Hey what’s that box pasta where you gotta add the meat yourself? It’s got like the OJ glove as a mascot? Hamburger Helper? Oh, that’s right. Sandwich Helper, thank you. What are you talking about? 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 Hot Dog 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 Nicole, depending on the results of today’s podcast, we will officially be renaming the podcast, “A Hamburger Is A Sandwich”. We just simply take that tube of meat and then we wrap it into a coil. And then we smash it down into a flat patty and then we don’t even have to bother our graphics team to create a new logo. I think we can do it. I love bothering our graphics team. Also if it does not fit, you must acquit. That is true. Johnnie Cochran. Do we say? OJ Simpson has died and that’s a thing that has happened. He’s dead. And that’s – People neither celebrate nor mourn. And he had 2000 yards as a rookie and only 12 games for the Bills. That’s like all I know about OJ. I have somehow. He was also, I think in the movie “Airplane!”. He actually hosted a prank show at some point. Oh really? Called “Juiced” and he would go, “You got Juiced.” Got Juiced. And there was a great podcast but that’s all I know. Funny. And I should not have invoked the OJ glove but. I thought it was funny. Nicole. What? We have discussed ad nauseam whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich. That’s right. And we came to the conclusion of? I guess? Yeah kind of, maybe, I don’t know. And today, we will be doing the same thing, albeit not consulting a philosopher. Not consulting a historian, not consulting a lawyer. Just Jamie. Just Jamie, Jamie you gotta weigh in at the end on whether or not a hamburger is a sandwich because we’ve actually gotten a fair amount of questions about this. That’s true, that’s true. From well-meaning people who I think are not very smart. What do you mean? A hamburger is a sandwich. That’s not nice. Of course a hamburger is a sandwich. Josh, that’s not nice. I’m kidding, they’re smart, they’re inquisitive. What do you mean? They’re thinking outside of the box. They’re smart in the way that myself. I’m so funny. Myself, a Montessori kid is smart, you know? Where it’s like sure. Josh, can you explain? He can’t do math but he can play with little blocks. Josh can you explain what Montessori schooling is because let me tell you, I want to send my future kid to a Montessori school so bad. I – But Josh, you’re a Montessori kid. I am indeed a Montessori kid and I have done no research on what a Montessori school actually is but I’ll tell you from my own three to four-year-old brain what it was. I can’t wait, okay, go. Montessori school is where your parents are going through an incredibly bitter divorce and you end up in another building where a lady is nice to you and lets you play with blocks. That’s all I remember. Okay. So from my personal experience, Montessori school was great because it was. Lady, fun, nice lady with blocks? Yeah a safe haven away from the turmoil at home. Were the blocks colorful? No right? I think so. Oh they were, okay. I think so. No I actually, well I went to preschool and I was fully reading books. Yeah yeah yeah. You know what I mean? I was reading John Grisham books when I was seven years old. So the blocks didn’t entertain you? Blocks didn’t entertain me much at all. Really? I actually really hate unstructured play when I was a kid. Really? What I’d love to do. Well Montessori’s all about unstructured play. I know, I don’t know if Montessori school helped me. My mom taught me how to read at a very young age. That’s good. So I think that’s pretty big to a child’s development but what I loved doing is just sitting and thinking. This is true, they would bring me the blocks or whatever, or puzzles and I would just be like. “Oh no, thank you I’m fine by myself.” And I would just sit. Were there other kids in class? Yeah yeah. Did you interact with them? Yeah they were fine but I would just sort of exist, telling stories in my own head, wondering what was going on at home. Nicole, the hamburger? What about it? What about it indeed? Do you know much about its history? I like eating them and cheeseburgers is my favorite food. Cheeseburgers is your favorite food? I went to the place that claims to have invented the cheeseburger. Oh my gosh, wait? Is it White Manna? No, so White Manna claims to have invented the hamburger. They are in New Jersey. They are New Jersey. The most famous hamburger invention story is from Louis’ Lunch in 1900, in New Haven, Connecticut. Is it the one with the cool machine that’s up and down that steams it? I don’t think, no that’s not Louis’ Lunch. That’s another one, I can’t remember. But I want to go to the steamed burger place. Me too, me too. I’ve talked to George Motz about it and he’s like, “Yeah it’s a, tastes like water.” Oh great. That makes sense. Louis’ Lunch claims to have invented the hamburger in 1900. Cool. The owner said that a man, he was serving steak dinners at the time and a man walked in and said, “I gotta get this to go, I’m in a big hurry.” Which is the origin story of literally every food. What is that voice? It’s the origin story of, that’s the old-timey voice. “I gotta go, it’s 1900 in New Haven.” No, you have to do the Transatlantic accent. Yeah like this. I can’t talk like this, hey put that meat in a sandwich. Ah, Sticky McFancin, he left to the war and now the Boston Redcats. Oh my God. Need a new pitcher. What is going on? What I’m saying is – Unhinged. Every food origin story is like, someone was in a hurry and then we dropped the roll in the broth and that’s called a French dip now. Yadda, yadda, yadda. And that was the same thing with the hamburger. We were serving steak dinners, guy was in a hurry, this doesn’t even make sense. The owner claims that he, to quicken the steak cooking process threw it in a meat grinder and then grilled it and then he needed it to go. So he put it on two slices of bread but they literally called that the Hamburger Sandwich. Well you say. And it is still on the menu as a hamburger