Word War II, meat consumption rising exponentially among people. Sure. Historically the world, people watch something like “The Gilded Age” or something they’re like “If I was alive back then I would have been “part of high society.” Yeah right. You would have been a manual laborer, and you probably would have died of tuberculosis. If statistics- If you’re lucky. If you’re lucky. If you made it past infancy. But, no, most people were manual laborers, farmers- Yep. And most people were eating whatever grain they possibly could. Meat as an everyday thing for a majority of people, and I know there’s a lot of cultures that are fully vegetarian, but that’s a very new thing. And so pork right now is it’s really feeding the world’s rapidly urbanizing population. Nuts. It’s so crazy to me. Despite the fact that three billion people-ish in the world. Maggie, will you Google how many Muslims there are in the world just so we don’t keep spreading misinformation? But, yeah, despite the fact that there are billions of people who don’t eat it- Don’t- whatsoever. Yeah. Let’s see. 1.8 billion. Almost two billion. Almost two billion. That’s a good amount. There’s another animal that there’s a commonly thrown about phrase that goat is the most, quote, commonly eaten animal in the world. I don’t… It’s not that I have a fact check on that, it’s just odd to me. It reflects, though, if you look at it by weight per capita or whatever, it reflects less than 4% if I’m correct. Why do people say that then? Because there are a lot of people who don’t eat cow. There’s a lot of people who do not eat beef. Or sorry, there’s a lot of people who don’t eat cow. There’s a lot of people who don’t eat pork. Mm-hmm. And so almost everybody in a vacuum I suppose can eat goat whatever. And they’re very commonly raised in third world countries. Sure. Wherever. But it’s a bit of a meaningless stat that I don’t think you can verify whatsoever. I dig on goat though. I just think it’s a- I don’t love it. It’s a leaner lamb. I don’t love it. Maybe I just haven’t had the proper preparations. I’ve had some, but I don’t find myself reaching for it more. Yeah. It’s just a preference thing, man. I’m willing to crown duck the winner. Are you? That’s crazy. I don’t know, man, duck and shrimp, just let me live off of that for a while. Duck, shrimp, no cow though? I could go the rest of my life without eating beef and be very happy. No way. 100%. Really? I would never need to eat it again. Impossible. Impossible. I would rather give up beef than lamb. I wouldn’t wanna make my own hot dogs all the time. You really love hot dogs, huh? You’ve brought it up a few times. Well because all beef hotdogs are so much better- I love ’em. Than pork hot dogs. I love all beef hot dogs. You get any sort of mixed meat hot dog, no, the all beef. But you could do it with lamb, they’d be just as good. Just nobody’s doing it, it’s a problem. I absolutely disagree with you. Somebody who makes… And I’m not talking- Josh, we need to come to a middle ground here, man, come on. No, I need to address the people real quick. If you make a lamb hot dog, and I’m not talking about a merguez. No merguez. No Moroccan Tunisian stuff over here. 2024, I wanna eat more Moroccan food. Anyways, proper emulsified lamb hot dogs, send me some ’cause I wanna try it. Consensus. Let’s just do our top five animals we can eat. Let’s do top five. I mean I’m willing to give- Not in order. Duck number… Okay. Okay, fine, duck. Duck’s in there. Duck. What a special bird. Shrimp. Shrimp, yeah, come on. Dude, you got so excited when talking about shrimp. Don’t act like you weren’t excited. What else, what else, what else? Pig. Pigs, it’s fueling the world- Sorry, Mom. Pig. I’m willing to accept that cow, because it is a giant puzzle piece of an animal- And we like tacos. It has inspired so much creativity. We like tacos. I’ve eaten some good lamb tacos, man. No, no, I’ve eaten better carne tacos than lamb tacos. Yeah, but if they were grilled enough. I don’t know, man, I had this dish called lamb cooked with leaves. I’ve had it on the spit. I’ve had it on a spit. Lamb on a stick, come on. All right, fine, I’ll give you beef. I’ll give you beef. Now we need a fifth. Okay, should we do lamb? Oh, I didn’t get to talk about how much I love clams. Aww. That’s kind of the end of that sentence though. I just really dig on clams. Aww. What’s a good fifth one? Chicken’s the workhorse of the world. Chicken’s the workhorse of the world. Chicken. What do you mean chicken? Don’t get sad about it. You should be grateful you have chicken. 