Nicole, what’s the difference between jam and jelly? Oh, I know this one, I can’t jelly my . You kiss your mother with that mouth? Shala, come get your girl. This is “A Hot Dog Is A Sandwich.” Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to our podcast, “A Hotdog Is A Sandwich”, the show where we break down the world’s biggest food debates. I’m your host, Josh Scherer. And I’m your host, Nicole Enayati. And yes, we did come up with today’s topic exclusively to make that joke. I love that joke. It’s a great joke. The first version of that joke- Is the garbanzo bean and the chickpea one? No, the garbanzo bean and the chickpea one is great, but the jam-jelly one, the first version that I heard is like, too grotesque to even say with bleeps in it. It was worse than mine? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It gets in some really weird territory. Can you tell me? No, no, no, it’s like the aristocrats joke. You know the aristocrats joke? You ever see that great documentary? No. There’s this old joke about a family walks into a talent agent, and the talent agent says, “Wow, let me see your act.” And then the family just performs all the dirtiest things you ever heard. And then at the end, the talent agent says, “Wow, that’s surely spectacular. What do you call yourselves?” And they say, “The aristocrats.” And so the fun of the joke is that everybody, I love explaining a joke is always the best thing. But the fun of the joke isn’t the punchline of the aristocrats, it’s what lengths will people take their act, you know? And what sort of improvisational storytelling. Do they talk about jam and jelly in that joke? No, they don’t, but it’s the same thing where the jam-jelly joke, you just get as disgusting as you want and then the point is, there’s an actual culinary debate here. Oh yeah, there is a culinary debate here. Because there’s a difference between jam and jelly. Sure, there is. And there’s a whole wide world, Nicole, of fruit preserves. ♪ A whole wide world ♪ ♪ I don’t know that song ♪ God, you really didn’t have a childhood, I’m so sorry. ♪ I assume it’s from Disney ♪ Good assumption. ♪ And probably based on a real historical period ♪ ♪ Where there were a lot more problematic things ♪ ♪ Like Pocahontas, she was 14 ♪ It’s about, it’s from Aladdin, Princess Jasmine, and- Oh yeah, speaking of which. Anyways, jam and jelly. I love both of those things. What’s the difference to you? So I have always associated jelly being just fruit juices mixed with pectin and sugar. Hmm, and jam? Jam is the whole fruit that’s mashed mixed with pectin and sugar. And marmalade? Citrus fruits that’s done in the… So citrus fruits, you remove the peel and the pith, and then you do the fruit plus the peel, plus sugar and pectin. And preserves? Ooh, preserves is jam before you mash it up, so it’s like big old pieces. And confiture? I don’t know that one because I never learned it. What’s that one? I think confiture is just the French word for jam. Okay, so why didn’t you just say jam? No, no, you’re correct in a lot of those. Jelly is strained, jam is the whole fruit. Mashed. Mashed. Preserves typically won’t be cooked. But even that, there’s no legal distinction. There’s only in America a legal distinction between jam and jelly and a lot of them, it’s like the mayonnaise debate, right? Where it has to do- Oh, yeah, remember that one? So the mayonnaise debate- We had that one. We had that like, versus mayonnaise or aioli. And we talked about why cool whip isn’t considered mayonnaise because it has too high of a water content effectively. Mayonnaise has to be like, X percent oil by volume to legally be considered mayonnaise. Ditto with jams and jellies. So jellies have to be 65% water soluble solids, which is to say sugar, it can also be corn syrup, honey, et cetera. But basically, there needs to be a certain percentage of sugar versus fruit versus pulp juice, et cetera. Sure. To be jam and jelly. All the other terms, which I didn’t realize this, marmalade, confiture, preserves, none of that is like, legally protected. Interesting, okay. Which is fascinating. Marmalade’s not legally protected. Marmalade is not. However, Nicole, I was trying to find research on this, and I found a 1980 memo from the FDA compliance policy guide concerning marmalade. Oh, gosh. I know, this is the exciting stuff that people came here for. That’s right. But I’ll read from it here. “We have expressed the opinion that marmalade should contain at least 65% soluble solids by refractometer. It is customary in making orange marmalade from sweet oranges to use at least 30 pounds of peel and juice with each 70 pounds of sweetening ingredient.” So anyways, this is effectively a policy guide. “We believe the name marmalade should be used only for articles made from citrus peel and juice. Articles made from other fruits would be expected to comply in composition and labeling with the standards of identity for fruit preserves, jam, and jelly.” So- Crazy. I know it is. Well, okay, I find this fascinating because you talked about marmalade being made from citrus fruits. One, why would that need any different distinction? Because- What do you mean? Well, citrus fruits are like, their own category. But so are berries, so are stone fruits, right? So are drupes. What are drupes? A drupe is like a… What’s a drupe, like, a plum is a drupe. It’s one of those weird agricultural distinctions like a pulse like a bean, versus a legume, versus a pulse. Oh, sure, sure, sure. I’m pretty sure a plum is a drupe for some reason. I don’t exactly know why, but the point is there’s so many different distinctions in fruit. We only distinguish for marmalade based on citrus, which is fascinating because if you know the etymology of marmalade- Tell me it. What? Okay, you go to Espana. Si. You’re eating a nice plate of, how do you say queso? I was thinking formaggio, it’s Italian. God dang it. You’re eating a charcuterie board in Spain. Sure. Right, they wouldn’t call it charcuterie, they’d call it whatever it is in Spanish. Tapas. But you’re getting cheese and meats. There’s a paste made of quince, what’s it called? Membrillo. Membrillo. Marmalade. Marmalade. So you go