sandwich. Nothing says speed like forcing something through a meat grinder. I know. “Louis, break out the meat grinder.” I will say this. Sandwich, I think, let me tell you. Bread is really the defining factor okay. Louis’ Lunch, I just Googled it. It looks like it’s served between sandwich bread. It sure is served between sandwich bread. Like white sandwich bread. Right? But whenever you think of a traditional hamburger, you think of those sesame seed buns or a brioche bun. Now does the bun completely like, disassociate it from a sandwich. Well that is a great point and we have to look through different lenses. Wait, can I talk about the cheeseburger real quick? Of course, please. Pie ‘N Burger in Pasadena. I’ve always wanted to go, is it good? So, yeah, it’s actually one of my favorite burgers in L.A.. I really want to go. I went very recently, it is wildly expensive for what is an old school diner. Expensive? It’s like $18. For a burger? For like a burger. I think it comes with fries. It comes with a side. They give you a lot of fries but $18 is a lot. That’s a lot. But there was another place called ShopRite Burger or something in 1948 in Pasadena. Okay. That claims to be the first person to put a slice of cheese on a burger. I don’t buy that at all. I don’t buy that. As much as I don’t buy any of these, I certainly don’t buy that. I certainly don’t buy that, yeah, yeah. So if we’re talking about, “Does the bun shape affect whether or not “something is a sandwich?” It certainly does in the Commonwealth countries. I know what a Commonwealth country is. I only know it because I watch so much track and field and the Commonwealth Games are always quite fun. Commonwealth includes but is not exclusive to England. That’s – Wales. Yes. Ireland? No, no. Oh no. And Ireland fought real hard to make sure they weren’t. Sorry. Canada? Canada. New Zealand? New Zealand, hi. And Australia. And Australia and South Africa. What about USA? No. No. No, so Commonwealth countries are ones that technically still have a relation to the Crown. Okay. I don’t exactly know what that relation is. Jamie, you want to look up what all the Commonwealth countries are? Because I think there’s other African countries in there. I think I got a large portion of them. I think it’s like Fiji, are they in the Commonwealth? I don’t know. I don’t think Kenya competes. I don’t know. I don’t know, but Commonwealth countries, ones that have a lot of roots in British English including Canada, wait. Holy crap, okay let’s see. According to this, the Commonwealth nations include, Canada, Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, Cameroon, Ghana, India, Bahamas, Belize, Fiji, Grenada. What? Guyana, Jamaica, New Zealand, South Africa. Kenya, Kenya’s in there. Uganda, Dominica, is it called Dominica? Yeah, Dominica’s an island. Kenya, Nigeria, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Gambia and Barbados. That’s a lot. It’s a lot. A lot in the Commonwealth and I don’t know. Let’s just say Australia, does Canada do this? I don’t know, a lot of Britishy-type speakers, they will consider anything on a round bun to be a burger. Yeah like a chicken burger. Because the history. Yeah, yeah. A chicken burger is what we would call a fried chicken sandwich. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we would not differentiate what kind of bun a fried chicken sandwich is on. Because you could order a friend chicken sandwich at a restaurant and that might come on a Hoagie roll. Sure. You’d probably assume it comes on what we would call a hamburger bun. Sure, sure, sure. A round roll. Yeah I wouldn’t care. But in British, that is what they consider to be a burger but in America, we don’t necessarily consider it that, but maybe we should. That’s what we’re talking about here. I don’t think we should, damn it, maybe we should. I don’t know. I don’t know, this is really tough. I, I’ve always been a proponent of specificity of language and I don’t like when things are nebulous. You know? I love the fact that things are nebulous because it creates an air of inclusion and openness for all. No it doesn’t, it creates confusion for all. Nicole, it leaves everybody in just this void of chaos, not in understanding. When you order a fried chicken sandwich. Chaos, schmaos. You don’t know what it’s gonna come on. Maybe it’s gonna come on a ciabatta. Maybe you don’t want no ciabatta. Okay, hear me out. What if they put little descriptors everywhere? Yeah it’s kind of what they do. Okay, sure. Honest, I’ve never been inconvenienced by not understanding what my friend chicken sandwich. Me either. Is gonna be on. Where does the city of Hamburg come into relation with all this Josh? Oh God, that is a great question. So again, people say that the hamburger was not invented. There’s the 1900 origin story from Louis’ Lunch. There is also a story out of Texas, a place called Athens Diner in the 1880s. Okay. But then they didn’t debut it publicly until the World’s Fair in 1904 where somehow every single food was invented. That’s right. But back then people ain’t got no TikTok so it was like, was anybody writing about a single puck of meat in Texas in a major newspaper. I don’t know if food writers were like the haps. I don’t think they were the haps. There’s some fun food writing from the 1800s and it’s all incredibly racist. Oh nice. Oh nice. Yeah just like a white British guy eating chill con carne in San Antonio and just being like, “It stinks like the Devil and it torches my holes.” Oh my God. What a piece of crap. That’s horrible. Pretty fun to go back and read though. But anyways, so Hamburg. Escoffier actually called the Hamburg Steak, like he credited the Hamburg Steak as being part of, not nouvelle cuisine, haute cuisine was Escoffier’s era. And what is a Hamburg Steak? So a Hamburg Steak is, you don’t really see the term show up until it gets to America because you wouldn’t call a Hamburg Steak a Hamburg Steak in Hamburg, Germany right? It’s like French fries, you don’t call them French fries in France. You just call them fries. France would call them