100 years ago people were dying of tuberculosis, there was working in factories, and the factories, they’d be taking smoke breaks inside, they’d be going up in flames. They would have killed to work a cushy job and eat chicken every night. You think I would work in a factory? You would have been a kept woman. I’d be shoveling . This episode is brought to you by Better Help. What are some things you wanna keep the same about yourself or your life in 2024? Where are you already crushing it? Dude, I’m already freaking crushing 2024 so far. 2023 got nothing on this year. Around new year’s, usually we get obsessed with how to change ourselves instead of just expanding on what we’re already doing right. Maybe you finally organized one part of your space and you wanna tackle another. Yeah, or maybe you’re taking your supplements every morning, and now you wanna actually eat breakfast too. Therapy helps you find your strength so you can ditch the extreme resolutions and make changes that really stick. It’s helpful for learning positive coping skills, and empowers you to continue to be the best version of yourself. So if you’re thinking of starting therapy, give Better Help a try. It’s entirely online, and designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. And switch therapists any time for no additional charge. Celebrate the progress you’ve already made. Visit betterhelp.com/hotdog today to get 10% off of your first month. That’s Better Help, h-e-l-p.com/hotdog. Life’s too short to cook on medium, or whatever Ratatouille said. Shop the new hot stuff apron now at mythical.com. It’s a cream colored apron with adjustable ties, and two front pockets, with life’s too short to cook on medium written in the center. Yeah, it’s freaking set. Check it out at mythical.com. Was that ratatouille? Ratatouille, that’s how it’s pronounced. It’s ratatouille, it’s ratatouille. That’s his name. Ratatouille. The T’s silent. Is his name even ratatouille? All right, Nicole, we’ve heard what you and I have to say, now it’s time to find out what other wacky opinions are rattling out there in the universe. It’s time for a segment we call- Opinions are like casseroles. Use your other hand. I don’t wanna use my other hand. Use your other hand. Opinions are- Nicole’s making me dance again. But before we get to that, we have everybody’s favorite segment of the entire podcast. We have gotten all the responses, and you have said this is your single favorite part. It’s called Reviewer Review. We take one of your reviews from Apple Podcasts, and we review it ourselves. Nicole, you ready for this? We got five stars from RChaseK. Review This they’ve titled it. Nicole and Josh are the two best podders out there, and I can always count on them for the real deal even if Josh’s taste in grits and Whataburger are whack, Nicole more than makes up for this with her natural grace, charm and effluviant whit. I do wish they brought the other Mythical chefs in with them a bit more often. Love y’all, Chase from Austin. What does effluviant mean? It’s a great. I don’t believe effluviant, did he mean ebuliant? Oh effluviant, pertaining to effluvium, offensively smelly. Aww, I’ve been found out. Nicole does smell. I smell good. No, I take paper towels, and I soak ’em with Fabreeze, and I shove ’em deep in my nostrils so that you can’t see them. But that’s how I’m podding it today. I smell delicious all the time. My perfume collection is envious. You should be envious of my perfume collection. I’m sorry, I don’t wanna talk about that. Can I talk about porridge again? No. Sorry, I was just waiting for you to finish. No. Really quickly, it’s very quick. I give this five stars. Well yeah but it pertains to their comment about my grits. So I think what they’re talking about is I’ve said that I enjoy sweet grits. Oh, with sugar? Ew. I think grits are nice with sugar. But I love savory grits. I’ve just talked about the savory grits with the duck. Love savory grits. But sweet grits I think are good because I just think all grains can be sweet or savory, right? You have . Okay but that’s such a small… If you have 10 