to Portugal, it’s actually called marmelada. Oh. This is crazy. Right? And so marmella is the Latinate root for quince. Oh my gosh. So marmalade literally means like, thing made from quince. My mom makes quince jam. So your mom makes quince. You know who else made quince jam? The Spanish. Ancient Romans. Oh, okay. So if you track modern fruit preservation, surely throughout history, they’ve been preserving fruit via many ways, right? Sure. People have been drying things in the sun for forever. You even look in Korea and you’ll see preserved citrus rinds that they’ll add to these. I think it was called cheong? Yeah, there’s actually there’s . There’s what? Like There’s Cheong-Tok? Yeah, yeah. You on Cheong-Tok? Yeah, I am. Get the hell outta here. Yeah, they take like, a pound of grapes or a pound of strawberries and they let it preserve in sugar, not salt, for like, months on end. There’s like a one-month chunk, and then a two-month, and a year long. Oh, hell yeah. It’s crazy, yeah. I’m on that side of TikTok. I wanna get on that side of TikTok. Okay. I’m just on Natty or not Tok, where they just look at any actor that’s fitter than the normal person. Then they’re like, they’re not natty as people are just eating Taco Bell on their couch. Josh. But I also agree with them like, most, you know, see anybody in a Marvel movie? The point is, people have been preserving fruit for as long as fruit has been around. Effectively, one of the earliest written recipes we see for any sort of fruit preserve is “De Re Coquinaria.” Hmm. This is the book, we’ve cooked from it on “Meals of History” before. We have? Yeah, well the book is actually called “Apicius”, and “Apicius” was a dude who was just a noted Epicurean. Existed around the first, second century AD, and he just compiled a bunch of recipes, and there’s a recipe for quince that was boiled in honey and preserved. That’s so interesting. And so that’s where the term marmalade comes from. That’s insane to me. Isn’t it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then there’s a story about in the 1500s there was a shipment of marmelada from Portugal that went to the King of England and it said marmeladu on it. It was just misspelled like crazy. Okay. And then people started making it with English bergamot oranges, stuff like that. Delicious, love bergamot. And so that is one of the reasons we consider marmalade to just be citrus. And in the American canon, as you can see from this FDA writ of appeal, that’s what we mean by marmalade. Mm-hmm. So there’s that. That’s very interesting, thank you. That’s actually very, very interesting. Isn’t it? Yes. And then there’s another thing, I actually found this on just the Wikipedia page of preserved fruit, but they were talking about because I really wanted to know the difference between all of these freaking terms that we have. Sure, why are there terms, you know? One of the terms they used in that was cheese. And I was like, why cheese here make no sense? Turns out in other cultures, they will make very dense fruit preserves. Like a paste? Deeper than a paste, almost a fully sliceable loaf. So you take the reason that quince was one of the OG jam making things- ‘Cause it has high pectin. Crazy high pectin. Mm-hmm. And not only crazy high pectin, quince is damn near inedible raw, right? Yeah. And so you have to cook it, and the pectin makes it solidify like crazy, and then other, especially cold weather climates where like, you can’t dry stuff and you need to preserve food even harder because it needs to last longer, they would make things that they called fruit cheeses. That’s so crazy. Which you would just cook it down, and cook it down, and cook it down until it becomes super hard and sliceable like a loaf. So you find something called apple cheese in Lithuania, which to me is really fascinating. No way, that’s so cool. I guess cheese just means big old loaf of something. Effectively, I mean, think of head cheese, right? Sure, sure. And that’s just like a loaf of boiled pig head parts. That’s just put in a loaf and you slice it. That’s really, really cool. It’s a loaf. What’s your favorite of these jams, jellies, marmalades, preserves, like, what do you reach for? You need different applications for different foods, right? So, so, so, so, so I’m making a PB&J, that J ain’t jam, that J is jelly. Do you mean to tell me you have jelly in your house? I don’t make PB&Js at home, I only make them at work and when I make them at work I use Concord grape jelly. Are you sure? I’m pretty sure you use raspberry jam. No ma’am, I actually hate raspberry jam with peanut butter. Because the seeds get stuck in your teeth. Too aesthetic, I want it to be sweet. Oh, I see, I see. I want it to be incredibly sweet. But so for PB&Js, I love using an old-school Concord grape jelly because that’s what I grew up on. Also Concord grapes, very American fruit. I love that. But if I’m adding something to a dessert, one of my favorite things is like, I always think of “Great British Bake-Off”, and you’re making a Victoria sponge sandwich cake. Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure, I never make them though. Oh, God, they’re not hard, and they’re so good. It’s not for me, it’s not for me. God, why don’t I make one tonight? I already made a Panna cotta. We’re also shooting this on Valentine’s Day. I know, I’m just- And Josh has cooked, you were cooking for four hours yesterday? Just prepping for four hours, I had to make- Prepping to make Julia a beautiful home-cooked meal. Yeah, I made a Thai curry paste from scratch and I cooked it down, and then I made a grapefruit Panna cotta. I still gotta make… We’re out of sugar too, we’re out of sugar. You ever do that where you get all the ingredients- And then you don’t have this pantry staple. I got fresh galangal yesterday. I went to the Asian market to get galangal for my freaking curry paste, and then I was gonna make a little bit of honeycomb as garnish for the dessert, and I was gonna add sugar to something else, and we just didn’t have sugar, and I was like, I cannot bring myself to go out to the store. No, you just gotta substitute where you can. Yeah, and there was nothing else