frites. Frights? Frites, well, that’s a good point. Are there any foods that are named after the country that they’re created in but they’re called that in the country? Yeah like you go to Brussels, they ain’t just calling them sprouts are they? Wait Jamie, can you look up what Brussels sprouts are called in Brussels? No, no. I’m curious about that. But aside from that – There was that caller from Buffalo that was mad about the word Buffalo wings right? You remember that? Oh Buffalo wings. Like you don’t call them Buffalo wings in Buffalo, you just call them hot wings right? You just call them, I think so, yeah. So I think that does remain true but anyway so, Hamburg Steak is likely very closely related to a frikadelle. You love frikadellen. So there’s frikandelle which I believe is Danish or Dutch? It’s a sausage right? I think Danish. It’s a sausage and then there’s frikadelle which is German. Are they different? Okay. But again, modern countries are all very new. Sure, sure, sure. These were all just people mashing meat with spices, trying to make it taste good. Yeah. So it’s like a, a mince of meat, ground meat. Mixed with spices, that’s cooked. You actually see this show up in Hannah Glasse’s 1758 cookbook, “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy”. 1750 you said? 1750, it references a Hamburg sausage served on a slice of toasted bread. Sure. And so the origins go way back and Hannah Glasse was, I believe British. We’ve seen her pop up in a lot of our research for Meals in History and whatnot. Okay. Just kind of one of, she was like Sandra Lee. I love the idea that there were Sandra Lees and Rachael Rays. Back then. Just in the 1700s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Just grinding recipes. So funny. And all the recipes would just be like, “Take milk from a fatted calf “and mix it with a bottle of wine. “Add bread crumbs and serve to your child.” It’s like, God. Okay, sure. Guess back then it was a, you know, trying to create a unique recipe now is incredibly difficult. Everything’s been done. Everything’s been done. Everything’s been done. Back then, you just add milk, wine and bread crumbs and boom, you got a new thing. Maybe we need to bring that back and feed it to our children. Maybe we do. One of the. Montessori schooling. So then how does the Hamburg Steak get to become the hamburger served at In-N-Out today, you see it show up in a lot of New York City restaurants and this is from German restaurant owners. Yeah. I actually had a place called Delmonico’s. Right, big steakhouse culture. Oh, very popular. Delmonico’s is very popular. In 1874, they were serving a Hamburg Steak that was minced raw meat. Also very popular in Germany. Sure. Maybe relatively new to America, not really sure with a raw egg yolk. So very much like a tartar. So tartar. But also, if you’ve ever, have you ever gone to France? A few years ago, yeah. When you were in France Nicole, did you eat tartar? So much. Did they ever ask if you want it? Oh no, I don’t remember how to say it. No, they never asked. Raw or cooked? No, I think it specified on the menu, . Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But you can get a tartar that’s lightly seared right? Sure, yeah, very common. The Hamburg Steak sort of evolved from that. But were they grinding? But the thing is, I think what changes, what changes a hamburger from a tartar is if it’s put through a grinder right? A lot of tartar will be just run through a grinder. And I hate it. Can I tell you? I do too. Wait, same. Oh my gosh, same. I know which one you’re talking about. Do you ever just make your own tartar at home? No, never, ever have I done that before. I don’t know if it’d be good. It’d probably be good with koshered meat right? I wouldn’t want to do it with kosher. Why not? I don’t want to. But you could, koshered meat’s like a little salted already right? I know, that’s why I don’t want to do it. But I feel like it’d be good. You’d just mince it up super, super fine, hand chop it. Do you want me to try it? Kind of. I don’t wanna. Freeze it. That’s all right, you don’t have to. Can you do it at your house? I don’t want to go get kosher meat. Can I come to your house, get kosher meat, take it back to my house, chop it up, bring it back to your house, mix it with all the little gherkins and kornishons. Yeah yeah. And shallots. Sure. All right, great, sounds good. Fine. Sounds like a plan. So we had this just raw meat disks being called Hamburg Steaks. Okay. And then they were kind of cooking them. And then you have just this massive rush in the early 1900s of people claiming to have invented them. But they just. What is with people always wanting to invent stuff back in the day? They just wanted their names to be. They wanted fame and fortune too huh? Everybody. Apparently. Yeah, and that was the only way you could market stuff back then right? Yeah. World’s best cup of coffee. World’s first. And now you just gotta make birria and just make Instagram reels and spam or put hot Cheetos in your. So anti. Put hot Cheetos in your halal crunch wraps and what’s the other thing called? I don’t know, but I want it. What is it, it’s like Fatima’s or something? Cilantra? Fatima’s Grill? Is that what it’s called in South L.A.? Yes, yes. It is called Fatima’s Grill. Tony Maloneys in New Jersey creating empires off of Instagram reels with just like. A bone-in burrito that you pull out the bone. I don’t want all of that cartilaginous tissue in my burrito at the end. I would rather you take the best parts of that meat off the bone already and it’s. Josh, if you don’t like the drama, just admit it. I don’t love the drama. So that’s sort of the origin of hamburgers. When you officially get the hamburger bun, according to legend to me is interesting because this is the genesis of modern hamburger culture. Okay. And they don’t get enough credit. They get credit for having a cool little you know, two-man group of friends who like to smoke some drogas. Okay. Over the fumar. Who are you talking about? Who are you talking? And then go eat their hamburgers. Harold and Kumar