rice dishes, maybe one of them are sweet. Yeah, and I wanna eat it. That’s what I’m saying, same with grits. I’ve eaten a lot more savory grits than sweet, but I’m saying it’s nice. But I did recently try and make a porridge out of a grain that was wildly unsuccessful. Was it amaranth? No, it was couscous. I didn’t have any oats, I didn’t have any rice. Well that’s ’cause it’s pasta. Yeah. But not- Couscous is pasta. Not like fragila, not the pearl couscous, but proper Tunisian- Like this. But it is still pasta. It’s semolina flour. Yeah but I thought it would breakdown in porridge more. And there’s a stronger wheat taste to couscous than I remember. Mm-hmm. I love couscous. It was really a bummer as far as a sweet breakfast porridge goes. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. So anyways I’m willing to open up my stance on , I’m so sorry. I’m so effing sorry, dude. They called my whit smelly. They said my whit is offensively smelly. I didn’t mean to burp. But still five out of five. I ate a lot of ham earlier. I also just burped. Twins. All right, let’s get to that first opinion. Did you dis me? Hey Josh, hey Nicole. My name is Dane, I’m from Louisiana. And I need you guys to help solve the debate between Louisiana natives on how to cook crawfish. It’s also called crawfish not crawdads. Craw daddies. Anyone that calls it a crawdad is a poser. Weren’t you just there? I was. So in the Baton Rouge area- It’s not crawfish season though. Is where you boil the crawfish, you boil it in just seasoned water, hyper seasoned water, and you pull it out with all your accoutrement and everything, pour it on a table and everything and you’re done. And towards the other side, like Lafayette area, I believe, they will boil it. Some boil with no seasoned water, just straight water. And then they’ll season they outside of the shell. I need a debate settled with this, and I feel like you guys are the best ones to do it. Okay, bye. So, one, Lafayette is like… That’s real Cajun country out there, so who am I to tell them what they’re doing wrong? And then if you go to New Orleans, well more actually Houston, but we’re talking Viet Cajun style food. They’re putting a lot of garlic butter on everything. So a lot of our seafood boil places in California, they’re actually owned by Viet people, and theirs always comes with butter. And that’s always a welcome addition for me. I love it. Really good. But I think the key to what he said is hyper seasoned, right? Hyper. We’re not talking about pasta water seasoned. No, no, no. We’re talking about this is 50/50 some sort of Cajun seasoning and water. And then all of that basically sediment sort of gets within the shells of everything. And not only that, when you dump it all out, and it sort of naturally evaporates over time you’re literally getting powder, which is a good thing, that’s what you want. It’s yummy. But to me that’s the best way to get everything- Coated. Coated in there. Yeah. It’s like sand. It’s like sand. And so I would say that’s the right way to do it. I saw a video of a man doing it with Sunny Delight. Yeah, I don’t really have- Wrong way to do it. I don’t really have an opinion because I’ve never been to Louisiana, and I’m not a big crawfish person. Again, I’m a head on shrimp girl. But I trust you, and I think I know what you’re talking about. And I can’t wait to eat some whenever I go down to Louisiana. I’m excited. One of the greatest meals of my life was a crawfish boil in Baton Rouge. I mean I think we had eight large men there. I was the smallest of us at 260 pounds. We each drank about a gallon of beer, and ate at least eight pounds of crawfish. A gallon of beer? We were there for four, five hours just eating crawfish. How can you drink a gallon of beer? Gallon of beer? That’s not that much, that’s 10 beers. That’s a lot of beer. Okay, that’s a lot of beer. That’s a lot of beer. As someone who to Oktoberfest- We’re large. That was a lot of- we’re large. Okay, fine. And it was a light beer. But, yeah, just whichever way you do it, even if you’re sprinkling it on the outside of shells, what I do with almost every little craw daddy tail- He said it’s not craw daddies. Craw daddies. It’s not craw daddies. That’s what the man who gave us our gator tour in Jean Lafitte, Louisiana, that’s what he called it. But any who, you take the