to substitute. I already added honey too, another thing to sweeten it, and so that was brutal. Do you know what I’m making for Valentine’s Day? Say it, I know what you’re gonna say. Reservations. Reservations. My girl’s best friend is her credit card. Anyway. And cue the rocket money ad here. I’m just kidding. No, but like, for me I find myself I never buy jams, or jellies, or preserves. What, do you make them at home? They’re kind of just given to me. Oh, I feel this, I feel this, yeah. I don’t have a hardcore preference and I don’t necessarily put a lot of jam on stuff. Maybe on a piece of toast with some butter and a jam in the morning if I’m in a rush, I’ll do that. But I never find myself reaching for jams, or jellies, or preserves, but I will say, Bonne Maman, have you ever seen Bonne Maman? Bonne Maman, they have overtaken the game, dude. Bonne Maman, their four-fruit jam is delicious. Oh, what are the four fruits in it? I’ve had that. It is good, dude. I don’t know. It’s good! I’m gonna tell you, I don’t know, I’m assuming it’s all berries. I don’t know, I feel like there’s a stone fruit in there. I feel like there’s an apricot. Okay, the four fruits in the Bonne Maman four-fruit. Oh, it’s preserves, it’s not even jam. Strawberries, raspberries, cherries, and red currants. Red currants. So unbelievably good. Also, I have this very vivid memory of my dad asking me when I was 14, like, “You want lamb chops?” And I said, “No, I don’t want lamb chops”, ’cause I had no taste for food back then. And then he bought lamb chops, made them at home, and then he served them with a side of mint jelly, and I was always fascinated by the idea of mint jelly ’cause it’s literally food coloring, mint extract, sugar, and pectin, right? Yeah, that’s such an old person. With all due respect, Morris, you’re young at heart, but that’s such an old person thing. He has like, three stents in his heart. He’s not young at heart. No, ’cause that was something my dad also ate. And had you eaten that, the lamb chops and the jelly? I don’t, no, never, and I don’t get it. Dude. It’s pretty horrifying. Is it? Is it done because the lamb is so gamey? I suppose, that’s a very old school thing to eat that I don’t understand. I will say I love using jams, fruit preserves, whatever, in cooking. Like the other day, it’s a great way just to sweeten things. I feel you with always somehow ending up with jams but never remember buying them. Exactly, I have so many random jams like, in my cupboards. I’ll be like at a farmer’s market and just be like, oh, might as well drop $9 on this. Yeah, this has chia seeds in it. It’s like a whole fig jam, and it’s bad. But so I don’t like using that fig jam on anything. But the other day- I love fig jam. I mixed it with a little bit of like vinegar, and hot sauce, and butter and made a glaze for chicken. That’s smart. And that was really nice. That’s smart. So I like doing stuff like that. But speaking of things that I bought at the farmer’s market that I hate and I’m trying to dump in random things to get rid of, I put this in pancakes the other day, date butter. You don’t like date butter? Well, okay, what is date butter to you? I’m guessing blended up dates with water. ‘Cause think about apple butter, right? Oh, my God, apple butter rocks. Well yeah, why is apple butter not a jam or a preserve or whatever? Oh, my God. I just tasted apple butter in my mouth and it was so good. Pumpkin butter. I love pumpkin butter! Pumpkin’s a fruit ’cause it has seeds. That’s a jam. I love pumpkin butter. I love pumpkin butter too. I love apple butter, I love sugar. I’m like a hummingbird. I hate apple sauce, love apple butter. Yeah, I guess apple sauce plus sugar, plus heat, plus time equal apple butter? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? I guess. Yeah. So it’s fun, apple sauce is just raw apple butter. I could also just squeeze Gogurts apple sauce in my body all day long. I love it. I hate apple sauce. I feel like a little baby, you know? I wanna get like some weird diaper play stuff, you know? Oh no. No, like SFW. Like, just like normal- Please delete that. What, Maggie, why is everybody cringing? Why is apple butter not a preserve or a jam to you? Because there’s certainly, there’s apple jelly. It’s too smooth. Something about the smoothness of it makes me feel like it’s not a jam jelly preserve, it’s a butter. Well, probably if we look at the FDA definition, also FDA does not distinguish between preserves and jams, by the way. Really? So we can say that there might be more heat added to jam, whatever, but according to the FDA, you can just use preserve versus jam on your packaging willy-nilly. Really? Because I’ve always thought preserves, they have like, blackberry preserves, in my head when I see blackberry preserves, it’s pieces of blackberry in there. So is a strawberry jam though. You get like a Smuckers strawberry jam and there’s pieces of strawberry in there. Really? I always thought it was like, relatively smooth plus the seeds. Now you know how I know that? ‘Cause Smuckers they got the squeezable ones. We for a long time had ’em in our fridge at work. They have the squeezable jams and jellies, and for the grape jelly it’s great because it’s purely smooth, it’s just the grape juice. But then you’ll get a little strawberry chunk stuck in the squeeze tip, and then I gotta take my mouth to the squeeze tip and I go and then I just put it back in the fridge and don’t tell anybody. So that’s how I know strawberry jam. I’m kidding, I don’t do that. Yeah, you do. I do that with my hot sauce bottles at home. As soon as you get pulp. Arizona Gunslinger get a lot of pulp stuck in the tip. So you suck it out? Yes. Are you proud of yourself? A little bit. Okay. How else would you get it out? I tried shoving a chopstick in there, it don’t work. It don’t work. I just shake it. I just hold the nozzle and I shake it. That makes sense. Okay. Fruit spread is really interesting to me. What is fruit spread? I’m so glad you asked. So fruit spread became a term. All right, so the reason that you might want, if you are a governing body, to have… At first when I saw the regulations that said at least 65% sugar, I