of course. Oh, I was like, “Who are you talking about?” I’ve never seen Harold and Kumar before. You’ve never seen “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle”? No, but I feel like I would really like it. Oh. And I would’ve made it my whole personality if I was what, like 17? It’s so good. I’m sure there’s horribly offensive jokes looking back on it but what a fun time that movie was. White Castle is credited as being the first kind of. You’re kidding me? Hamburger-based fast food restaurant. Not only that, Walter Anderson. What about McDonald’s? No, McDonald’s was founded. White Castle was before McDonald’s? Yeah, considerably. That’s crazy. That I cannot believe. I know, Wichita, Kansas you know? McDonald’s founded in like San Bernardino I think but then flagship stores with Ray Kroc were in Illinois. But Walter Anderson who founds White Castle, 1921, claims to have invented the hamburger bun. That’s wild. It’s certainly not true but he did it. Have you had White Castle before? White Castle is maybe the best expression of a hamburger. Oh my God, it’s so good. It’s its own thing. Oh my God, so good. It’s weird. They cook the bun on the raw meat and it steams together. It’s absolutely fantastic. Breadgoo.com. I have another question about sandwiches because White Castle we would call sliders. Now as we all know. ‘Cause they’re tiny, little things. They’re tiny. Yeah. And I ate 20 of them last time I went to a White Castle. Oh, I only ate one. I ate a while Crave Case. You ate one? Yeah. How did you eat one? I was in Vegas. And you just said, “Hey, give me a single slider.” I wanted a single slider. That’s incredible. Thank you so much. What self control? Why are you so proud of me for eating one slider? Because to me, it’s like eating a single popcorn kernel and then going home. No, if I’m there, I’m eating a Crave Case of 20 White Castles because then I did it once. Wow, that’s crazy. And I was like – You’re like a Caniac. In the middle. White Castle has nothing in common with raising canes. So White Castle, sort of genesis of modern hamburger culture and then you have this big influx of fast food restaurants. Wendy’s comes in the 70s, Burger King’s in the 50s, In-N-Out’s in the 40s, McDonald’s is in the 40s. All these restaurants and now you’re sort of in our third epoch of all that. Sure. With like your Shake Shacks of the world. Sure. So that’s where we’re at. A lot of people say that a hot dog is not a sandwich for a couple of reasons. We’ve gotten the hinged bun theorem. Sure. Which the hamburger does not follow. Hamburger has two distinct slices of bread. But it comes baked together. What? The bun is baked, it’s like baked together and you slice it. That’s bread. That’s all bread. Nicole, how do you think the slices of bread get in your bag? Do you think they’re baking all those individually? No, of course not. Because there was the best invention since sliced bread, everybody knows that. No but when you think about it, it could be on a hinge. Oh and some are, you’re right. What? You’re right. Some burger buns are on a hinge. Yeah. Martin’s Potato Roll. Yeah, which is. Martin’s Potato Roll has a hinge. I would say, one of the best breads for burgers. That is, a lot of people say that. I think it’s good, I think it’s good. It’s a little sweet for me. You don’t like how soft it is? Oh I love it, it reminds me of Hawaiian bread. I love King’s Hawaiian Rolls, I don’t love King’s Hawaiian Rolls for burger. I don’t love King Hawaiian for a burger. King’s Hawaiian Roll for burger? I love for chicken sandwich though. I also love for chicken sandwich. Love chicken for burger sandwich. Yeah, yeah, yeah, also egg. Egg, nice, it nice. Yes. So King’s Hawaiian, they make the little slider rolls but they also just make a full service hamburger bun. I don’t like buying those. I don’t buy those. I buy the little ones. Take it away. I like the little slider ones. But I understand what you’re trying to get at Josh but you know, let me tell you, Americans aren’t having hamburger eating contests. They do. Not the, not the way. Actually one of the top five biggest. I will be wagging my finger in your direction. It’s actually, hey Jamie, can you look up the Krystal Hamburger Eating Contest. That’s Krystal with a K, K-R-Y. Oh you mean, you do mean the fast food restaurant Krystal? Krystal, yeah I’ve never been there. They’re a competitor of White Castle. Oh my God. It’s a slider place. There was one in New Orleans. Horrifically bad. And I didn’t go, really? Why? It was probably. There were videos about how bad Krystal is but it’s not the same. Jamie, just go to results. I gotta see who won ’cause this is one of the big stops on the I-F-O-C-E tour. You mean to tell me that this is broadcasted on ESPN the same way the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest is? No but they don’t show, they don’t show women’s. There’s no but. NCAA gymnastics finals on NBC but it’s still a sport. Oh yeah. I guess you’re right. You know, like basketball. Wait, okay. Oh Kobayashi. Kobayashi in 2009 beats Joey Chestnut, there’s history here Nicole. There’s history. This is before Kobayashi had his feud with the International Federation of Competitive Eating and stormed the stage. Dude, Kobayashi was fire. Remember that? Yeah, that guy was, man he was torching everybody. I remember seeing a documentary about him. $20,000 prize at the Krystal Hamburger Eating Contest. But if you ask someone, “Do you want to go to the blank contest?” If we were doing Mad Libs right now Josh. Yeah. If we were doing Mad Libs. Okay. You wouldn’t say hamburger eating contest, you’d say hotdog eating contest. Hotdogs are more, I can’t. Are you implying that if I invited somebody to a hot dog eating contest they would say yes and if I invited them to a hamburger contest, they would say no? Yes. Nicole, I have zero friends that would want to go with me to the hotdog eating contest. It’s like, do you realize? I did. And you did, and I thank you for that. It was for work, it was for work. We probably would’ve just hung out in New York and had a good