crawfish tail, and I’m mashing it at the rest of the shells, getting the seasoning on it, I’m sucking my fingers, I’m drinking beer. I ain’t too worried about it, man. I feel like if you’re worried about your crawfish boils you’re doing crawfish boils wrong baby. Everyone calls each other baby in Louisiana. I know, they say baby. Baby. Baby. I like it. Hey, what’s going on, guys? Love the podcast. Why? I just wanted to say that in my opinion cream cheese and jelly sandwiches are just as good as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I said what I said. Don’t knock it till you try it. You can even spice it up with some good old Kraft American singles or Provolone, Munster, cheddar cheese- Stop while you’re ahead, friend. You lost me there, handsome. I know it’s kind of basic, but helps you out in a pinch. I grew up with a friend of mine that was a cream cheese and jelly girl. What ethnicity was she? Persian. Okay, but Jewish, Jewish. Persian Jewish. And we had it on Matzah a lot. She had it on Matzah a lot actually. Is there a Jewish thing then? ‘Cause I grew up eating cream cheese and jelly sandwiches. Maybe. What about the Jewy thing be? What are you talking about? Why would that- Well cream cheese with Lox, don’t have Lox- I guess we just have cream cheese in the house all the time. Kid wants jelly. That’s a good point. We’re just cream cheesy people. We’ve got a lot of cream cheese. Yeah, we got a lot of cream cheese. There’s nothing even Jewish about cream cheese either. I can’t help you with this. It’s not like Koogle. Koogle which has hundreds of years of tradition in Central Europe, like Ashkenazi Jewish food, or even bagels you can track it back, but cream cheese? I can’t help you. What the hell do we got to do with cream cheese? But let me tell you, side note, complete side note, I went to Russ & Daughters in New York, and they had the most beautiful caviar cream cheese, and it was the most delicious thing I’ve ever put in my mouth. Yeah. No, cream cheese and jelly, that was a big staple for me. I love it. And I haven’t eaten it in a long time. Sometimes, whenever I’m feeling myself I have a piece of sourdough toast, and I heat it up, I toast it, and then I put cream cheese, and then Bonne Maman jelly, and then some sea salt. And then maybe a few chia seeds. And it’s really fricking good. Lost me at the cheese addition. The extra cheeses, I don’t like it. I can see it. It’s not for me. Wow, that recording was really something you sexy minxes you. Meow. Did we just meow? My name is Matt from Riverside, California, and here’s my weird food opinion. Regular Goldfish dipped in A1 steak sauce is fire. This came about when we had steak at home one night, and my kids finished theirs, and they were still hungry, they were munching on Goldfish, and they had some steak sauce left on their plate. I know, steak sauce with home cooked steak- I love steak sauce- Heathens. No, do not. Steak sauce is good. Anyway, one fell in, they ate it, they forced us to try it, and the rest is history. And now Goldfish and A1 is one of our go to late night snacks. That’s cute. All right. Love you both, love the pod. Keep doing what you’re doing. Thank you, baby. So I learned that a minx is just a flirtatious person- We’re thinking of mink. And I was thinking of mink- A mink is an animal. And then I Googled minx cat but it’s a Manx cat. Wait, so minx is just a word that has sprung up out of… There’s no- So a mink coat, hold on. A mink coat, what are you made out of? You call a woman a fox, it’s like you foxy lady. A mink is a dark colored, semi-aquatic carnivorous mammal. Sounds sexy. We are a mink. Sexy mink. Sexy little mink. But it’s m-i-n-x is a minx, not m-i-n-k. Yeah, but what’s the etymology of that? Oh, I don’t know. Do you want me to find out? Yeah, yeah, find that. Like an ermine. I’m gonna start calling people ermine’s. Why are you making me work right now? I don’t know. A1 steak sauce- that’s so shady. No, I wanna analyze, listen, any chip in any amount of we flavor I’m gonna enjoy. Let’s bypass that. Yeah. But what you said kind of bummed me out when you were like I know steak sauce on homemade steak, whatever. There’s been a certain kind of, I think especially food media creator who they’ve taken it as their personal job to rip your pleasure away from you. What? To say, especially when