was like surely they mean at most 65% sugar trying to prevent companies from just loading this stuff up with corn syrup, sugar, whatever, and not having any fruit in there. But no, they mean at least 65% sugar because of the preserving effects of sugar. Oh. ‘Cause that’s the origin of why all jams, jellies, and all this stuff exist, right? Yeah, sure. Of course. Is that sugar helps preserve foods. But then we get into the canning era, which as we all know- Let’s get into canning, Josh. Let’s try canning. Do you know the guy who basically invented canning in like, the Napoleonic Wars? Ball? No, his name was not Ball. His name was Nicolas Appert. Oh, okay. I think he was Belgian technically, but under the Napoleonic Empire. And Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars is like, hey, I’m giving a 12,000 Franc reward to anybody who comes up with the best idea that we can execute to feed our troops, and this guy was just like, I figured out a way to seal off all bacteria inside food and allow it to last forever. And then they’re like, all right, cool, but we don’t really dig what you did during the revolution so we’re gonna take your idea and piss off. And then his factory got destroyed by the Prussians. Back then you were just about to get killed by the Prussians at any given moment. That sucks. And then we just successfully wiped Prussia off the face of the map in history forever. Where was Prussia? Prussia was like, I believe northeast Germany. It was like its own kingdom for a long time, an empire, and after I think World War I, they’re still around World War I. I dunno, but we were just like, no more Prussia, dude. Y’all don’t get to exist anymore. That sucks. The point is, canning became a big thing. Meaning, you could feasibly add less sugar to stuff because it was gonna last however long, and we have refrigeration now too. So companies were like, we’re gonna put less sugar in our jams and try and market that, and the FDA was like, nah, you can no longer call this jam. So we got fruit spread. That’s a fruit spread, homie. That’s all you can prove. There’s fruit there and you can spread it on stuff. That’s awesome. I really, I find myself leaning towards more of the jams and the preserves. Jelly it just doesn’t sit right with me, it’s too clear. Does it feel artificial to you? Yes, it feels artificial and it feels too clear, and I feel like I need to know that I’m eating something from the fruit. Like, some sort of chew, some sort of something ’cause jelly, it just screams too sweet to me. It feels infantile, right? Like, it feels like something you would’ve eaten- I don’t think infantile is the right word ’cause my mother was never a jelly person. She was also a jam and preserve person. Even when you were a little kid, you weren’t sucking down grape jelly. Never. Never. What jellies do people even eat other than grape and like mint? Strawberry. But strawberry jelly jelly with no fruit in it? I mean, see that at the store. I don’t know if I’ve ever had that. I see it at the store. Maggie, you Google strawberry jelly. I mean, there’s also- I feel like Joe Rogan just being like Google COVID lab. But not us. Strawberry jelly. Yeah, strawberry jelly and grape jelly are very popular. Why do I feel like I have no memory of strawberry jelly? Really? I feel like I only eat strawberry jam. It’s so see-through it’s crazy to me. That’s wild. Apple jelly is a thing that I’ve eaten a fair amount of, which is very fun. I’ve never had apple jelly before. You will find it in those little, the best way to consume jelly, Nicole, is when it has syrup tracks covering it because it is at an IHOP next to the syrup holster, and they have the little pads of jelly like Knott’s. Oh, the little pads of jelly. Love those. We were blessed, Nicole, to grow up next to a historic dairy farm. That’s right, the inventor of the Boysenberry. Alta Dena? No, Knott’s. Oh, I thought you were talking about Alta Dena with the little milk cups. No, K-N-O-T-T-S, Knott’s. I know what Knott’s is, I know what Knott’s is. It’s not berry farm. They got roller coasters now. And Boysenberries. Boysenberries, they invented it. They invented the Boysenberry? Yeah, they did. Was the guy that invented his last name Boysen? I think it actually was. It was like Alfred, Alfred Boysen. Maggie, can you Google that? Well, the Google- Harold Boysen? But it’s a various cross-breeding of raspberries and blackberries. That’s how so many of the berries. Rudolph Boysen. What’d I say, Alfred Bosyen? Same thing. Yeah, literally Orange County, California, baby. But don’t you say berries in French like or something like that? Like is strawberry. Yeah, as in . I think . His last name sounds just like it. Boysen, boysenberry. You know what else I like? Apricot jelly and jam. I like apricots. Underrated. Very yellow. I agree with that. I’m a big stone fruit and drupe fan. I love stone fruit. Do you ever make your own jellies, jams, whatever at home? Have you like, messed around with it? What am I, a homesteader? No. Okay, like, during COVID, especially during the lockdown. No way. I was eating more peanut butter-based sandwiches. Peanut butter et al based sandwiches than ever. Et al? Et al meaning and others. Okay. In Latin. Do we wanna know that? If you see a scientific study, it’ll be like. I know what et al means, but I didn’t know what the et al stood for I know that you knew what it said. Yeah, like, et meaning and al. Any who, the point is I was not always happy with the type of fruit preserves, and I was like, I want to make my own. My favorite thing is a peanut butter banana and honey sandwich. Yes, so you tried to make banana. I tried to make banana jam. You did not knowing that maybe banana butter was a better way to go about it? Well, banana. Okay, well, there’s the etymological difference, right? Banana butter. How would you make, if you wanted a spreadable sweet banana based treat to go on your peanut butter sandwich, what would you do? I would mash up a banana, I would add some brown sugar, I would add some salt, and I would just let it go for hours. But you’d cook it? Cook it. Have you ever just like cooked a dry banana though? No. It like, doesn’t… If