time and not gone there if we weren’t there for work. Yeah that’s true, that’s true. Coney Island. Right, I would’ve wanted to go. It was 95 degrees, I was wearing jeans, it was hell on Earth. I can’t get anyone to go with me to the Japanese noisecore shows that I want to go to, you know? Do you want to come? What if we make it for work? Yeah if I get paid, sure. On the clock. Yeah, yeah. If I get paid, why not? Gotta pay friends to hang out with me. That’s fun, like hotdogs are, hamburgers though are eaten much more commonly in America than hotdogs. But why is that? Hotdogs are the most American food right? That we did decide that, yeah. According to, was it John Carey? Oh no, Mitt Romney said. Mitt Romney, I always mix them up. “My favorite meat “is hotdog.” I always mix them up. American, I mean, think about it. Hamburgers and hotdogs are the most American foods in the world. Yeah. Are they both sandwiches? I don’t know. Absolutely. No way. Absofrutely man. No no no no, hamburgers are also really iconic though. It’s not a hamburger sandwich, it’s just a hamburger flat. Like you don’t say, “Let me go get a turkey.” What about a Reuben? You say, “Let me go get a Reuben.” “Let me get a PB and J.” Right, you don’t say Reuben sandwich. You don’t say sandwich after that. Josh, you know what you need to learn from me? Is sometimes if you get proved wrong, you can admit it like the second it happens. It’s so good for your brain chemistry. I literally, I have. Maybe you’re right. God, I hate saying that, you’re right. I don’t know, I said that to my therapist the other day where I was like, “I’m trying to decouple all of my self worth “from being right all the time.” And she was like, “That’s a pretty good idea.” I was like, “Are you saying I’m right?” Do it, do it, say it, it feels so good. Did they laugh at you? I love when my therapist laughs at my jokes, I feel so good inside. Every time my therapist laughs at me, an angel gets its wings. What we’re actually talking about with the debate here right? Yes. It’s not a matter of, is the bun hinged right? This is all an emotional debate and when we talked to the owner of Cupid’s Hot Dogs. Yes. And she was talking about you know, this product means a lot to me. To call it a sandwich would be diminishing its importance. I mean hamburgers mean a lot to me and calling it a sandwich diminishes it for me too but that’s okay. Exactly. And you are entitled to your emotional response. But I don’t tie my logic to emotional responses all the time. Not all the time but you’re certainly entitled to do that. Yeah, yeah. Not everything has to follow strict rules. Logic. Right? Yeah yeah, I agree, I agree, I agree. And I know I just advocated for that earlier and in my own heart, not only do I believe. You’re flip flopping all over the place. I’m not flip flopping. I’m saying for you. You’re a flip flopper. You are, this is therapy right here baby. This is therapy in action, nothing makes sense. I hate it, my boss is my therapist. And you just circle talk yourself. Is my cohost. You just circle talk yourself until you justify all of your bad opinions and behaviors but it’s cool, ’cause you’re in therapy right? So what I’m saying is, you can have this completely illogical belief. But it’s not right. That a hamburger is a sandwich but I don’t believe that to be true for myself or I also don’t believe it to be true objectively. Right? Well. So I think you know, a hamburger is a sandwich. Why are you showing this as a diagram? Because this is the quintessential sandwich. Dude, Matthew Dwyer made this in like 15 minutes. Two pieces of bread. Relax, relax. We love you Matthew. Thank you Matthew. And a hamburger, it’s quintessentially a sandwich. You have two pieces of bread. In America, we have decided not to define our sandwiches by bun shape. The Commonwealth, yeah. By the Commonwealth definitions and that is what separates us from them. That’s what. Unless you want to start spelling it colour, my favorite colour is blue. My favorite. Or favourite. Favourite. Like that Yorgos Lanthimos movie. Great movie. Great movie. Love Yorgos Lanthimos. Lot of weird, it’s a lot of weird intimate things in there. I think it’s my favorite of his movies other than “Killing of a Sacred Deer”. Is that Rachel Weisz? No, it’s Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell? No, in the favorite. Is that Rachel Weisz? Oh of course it is. Yeah big Rachel Weisz fan. Yeah you’re a big Rachel Weisz fan. Big Rachel Weisz fan. Now Josh, I think I agree with you. I don’t mean to sound mad but I am. You can be mad, you can be mad. And I think it’s perfectly fine. I wish I had more counterpoints to tell you you’re wrong and I don’t agree with you but I will say, I think if I saw a hamburger in like, the sandwich category of a menu, I might get a little bit peeved. They’re there all the time. Are they? Oh my God, yeah. You ever go to a diner that has like 200, ’cause the way we categorize things is all based on need right? Yeah. Like you wouldn’t need to go to an In-N-Out and have a separate menu for sandwiches. You know what I mean? Like a grilled cheese? That’s all they got. Well it’s a secret menu item. You know? All they have is burgers. Yeah but it’s all served on the same bun, you don’t need to differentiate. But if you’re at a restaurant that’s got Cobb salads and bowls of cottage cheese and a tilapia dinner with Hollandaise on it. Shoutout to Lancer as I ate their fish dinner once. But you also, somebody is like, “Man I’m in the mood for something in between bread.” You would have a section of the menu called sandwiches and you would probably have a hotdog, a hamburger, a tuna melt and that weird thing that you got once that was just called like “roast beef sandwich”. It was just. Josh will bully me, I hope you are in my life for a long time Josh. Because you, every few months, you find a way to bully me about this one dish I got from Lancer’s. I’ll start calling you roast beef sandwich you know? I think it was called a hot brown or something. It’s like that guy that’s called Ducky, and why is your nickname Ducky and he’s like, “20 years ago, I was eight years at a lake “and a duck quacked at me and I pooped my pants “and now they call me Ducky.” That’s you, and it’s kind of like your roast beef sandwich. But it could have so many negative connotations. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. All bodies are beach bodies. It was labeled, now this thing, wait, hold on. A hamburger is a sandwich. This was not a. We agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What you ordered, the roast beef sandwich, that was not a sandwich. It was an abomination. There were two slices of white bread, straight out of the bag, untoasted. Straight, yeah, yeah, completely. Gravy from a packet, the dark brown. It was so dark brown. But it also was sort of bioluminescent and it also sort of had. It had a nice sheen, it had a nice sheen. Almost like corn syrupy. I could see the entire prism of colors within that sheen of this gravy. What can I say? And then some lunch meat, roast beef thrown in there and I’ve never seen a look of. And I think they put it under the Salamander. There was a look, it was so hot. With the amount of cornstarch or maltodextrin in that gravy packet, just retained heat and I’ve never seen, it was 104 degree day. I got the Cobb salad that they pull straight out of the fridge fully made. Ice cold in a glass bowl and I’ve never seen a look of shock on dismay on your face like it was then. And what did I do? I still ate it. I was like, they got a side of mashed potatoes on it. Yeah, it sure did. Oh my God. That’s a hell of a food. Ugh, my God. Have you ever had a Japanese Hambagu? No, I was just about to bring up Hambagu actually and how, so if you don’t know what it is. What they do in Japan is they bring you a puck of ground meat, I don’t think it’s seasoned though. Then I think it’s lightly seared and then you have to finish searing it on a hot stove and I can’t wait to try it when I go to Japan. They’re the ones, I think we need to, here’s the thing. I’m kind of bored with hamburgers. Are you? Right? Yeah, no, I still love them actually, but I would love to get back to the OG roots of our burger history and I think Japan is preserving that history better than anybody. I think you’re right. With the Hambagu. The hamburger steak. I was about to bring it up until you brought up the roast beef sandwich. Don’t need no buns anymore. Ain’t no sandwich in the hamburger steak. Just fork, knife, and a hot, sizzling stone. That’s all you need. Little side of rice, I’m in. And that is not a sandwich. Not all frozen burger patties are good. In fact, many are bad. The Sporked team tasted a heck of a lot and found the only ones you should buy this grilling season. Head to sporked.com and search patties to find the full ranking. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. It’s hard to believe 2024 is basically halfway done. I feel incredibly proud of myself for picking up a new workout to enjoy. Working out helps me slow down and focus on me. When life goes so fast, it’s important to take a moment to celebrate your wins and make adjustments for the rest of the year. Therapy can help you take stock of your progress and set achievable goals for the next six months. Utilizing therapy has helped me set boundaries and learn how to stand up for myself, it’s so, so important. It can be tough but let me tell you, learning this skill is worth its weight in gold. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself. Boundaries are a positive way to ensure you are protecting yourself and your best interests. If you’re thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It’s entirely online, 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. Take a moment, visit betterhelp.com/hotdog today to get 10% off your first month. That’s BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com/hotdog. All right Nicole, get off your phone. No no, oh my God, are we starting? Yeah. I didn’t know. But you and I have to say. Now it’s time to find out one of the wacky opinions in the universe, No, I’m not ready. It’s time for a segment we call. Opinions Are Like Casseroles. You scared the big S out of me. You were like a kid who got caught on his phone in class and he was watching something dirty. He was watching, oh no, nothing. A friend sent me a link, I didn’t know what it was. Jamie, you gonna queue up that first opinion? Hi, this is Samina from Atlanta, Georgia. I am just suggesting. I need to check this out. My headphones are plugged into nothing. Yay, we have to do it all from the beginning now. I won’t look like a big, scared idiot. All right no no, this stays in. This stays in. No. We’ll both look like idiots. We’ll both look like idiots, it’ll be humanizing for everybody. Jamie, run it back. Hi, this is Samina. There we go. From Atlanta, Georgia. Samina, I love the name Samina. I am just suggesting since it’s now Passover to try matzah with cream cheese with cinnamon and chocolate chips. Aww. I love you. Thank you, I love the podcast, bye. Aww. Samina, that’s so cute and I do that anyways. Sorry, not original, just kidding. Samina I’m just kidding, that was really awesome and yeah, today’s the last day of Passover and my mom is hosting a chametzi which means you eat all of your chametz. Oh that’s fun. Yeah. I didn’t know that was a thing. Just a big fridge dump. Do you want to come? Tonight? What’d you say? Like a big fridge dump. No, she made a bunch of Persian food with bread and stuff, do you want to come? You can come. Tonight? Yeah, if you have. I got stuff. What are you doing? I’m hanging out. Okay. Thank you though. It was really sweet. Happy Passover cutie. Happy Passover. , to everybody who celebrates. So cute. I ate a lot of matzah. I also did eat leavened bread. Did you really? Well, ’cause I bought matzah because I went to a seder and I made a delightful chopped chicken liver and then I made pickled fennel and apples, oh and currants. Yeah. But I pickled it in a really savory, horse radishy broth and it was really good. Yep. And I served that with my chicken liver and then I made, it was