it comes to steak- Who says that? That you’re eating it wrong. To be like A1 is bad, the steak flavor should speak for itself. Yeah. There’s so many different cultures out there. I’m thinking about from Vietnam where there’s fish sauce and garlic and ginger, and it’s on steak, and it’s a pleasure to eat. Put flavor on your damn steak. Dip your damn steak in ketchup if you want. You know what it is, I think the flavor of A1 is very polarizing. Not everybody wants Worcestershire- It’s worstshers and fish, and I like it. Nobody wants Worcestershire and anchovies, fish and vinegar with their meat. I understand. I’m an A1 steak sauce hater, but then I went to a steakhouse in San Louis Obispo, I’m not gonna say where it was, and the steak was so bad I put A1 on it because I needed to eat it. So there’s a time and place for A1 to be on steak, but I believe there’s a better time for it to be on Goldfish. So way to go. You got it, baby. You got it. I think if you made the best version of A1 to put on the best version of a steak- A1 is the best version of A1. It’s just a crappy product. But I think if you made something from scratch with those flavors- Yeah, uh-huh. With the acid. Yeah, yeah. With that deep, dark, with the umami- Uh-huh. With that kind of deep, dark red fruit. if you made the best version of that- Plum. Version of that, put in it. Pluots, pluots. Something fancy. I’m gonna put pluots in it. If you made the best version of that sauce with the best version of a steak- Pluots- That’s better than just a plain good steak. Pluots, molasses, sardines- Sardines are worse than anchovies. Okay, fine, anchovies. Good, thank you. Salt, pepper, mix it up in a sauce, let it ferment or something. Add other spices, whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, some warm spices- Yeah. Like an all spice. I don’t know, I’m just saying- All of them. Lean into sauce. Lean into things that taste good. Yeah. There’s no points for purity in food. No. And there shouldn’t be. And there’s a lot of historical reasons for why people- What’s the opposite of pure? Literally, once spices became democratized- Dirty. and poor people could afford them, rich people decided- Dirty. they wanted to start eating more simple food. Wake up, sheeple. Drink A1 by the gallon. I like simple foods though. Is it because I’m a snob? Yeah. I think you aspire to aristocratic bourgeois delight. That sucks. I wanna live at “Saltburn.” That’s how I felt when watching that movie. I was like I just feel like I can fit in. I would hate to live there. Are you kidding me? I don’t know. I fee like you have more tactics to wanna be bougier than me actually. Yeah, but I wanna snake in the back door like in “Saltburn.” No, no, no, no. Be like oh please. Please, Mr. Jacob Elordi, I’m just a poor college student. Can I just say, side note, Jacob Elordi might be the best animal to eat. Especially with that little eyebrow piercing. Ooh, girl. And how he has this little thing going on right here. Tall drink of water, I tell you what. All right, on that note- Jacob Elordi, you’re so hot. Come on the podcast so I can look at you. Jacob Elordi, do you have any weird opinions about I don’t know, Australian food? Meat pies versus sausage. Is that Australian? We already had Curtis Stone. Oh, we did. And he’s sexy. He is. On that note, thank you for listening to A Hot Dog Is A Sandwich. We got new audio only episodes every Wednesday, and a video version here on YouTube every Sunday. What about Barry Keoghan? Is that how you say his name? Oh, I don’t know. Hot. I’ve asked so many people. You think he’s hot? I think his eye shape and color is, oh my God, so unique and beautiful. If you wanna be featured on Opinions Are Like Casseroles, give us a ring and leave a quick message at 833-DOG-POD-1. Big Rosamund Pike guy, and I thought she really ate up that role. Also Carey Mulligan too. Ugh. Ugh on Carey Mulligan? She wasn’t good in the movie. See, I thought she was- She was extraneous. Yeah, I like it. She was extraneous. For more Mythical Kitchen, check out our other videos. We launch new episodes every week. See you next time. I think the guy who played Farley was the star of a movie called “Grand Tarismo.” Yeah, he was. I watched it on a plane. I like his nose. Opposite movies. Yeah. Lot less weird sex stuff in “Grand Tarismo.” I don’t believe you.