you blend a banana, it turns kinda liquidy. I mean, who would care? You would just suck out all the moisture over time. Well yeah, but I’m saying when you suck out the moisture, it just turns clumpy. I thought what I should do is add almond milk because I was like, almonds, bananas, peanut, that’s a good combo, and like sugar, and try to like cook it down and add some vanilla extract. I would add vanilla. The banana turns really brown and almost gets this weird kinda slick quality. It’s not great. But let me tell you, preserved bananas like banana baby food which you’re very familiar with, it’s like kind of acidic because they have to acidulate it so it doesn’t turn brown. Yeah, exactly. But I don’t think we have to worry about that if we’re making a homemade banana butter. I’m down to make some homemade banana butter, man. Dude, no, I can’t. Let’s do it. Do you wanna hear more about the etymology of all these words? ‘Cause I found interesting stuff out and now I’d like, can I say it anyways even if you don’t wanna hear it? Yes, of course. Josh, you could do whatever you want. Okay, okay, so jelly, right? You go to England and you say like, please sir, give me a bowl of jelly. And they know what that means? Jelly and cream, mister. That means gelatin. Just a little pop. That means jello. That means jello. I got chili in my eye. You got chili? Why do you have chili in your hands? I just got chili in my eyeball. Yeah, so they call it jello jelly ’cause jello is just an American proper noun for a product. I’m just gonna take my glasses off. And so they would probably not differentiate between jam, you know? I’m listening to you. And strained jelly. I think strained jelly is, but any whom? So that comes from the French like gelee. Yes, yes, my mom says gelee. Oh really? Yeah, also my mom used to make a lot of jam at home. Really? Out of what? Quince. She would make quince jam. She would make so much quince jam. Oh my mom like was, I don’t know, it was weird. When you’re a housewife and you don’t have a job and like, your kids are like basically grown except you have one that just came outta nowhere, like, you have nothing else to do but do like, mom things. I think that’s how I would be happiest in life. Just sitting at home making jam, you know? I think it’d be pretty cool. Do you wanna be a stay at home dad? A little bit. If that was in the cards, yeah, I’d absolutely do that. And have Julia work like 40 hours? So gel means like to frost. I can’t really see your facial expressions. Like to congeal. So like, water turning into ice is effectively jellifying right in the same way that fruit juice turning into something solid so it’s going from liquid to solid, which is fascinating. And then marmalade, we talked about that. Yeah, we talked about that. But actually in Greek, they probably called that preserved quince paste . Meli meaning like miel. Oh, I love that name. Right? I would love to name my future daughter Miel. But you know what like miel means in- Honey? Honey. I know Spanish. I took four years of Spanish. I know you did. It wasn’t AP Spanish, it was honors Spanish. So it’s , and then melon means apple in Greek. And so that was they called- Are you for real? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you find out a lot of really funny stuff. Jam, I was like, I have no idea where this word comes from. You can figure out jelly ’cause you know the French gelee and whatever. Sure. Jam turns out it comes from the same old English word like champ, which means champ is like to chew, to press. Chomp. Or chomp. So, so, so the word chomping at the bit, it’s actually champing at the bit. Like a horse? Correct. Yeah. So it’s kinda like gnashing with its teeth, and that’s the same verb. So jam and chomp have the same root for just like kind of pressing mashing. Josh, I’ve never told you this before. You’re like really smart. I have many special interests. I like it. Be patient with me. So now that we know the difference between jam and jelly, what was the point of this podcast? Was it just to get the joke like in the title? Well, Nicole, it’s ’cause I can’t jelly my in her . Listen, I am a massive fan of breakfast tacos. They’re one of my favorite foods in the entire world. I would eat a breakfast taco every single day of the week if it made sense for me, but the thing that stops me is I’m like, hey man, you’re an adult. It’s a Tuesday. You just did a nice big workout. You gotta go into work, let’s get some fiber in your diet. Let’s add some healthy proteins in there. What if I told you that Hero Bread makes tortillas and other bread products? But man, do I love me some tortillas that have a super high amount of fiber and protein in it. I am being dead serious when I say that it is the closest thing I’ve had to a miracle food product in my lifetime. I’ve been eaten them dang near every morning, filling ’em up with cheese, bacon, eggs, drowning ’em in salsa, and it has made me so, so, so happy, and it’s made my gut health super happy because I think everybody needs more fiber in their diet. They also taste really good and not just really good for a high fiber or high protein product. I mean, these are just genuinely really good flour tortillas. Their bread’s also good too. Can’t stress that enough. However, God, do I love tortillas. For real, you wouldn’t notice the difference between this and any of the best flour tortillas out there. I mean, I’ve been making quesadillas with them, I’ve been making breakfast tacos, I’ve been making dinner tacos, I’ve been making lunch tacos, I’m making tacos, taco salad, I’ve been making taco soup, I’ve been making all the taco things ’cause that’s how good the hero bread tortillas are. It is delicious, it is flavorful. 