an Italian Jewish-themed thing. So a lot of carciofi alla giudia there. Sure, cool. It was really nice. Then shoutout to Noah Galuten who made all the food except for the chicken liver pate. So I shaved fresh pistachios over the top so it looked like a kind of bright green snow and they were raw, unroasted. And then I took fennel fronds and sort of scattered them across. Beautiful. And then I made like a fig and balsamic jam. So many flavors. I know, it was so good. And we had it all in one bite and then I had a bunch of matzah and then I made matzah brei. Good. Great, I made matzah. That’s all I got. I made matzah pizza a few times. Yeah. I mostly, can I tell you something? During Passover I don’t really cook. I let my mom and my mother in law just ship me food. Do you eat a lot of rice? It’s great, yeah we eat kitniyot. So we eat rice, lentils, beans, we eat all that stuff. You don’t. I ate like a cheeseburger, you know? I’m not a good Jew. No you’re a great Jew. Not a great, I’m the best Jew. You’re a good guy, you’re a good guy. Me and Amar’e Stoudemire, top two Jews. I love Amar’e. Great opinion Samina, call back any time. Hi Nicole and Josh, this is Jim from Chicago. A Jim. I’ve got a couple three hot takes. Number one, America’s perception of salad is awful. Agreed. Oh my good, such a good take. Salad should be salt, pepper, oil and vinegar for the most part. I’m not opposed to ranch but try it out. I don’t know if that’s good. Chili Cheese Fritos are the only Fritos that should be on the market. Regular Fritos are bad. Bad opinion. That’s a horrible opinion. Bad opinion. Then the last one, if you don’t have a sharp knife, you are probably a bad cook. When I go to my friend’s house and they don’t have a sharp knife, cooking is the most challenging thing in the world. All right, thanks. Okay, let’s dissect this. Should we go backwards to forwards or forward? Go to salad first. Americans’ conception of salad, I agree. What does that mean? So I grew, let me tell you about the salads I grew up eating right? Okay. You would take the bag that was called American Salad Mix, it was 85 to 87% iceberg lettuce and then the rest of the 13% were split between red cabbage and carrot shavings. Love that. We would just empty that into a bowl. What’s your problem with it? And put Wish-Bone Ranch on it. So? And you had to put, but it’s fine, it’s nice to have a little dressed greens with the meal. Yum. But in terms of Shirazi, Shirazi salad, that’s a salad. Good salad. That’s a salad right? So much of the rest of the world, almost every European or Western Asian nation just has its sort of national salad. In Greece you have Horiatiki. Bulgaria you have shopski, you know, all of this stuff. And it’s very finely chopped vegetables. Brazil has Vinaigrette right? Very finely chopped vegetables, mixed together with, like they said, some sort of acid oil and then seasoning salt and pepper. Sure. Maybe some herbs. You know, sumach, something. Well you know, you can’t get everything in life, it’s okay. Why don’t we have a national salad like that? Because Americans don’t like eating salads. They do but they like – Because they’re bad. They do but, they’re not, what? American salads are like coleslaw. We got coleslaw. Coleslaw’s, okay. And coleslaw’s Dutch. Coleslaw’s fine, jello salad. That’s the answer, jello salad is the answer. Watergate salad. I need to eat Watergate, what is it? Like pistachio, Jell-O, Cool Whip and like maraschino cherry? I mean there’s salad Olivieh which is what, from the USSR? And Persians love it too. Yeah we got deli, we got deli salads in America. We got deli salads, chicken salad, tuna salads. I mean coleslaw. Josh, we can do a whole. It’s just meat and mayonnaise, it’s not salad. Josh, we can do a whole podcast on the definition of salads later. Oh, we should, we should. We should. Which we will, thank you so much Jim. Yeah, but that’s a great opinion. Chili Cheese Fritos. Regular, regular Fritos are so delicious. They’re not regular, they’re corn flavored. And that’s the best part about them. I call them regular. No they are regular, you’re right. Is that okay? No you’re right, I’m literally saying you’re right. It just sounds like we’re fighting because we’re Jewish. But they’re the most corn flavored chips. Fritos taste of corn so much more than Lay’s taste of potato, in a good way. Oh that’s 100% accurate. Plain Fritos are the best. I agree with you. Chili Cheese Fritos to me are like, flavor before they had science to really make flavor good. It just reeks of old cumin. Chili Cheese Fritos. I mean, again, yeah they smell like a boy that I don’t have chemistry with. That’s such, that is the most poetic and accurate descriptor of what Chili Cheese Fritos smell like. Am I wrong, am I wrong? Yeah. Dude, like you ever smelt. God. Do you ever smell a man that you’re like ugh, biologically, we should not mix. Almost all the time. You know, at the gym a lot. And like oh yeah yeah, and if you put that armpit side by side to a bag, a fresh open bag of Chili Cheese Fritos, same same. I love the smell of people you have chemistry with. That’s a good thing. Me too. It’s not always good you know? And sometimes it’s weird, it’s like, “Why does the back of your shoulder smell?” You know, but you find it really endearing because you love that person. What was the last one? Forgot all of their opinions. I forgot. I love that we’re speedrunning. The last one is if your friend, if you have a bad knife, you’re a bad cook. Oh yeah yeah yeah. Nicole. I haven’t sharpened my knives ever. But you hone them, do you hone them? You don’t just like scrape it on a honing rod? I agree, I don’t like using a whetstone. I’ll take it like once every six months to a farmer’s market to get sharpened. Honey, my knives are so dull. Are they really? It is so embarrassing. How do you cook? I’m an embarrassing person. I use my mandolin a lot. Oh my God, take care of your knives man. I don’t do it great. The nice knives that I get that are like Japanese or like German steel, those I take a little bit better care of but I also have throwaway