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All right, Nicole, we’ve heard what you and I have to say, Now it’s time to find out what the wacky guys rattling on the other side for a little segment we call. Opinions are like casserole. I allowed myself to be the alto so you could be the soprano. Are you happy about that? I don’t. Like eating gabagool out the fridge soprano? Not everything is about that Sopranos. Most things are about gabagool, I’ll tell you that much. I have never said anything with less confidence in my life than when I went to an Italian deli on the East coast and saw capicola and went gabagool. And they went, “What?” And I said, “Oh, the capicola sandwich please.” You’re so embarrassing. I am. I’m embarrassed for you. Gabagool. Hey Josh, this is Paul from Indiana. He’s talking to you. Hey, man. What’s up? I have an opinion that might sound a little controversial, but I like roadkill meat just as good as regular meat you buy from the store. Yeah, might as well. It’s all same. It’s free. It’s right there. The fresher the better, but yeah, it’s a lot of my family still makes a raccoon soup that we just get off of the road. That’s why I carry a shovel in my truck when I drive down the road. Yeah, it’s good. Watch out for worms. I see why he was addressing me now. So here’s the thing. Right back, how much cigarettes you smoke? Because here’s the thing, whenever anyone’s like, lamb tastes gamey, goat tastes gamey, I’m like, listen, it’s all just chew and sauce to me man. And I’m not gonna BS you, my palate’s so blown out from smoking a pack a day, but I don’t anymore, and it’s bad and you shouldn’t do it. You used to smoke a pack a day? That was when I knew I had to stop is when I got to like a full pack every day. How old were you? 22, 23? Yeah, I was like probably 25. Damn. And I was like, I was a writer and I was hanging out with chefs all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was in your vibe. It starts fun. But the point is, you know, you’re blowing out your palate and so at some point that can be a good thing because then you’re just eating roadkill and you’re totally fine with it ’cause you can’t taste the difference much like me. Also, reckon you’re not just cooking that up like a steak with salt and pepper and eating it. No, you’re smothering it, you’re putting it in a stew. There was a TikkyTokky that went a little viral of a girl talking about having a lemon tree in her backyard and like, her friends- I just saw that. Her friend going like, “Why have you been buying lemons at the store?” You have a lemon tree. They’re different. They do something to the lemons at the store that they don’t here, and that’s how a lot of people especially feel about animals, right? Well, they’re doing something to them at the factories, and it’s like, well, yes they are and they’re supposed to be FDA regulations, but there’s also sometimes worse things. I do know though, raccoons are prone to parasites, especially during certain seasons. But if you are somebody whose family has been eating this stuff for a long time, you probably know that. Yeah, you have like a certain knowledge about it. Sorry, this wasn’t addressed to me. No, Nicole, you could answer. I don’t know. I don’t have an opinion one way or another. Have you ever eaten roadkill? Never. Never. But I hope that you’re doing it safely and that’s all I can say. I just hope you’re doing it safely. Closest equivalent I’ve had, I mean, I’ve eaten we’ve like eaten possum and stuff, but like, it’s like a serious meal. I’ve had like rabbit, Guinea pig. Like, killed on the road? Not killed on the road though. I’ve had those things too. Yeah, and those are great. They’re not road kill. No, but it’s like that type of animal, right? It’s an animal that feasibly could be killed on the road. whereas like a cow, most likely not. Okay, next question. Good afternoon, “A Hot Dog Is A Sandwich.” I’m a big fan, long time listener. My opinion- Southern California, right? Is that fruit is better frozen. For sure. I know that it’s questionable. I’ve gotten into many arguments with it, and oh, by the way, my name’s John. Hi, John. You know, I think it’s better frozen one, just for the price and it’s longevity. But also I just really like it’s, you know, the crunchy, cool texture while eating it, and I also think it pairs well with a bunch of other condiments, including honey and whipped cream. So that is my hot take. Okay, Great hot take. I’m into this. So mad they didn’t say where they’re from. So I think that this gives a sorbet, a handheld sorbet vibe, and I’m happy for them that they get to experience fruit in such a way. Where do you think like Dana Point? Yeah, Laguna. Carlsbad. Laguna. You think Laguna? Yeah, It’s giving Laguna. I think Laguna would be a little bit more posh. No, that’s not true. Oh yeah, Dana, That’s not true. Dana is very posh. Maybe Huntington, man. Maybe like Huntington, like North County stuff. I was about to say Huntington Beach. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I like frozen fruit. I prefer regular fruit. Oh, Maggie just looked up your zip code. We have that information. Wait, what’s the zip code? Where’s he from? No, I looked up the area code. That’s what I meant. Sorry. Area code. Not zip code, that’d be freaky. Where is it? Where is it? Southwestern Connecticut. Oh, you know what it is? What? You know what I think it is? I think it was just a frat accent. Oh maybe. I think it’s a frat accent. A fraccent. A fraccent. A fraccent. I just listened. There’s a great follow on Instagram called Etymology Nerd. He’s like a Harvard- Oh, I love Etymology Nerd. Oh my God! He’s got- I love Etymology Nerd! He did a video about why the frat accent sounds the same no matter where you go. He makes me wanna learn languages. I know, man. You heard his bird language? No, I haven’t gotten, I haven’t been fed that on the thing. But let me tell you- I’m sorry, that could have been a slur in his bird language. Let me tell you I’m obsessed. Let me tell you, I just love linguistics and etymology, so I’m all about that stuff. Yeah, same, same, same. Does a lot of great videos. Anyways- I like this. I agree with that. I keep frozen fruit wherever I am because I love blending it into smoothies, and then if you are making any hot application of fruit, like any dessert, you’re making a cobbler, might as well use frozen fruit. A lot of the times it is picked at peak season and then frozen. Of course. There are so many advantages we invented. The freezer for food preservation. Gotta use it. Yeah. Gotta use it. Agreed, Agreed. What up now? My name’s Ellio. Six in the morning, on my way to work. I feel like- Amarillo, Texas. The world needs to stop sleeping on the Midwestern Cool Whip based salad. Yes, sir! I’m talking jello salad, Ambrosia salad, snicker salad, et cetera. I feel like if the world was open to and knew about these salads, we’d be an all around much more fulfilling place. Love the podcast, guys. Okay, love your voice as well. Preach. Obsessed. I like the little snarl you had when you talked about salads. He’s a lead singer in a post hardcore band. I love his voice. I have never had a Cool Whip based salad. Get the fudge outta here. But I feel like I would have a lot of fun with ambrosia salad and Watergate salad. Wait, wait, you’ve never had ambrosia? Like the strawberry pretzel salad that Dolly Parton makes or something? I’ve always wanted to try that. You’ve never had ambrosia, you’ve never had just like, the mix of like jello, Cool Whip, fruits and nuts? The closest thing I could have to that is like, in like Mexican markets where they take like, gelatin, they do stained glass. ` No, that stuff’s great, but that is not- Okay, so this is different. This is, yeah, yeah. Maggie, look up ambrosia. Like, marshmallows, coconut. Fruit cocktail. Fruit cocktail. dumped in there. I know of it. Oh, such a delight. I’ve never had the privilege of like, someone’s mom making it like after church. You know, I really wanna try it though. Oh man, I remember that from my own upbringing. You know who has taken up the mantle though? Filipino people. Oh really? I have met so many Filipino people. I remember going to- It’s probably related to church food, right? It could be related to church food. There’s a lot of like very American sort of like, capitalistic food industrial influence in the Philippines, right? Spam, corned beef, all this stuff, ketchup. Reason they had to make it outta bananas because there’s a tomato shortage, but I think that’s where the jello thing comes in. But I’ve met so many Filipino Americans who were like, dude, I thought this was just a Filipino thing. And I was like, nah, us white trash Pennsylvanians we also eat that stuff and it is delicious. I agree. Lean into it. So it’s dessert? No, it’s not. It’s almost like- Served on the side like cranberry sauce? Correct, it is cranberry sauce. Cool. I mean, it’s probably eaten for dessert, but if you’re eating this stuff, it should be at a potluck and you’re gonna get a little bit of gravy on it. Cool. I can’t wait to try it one day. I hope it like, what’s it called when like, it falls upon me like, I hope I get the opportunity to like experience it by surprise. Serendipity. With John Cusack. Yeah, I hope I get a serendipitous experience with it. I’m gonna start bringing Ambrosia to potlucks. You’re not. You wanna fricking bet? Next potluck, I am going to make from scratch. I’m going to make the jello from scratch. If I have like a Shabbat potluck, will you bring it? Absolutely. I’m gonna make it artisanal. Okay, what about Kosher? Oh, gelatin. Huh? Oh, curve ball. Pectin. Can I go pectin? You can do whatever you want. Speaking of the jam jelly, I’m gonna pectin my bleep in her bleep. Next opinion. Next opinion. Hi, Josh and Nicole. This is John from Tulare, California. Visalia’s next door neighbor. Tulare. Home of the World Ag Expo. I just wanted to point out that both of you have, in the middle of your last name, a vowel followed by a consonant, followed by the same vowel. That’s weird. And the best way to eat falafel is in a sandwich on a French roll with lettuce, onions, pickles, peppers, and mustard. Best way for a falafel. Yeah. Thanks. Have a good day. Well, you too. Well let me just say, let’s tackle the falafel first. Are you sure? I wanna tackle the other thing. That was great. Okay, tackle the other. Is he talking about Hendizadeh or Enayati? Enayati, so A-Y-A, I have E-R-E. Josh, I truly believe that it was cosmic for us to meet and be each other’s co-hosts. I truly believe that. You don’t believe that? You think it was just random? I think it was. Does he know that I talk about Visalia way more than I should be talking about Visalia? What’s Visalia? Visalia is a town I believe it’s like, just south of Fresno. A big, big ag town. But he’s from Tulare, which is right next to Visalia. No, but listen, like, I think that there’s things that happen like in the stars, like in the cosmos that are like, hey, you get to hang out with this person for a few years in your life. Yeah, I’d like to. Yeah, like, in the sense that anybody else could also be sitting there and saying the same thing. But it’s me. But it’s you, and I love that for us, you know? Like, there’s a reason why we have Maggie in the studio. Yeah, Maggie, what’d you like, what’d you study in- No, no, no. It’s like Chapman for? Film production. Yeah, and like- Computer science. During but like, graduating. She has a master’s in computer science. No, I know that, but like, graduated during like the boom of like digital media. Maggie is so talented. Maggie is like an interdisciplinary. What is that? Like, you know what I’m talking about. She’s like really talented. She like Marina Abramovich, an interdisciplinary artist. She plays musical instruments. What about falafel, guys? Oh, sorry. Let me talk good about you. But I’m saying like, you know, Maggie graduated from film school in the middle of the digital media boom, and like there’s factors that got her to… Maggie, I really enjoy your company. I’m really grateful for you here. Why do you think she went that way? I don’t think it’s like cosmic justice. Really, you don’t think the cosmos were like, you will go into film production? No, not at all. Maggie, I think you or I could be equally happy with other people and I think that’s beautiful. But the fact that we are still happy together. I disagree. I also really enjoy that. You know what I’m saying though? I disagree. Yeah, this is great. This is not a nightmare for me. I love this whole conversation. Josh, but no, you have to think about it like, me and you grew up in such different like worlds. Like, think about it. Like, we grew up so different and so many things just were random, and now look at us. We’re like co-hosts and friends for