knives that I got from like Marshalls or HomeGoods that like, if they’re done serving their purpose, I kind of just throw them in the garbage. Yeah. I’m not perfect. I’ve gotten a weird amount of free knives here. Yeah yeah yeah. You know? I’m not a perfect person but there is definitely room for me to improve and I think me taking care of my knives would make me a more, a person who cares more about other things as well. It’s like making your bed in the morning. You know? I don’t make my bed in the morning. No, me neither. But if I did, imagine how powerful I could be? Did you know that if you do that, apparently it doesn’t let the bed bugs, it harbors bacteria more? But also I open my windows. I used to not shower after the gym and go into work. Eew. I started to now. Oh no. And I put lotions on My face. Well that’s because you’re. Various scented creams. Yeah, is it keels? Cover my body, yeah yeah yeah. So good. Yeah, but no, there’s a strong correlation between not sharp knives and bad cooks. I agree with that. Nicole’s an outlier. Aww, thanks. I was like. My name’s Andrew and I’m from New Jersey. Jersey. And I just want to say, love the pod. I’ve only been listening for two and a half weeks. Holy smokes. Over 40 episodes while recovering from laser eye surgery. Thank you. That’s too much, take a break. Don’t, don’t take a break. My opinion is that mint and chocolate should never be together. Never. I’ve tried it in ice cream, other things. I just can’t stand it. Thin Mints, kind of tolerable but pretty much overall, can’t stand it. Thanks guys. Quelle horreur. Quelle horreur? Is that Hebrew? No it’s French for oh the horror. You’d say like, even if you were doing it in a very Americanized way. You’d say, quelle horreur. It’s meant to be like quelle horreur. But to be just like. Quelle horreur. Oh like quelle horreur. Quelle horreur. Quelle horreur Andrew. That’s a big like, trigger, gross food combination for people. Shocking. A lot of people dislike chocolate mint. I am obsessed with chocolate and mint and Andy’s mint, honey. I agree entirely. But after, what is it called? An after nine? After dinner mint? After, no. There’s these cookies, they’re called After Midnights or something? Never heard of it. No yeah you have. Maybe. No you have. There’s like fudge grasshoppers, those are mint right? No, after. The grasshopper cocktail is a chocolate and mint in cocktail. Chocolate and mint has a lot of history but most of it is a fake mint flavor. So you’re getting that peppermint extract and they dye it green. I love bad mint chip ice cream. Me too. And I hate artisanal mint chip ice cream that try to use real mint but for me, I’m starting to think that maybe I don’t even need the chocolate in there. Because I don’t think the chocolate adds to the mint. If mint, Nicole, is supposed to be fresh right? Yeah. It’s a freshening flavor. That it basically cools down your mouth with menthol. Yeah. What is the chocolate bringing to that equation? I would rather have white chocolate which is to say not chocolate at all and mint together. Preserving the flavor of the mint. Sorry, I’m not paying attention. I have to find this thing that I ate one time when I was like seven and I need to find it. I need to find it, if I don’t find it, I’m gonna scream. Andrew, I would ask you if you enjoy mint without chocolate? Because I don’t think it’s the chocolate. I think you probably just don’t like mint which is very reasonable. It’s one of the weirder flavors that we have. Yes, I found it. What did you find? It’s called an After Eight. Look it up Jamie, put it on the screen. Can I just see your computer? You’re right next to me, I want to see your computer. No, you have to look at it over there. After Eight cookies, yeah. It’s a chocolate mint and it’s delicious. Incredible, I’ve never had it. Sorry, that’s all I had to say. I do love an 80s mint but I would be curious what a flavor scientist like Arielle Johnson would say about the combination of chocolate and mint and why they do or don’t go together. That’s something about polyphenols I imagine. And sulphuric volatiles if you will. It’s not nice to make fun of people who are so much smarter than us, we should stop. Yeah, we should stop. She’s so smart. She’s so smart, it’s so impressive. York Peppermint Patties just really taste like toothpaste. I love it, I love it, I love anything mint chocolate. You ever had those Aero bars? The aerated chocolate bars with the holes in them? Yeah, not the biggest. Oh my God, the mint ones, love. I have a sleeve of thin, I think I’ve fully grown out of my mint chocolate phase that lasted for a very long time. I don’t even enjoy Thin Mints anymore, like almost at all. I love mint chocolate chip ice cream so much. I don’t like chocolate and caramel either. Okay, that’s sick. You shouldn’t mix those two. The chocolate makes the caramel taste worse. You don’t like the Ghirardelli Chocolate squares? I do, but I wish it was like, an edible isomalt that only contained the caramel. I don’t want the chocolate flavor with my caramel. Chocolate and peanut butter I think really works together. Quelle horreur. Quelle horreur indeed. Andrew, thank you for being vulnerable with us. Thank you for listening. That was very brave of you to share. Thank you for speedrunning 40 episodes in two weeks, impressive. On that note, thank you so much for stopping by, “A Hot Dog Is A Sandwich”. We got new episodes out for you every Wednesday, coming out on the audio platforms and the video platforms which include YouTube, Kazaa, Limewire, what were the other ones? OpenShare. Napster? Napster, we’re still on Napster. Yeah. Well those come out on Sunday. Yeah. And if you want to be on Opinions Are Like Casseroles, great opinions today by the way. Visit 83, don’t visit, just call. 833 Dog-Pod1. Our number again is 833 Dog-Pod1. When you call, they call it making a mouth visit. Yeah, we have other videos if you like that on YouTube. Josh does this really cool series called “Last Meals”. You should watch it, it’s the best show on the internet. And you can quote me on that.