like five years now. But you don’t see another world in which you’re say working at like, in corporate at See’s Candy and you’re saying that to a guy named Harold? Like, Harold, you and I grew up in such different environments because you probably did, right? Not a lot of people grew up in the same environment. You’d be working at Kraft. if you were a food scientist at Kraft. What’s that movie, “Everything Everywhere All At Once”? In this like, what is this called? In this dimension we met, and this is what we’re doing. in another dimension, maybe we were, I don’t know. Rocks, talking rocks. We were like riding raccoons around or whatever they did. Yeah, maybe we were. Maybe we were talking like next to each other. Hotdog hands. And like, you’re not understanding what I’m saying and it bothers me. Like, there’s a reason why and maybe our last names having like those vowels and consonants next to each other is another reason why we’re hanging out all the time. I don’t know. This is like something Kanye would say right before he says something terrible about a certain group of people. You know what I mean? Or like how Terrence Howard thinks that he can prove that one times one is two and not one. Terrence Howard thinks that? Yeah, somebody just Google Terrance Howard math. I love that movie, “Hustle And Flow” Okay, falafel. Actually recently, lemme tell you what’s my favorite way to eat falafel. I saw this guy make a falafel burger. I think his name is Danny Nisom, something like that. I don’t know. His name is Danny, and he made this falafel smash burger and it looks so big. Daniel Meshup? I don’t know. I feel like I know that name. Oh my God, it looks so good, and I literally sent it to my husband. I’m like, we have to make this immediately, and so I want to eat my falafel with a burger patty and cheese, and lightly fermented red cabbage and homemade pita with sesame seed. Yeah, the interesting thing about the veggie burger boom with Impossible and Beyond and all that is that the perfect veggie burger was created like, thousands of years ago in probably Egypt is what I think it came from, and it’s called falafel. Nothing has improved on that ever since. That said, eaten in like a hoagie roll like that, I would say the opposite. I see where you’re coming from. It’s like a vegetarian meatball sub, but I think meatball subs are among some of the worst constructed sub sandwiches. Interesting. You’re putting a round ball. It’s just literally you’re biting into it and the meatballs are squirting out, and I know it’s falafel has more texture, less sauce, et cetera, but I would rather eat the falafel in like a laffa wrap just like a burrito, and then I would also say that the better application of a meatball is also to be put in a laffa wrap like a burrito. I like laffas. I love laffa. I go laffa over pita any day. Oh really? I go pita over laffa. And laffa over lavash. Is it the same thing? No. You sure? Laffa is fluffier. Sangak. Sangak is the best. Do love me some sangak. I just embarrassed myself on this podcast. Next opinion, please. Hi guys. My controversial take, my hot take is that cottage cheese and sunflower seeds is so good. My mom used to dip cauliflower in it as well, but yeah, cottage cheese and sunflower seeds. Thanks. That sounds like a sog. If I wanted to illustrate something really unnerving about somebody in like a horror film, but a horror film where the vibe and the feeling is horror but nothing horrible has happened yet, I would show them dipping cauliflower into cottage cheese with sunflower seeds. Do you think the sunflower seeds are shelled? They must be. Yeah, they must be shelled. Yeah. But why? There’s like, there’s no flavor in any of those. You could get roasted sunflower seeds. Yeah, but the flavor is like- I like sunflower seeds a lot actually. This is maybe the strongest I’ve come out against an opinion. Most of the time people are like, I put beef jerky in my coffee and I’m like, well, if you actually go back to ancient Mesopotamia, you can find. I like, I’m pretty bummed out by this. It’s just it’s like- I hate that word bummed out. The colors. Bummed out, that it’s like just it’s a white cruciferous vegetable dipped into like chunky with just like gray crunchies on it. This just gives me diet culture vibes, and that’s all I gotta say about that. A little bit. Workshop the recipe. Salt, pepper, olive oil, put some steak on it as Josh would say. A little hot. Yeah. Put some steak on it. Give it some ricotta. You know, maybe some like crushed pepitas little tahina. Yeah, I don’t know. Pepitas are sunflower seeds. No, pepitas are pumpkin seeds. Oh, you’re right. Yeah. Sorry. Eating seeds is a pastime activity. You know, I just shove seeds in my mouth and I just chew through them. Like bird seed? No. Like bird seeds? ‘Cause one of my favorite grocery stores is Petco. We got really good deals on their little tins of meat. No, Josh. Put it on sandwiches as like a spread. No, silly, like sunflower seeds. Like, I’m not very good at cracking individual ones. So either David does it for me ’cause he loves me. You have such an independent relationship. I love that for you guys. It is independent. What do you mean? You do things for each other? Yeah. It’s called love. No, like, he cracks it for me and gives it to me. Or I just shove it in my mouth and then he says, don’t do that. I’m like, I can’t do it. Like, in “Everything Everywhere All At Once” where our alternate reality is that we’re birds, and your husband comes over your little mating partner and he like pecks open a seed for you and pushes it towards you. That’s David, that’s David and I accept the seed. We’ll accept your seed, David. On that note, thank you for listening to “A Hot Dog Is A Sandwich.” We got new audio only episodes every Wednesday, and the video version here on the YouTube on Sunday. If you want to be featured on Opinions Are Like Casserole, hit us up at 833- Dog-POD1 The area code is 833 and the number is Dog Pod one. I thought it was Dodge Pod. No. For more “Mythical Kitchen”, check us out on other videos where we are launching them episodes weekly every week. ‘Til next time, seeing you here or elsewhere. Goodbye.