What country has the best food? San Marino. No. Lichtenstein, no Gibraltar, no. Vatican City. 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 today we are breaking down the biggest question of them all when it comes to food in the world, right? It is a simple question. It is. What country has the best food? Yes. It is a simple question, but it is a fully loaded question. I don’t think so, Nicole. I think it’s gonna be super, super easy to figure out. I don’t think we’re gonna figure it out. And how, how long is this podcast typically? 45 minutes. 45 minutes. I think we can really, really break it down because so many other people, uh, have, there are a lot of places that have said. We have found the world’s best food. Yes. And, and people I have learned are taking that as gospel, which is what inspired this podcast. Yes, yes, yes. I know. I, people have said that, uh, Anthony Bourdain says, send Sebastian is the greatest food city in the world, and people like that. But I don’t know, man. I’m really curious to find out what we think. Yeah. Is the best food in the wor the best food country in the, is it food country? It’s cuisine. What do you, what is cuisine? What is cuisine is is like Latin for cooking and food. I don’t know. None of this means, it’s so weird. None of this means anything. It’s all so, so, so stupid. Because for me it’s like, it’s like you can’t rank these things. You can’t, because for me it’s like Kurdish food and Persian food, and then there’s Uzbek food and then there’s like, and the Kurds don’t have a country. Exactly. And it’s like Persian food is different than. INE food, Mediterranean food or even the food of like the body politic of, is it called the Islamic Republic of Iran? It is the iron, you know, like Persian food is different than the Islamic Republic of Iran food because Persia dates back thousands of years. Right, right, right. And the current sovereign country of the Islamic Republic of Iran, yes, is, is different than worldwide Persian culture. But yeah, most people from around that I’ve met culture call themselves Persian. You know, it’s, yeah, that’s, there’s a lot of factors here, but no. Websites with.com. At the end of them, say, we ranked the number one world’s best food country. Please like us. Please share. Please share this. Uh, this was all inspired because I was talking to a very smart person, a person who were remain nameless and they were from, can you tell who they were? Were Morocco, I’ll tell you after. Okay, fine. Um, and I hope they listened to this, uh, but they’re from Morocco. They work a big corporate job, and we were casually chatting and they said, well. You know, Moroccan food was recently named the best in the world. Hmm. And I was like, by who? By who? And he goes, I don’t know. Oh no, it was Gordon Ramsey. Oh. I was like, what do you mean? Gordon Ramsey took all like 206 sovereign nations or whatever there are now, I guess, and, and ranked them all according to what? He goes, well, no, he said it was the best, but it was like based off of real data. I was like, real data. Where? What data? What data? What are you talking about? Data or data? I say data. I don’t know why. Okay. I say data, but I like to say datum. Oops. I like to say datu. ’cause data is plural. Well, data is just several datums. Well, you say tomato, I say tomato. Let’s call the whole thing off. But anyways, like, what, how do you rank this? Do you, uh, put a microphone next to every person’s mouth as they’re eating this country and rank how many times they went? Hmm. Do you take like actual hard data of like how much. Fresh produce. Do people have access Right to right. Or how many people say they know how to cook? What are you actually doing? And I found out the thing he was talking about with Moroccan food. Mm-hmm. That Gordon Ramsey said, Gordon Ramsey did not conduct whatever methodology. It was something, is it. Puberty or puberty. I call it puberty. I call it puberty too. Surely. It can’t be puberty. No, it must be puberty. Puberty. Puberty is, it’s always called it puberty. It’s like a British media company, and they have just millions upon millions of followers. They just did like an Instagram poll where they asked people, what do you think is the best food country? And it was like a bracket style. How many country? Well, how many did they do? All 206 Sovereign nations? I, no, they certainly did not. And I don’t know how exactly they did it. Hmm. Then in the finals you ended up with Morocco versus Mexico. Ooh. And Morocco won both M countries. Both M countries also. Check this out. Both got delicious food. Really? D I’m a fan of both. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They both deserve to be there in the finals. I agree. I agree. Morocco won 60 to 40. Oh. And then somehow Gordon Ramsey got involved. They must have paid him. To like give this big announcement reveal. I’ve seen the video. Yeah. Where he was just like, congratulations to the country of Morocco and then, and then Sonny from Best Food Review Show ever best ever food review show. Okay. You ever watch his videos? He travels the world. He have a bandana. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Iconic. Love him. Love him, love Sonny. He made a video that was like. Number one food country in the world. Is it legit? And then he went to Morocco and said, Morocco was recently, man, the number one food country by Gordon Ramsey. Um, by way of puberty, by way of puberty, by way of an Instagram poll. And so all of these things are very, very silly. Also, Sonny’s video in Morocco was great. And he was just using that as like a way in, right? Yeah, of course. And, and it probably gets you more clicks, of course, the mail. To get you, you know, more people watching What is ultimately a great video about food and culture? I will never knock Sonny’s Hustle. I love absolutely that. I love all the content that he produces. But Josh, I think we need to see if you know what the Taste Atlas’s top 10 cuisines are in the world. Okay, I’m ready. Are you ready? This is the top 10 cuisines according to Taste atlas.com. Taste a completely random website. Um, yeah, random as hell, I’d say. Yeah. Great. Okay. You wanna start? Yeah, go for it. I’m familiar with Taste. Atlas’s Game, Italy. Okay. Italy is number two. Spain. Spain is number four. France is gonna be in there. France is number eight. Uh, let’s say Mexico Mexico’s three. You’re doing really good. You’re on fire. There’s gonna be something dumb in there like Greece. Greece is number one. Greece is number. What do you mean? Greece is number one as of now. As of right now, according to their document and their website. It’s number one. Japan is gonna be in there. Oh yeah. Duh. That’s number nine. How many am I missing right now? 1, 2, 3, 4, 4. I didn’t mean to call grease dump. Greece has like wonderful food, but to, you know what I mean? I’m missing four. I need four more. Yes. Um, God is Korea. Korea, South Korea. Korea is not on there. Okay. Uh, people’s Republic of Korea. No, nothing about Korea. The Korea. Top 10, North Korea, democratic. Okay. Top 10 food countries. Um, I want you to think, I want you to think of a country that you said, but it’s like a neighboring country. I. To one of the countries said Portugal. Yes. Portugal is number five. No. Do what? Spain is number four and Portugal’s number five. How do they Oh, USA is probably cracked. The top 10. No, the top. The United States of America did not crack the top 10. I believe it’s 12 or 13. Yeah. That’s ridiculous. Uh uh, give, gimme some hints about what, okay. Um, this place. So we like India. No. One point, no, no, no. 7 billion people. They couldn’t make food better than Portugal. So this is a country that has almost the same, if not more people than India, China. There we go. China’s number 10. Incredible. And then you have two more. Thailand. You’re so close. What do you mean? I’m so close? You’re close. Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar. We keep going. Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia’s. Where? Number seven. Pakistan. Bangladesh. No, no, no. Okay. Okay. And now, now you, Bhutan, I really need you to get this one. I need you to go Egypt into the recesses of your mind. And I need you to think of a, I was gonna say a song that I like. I need you to think about food that we both really like, but we don’t really have in this part of, um, Los Angeles. Too much. Dominican Republic. Oh man, that is such a good guess, but you’re so far off. Cuba, so far off. Nigeria? No. What do you mean for gimme? It’s a, it’s in a song. No, I just like the music from this place a lot from this country. Sorry. My ear bitch. So much fun. You like the music from this country? You like a lot of music? I do, I do. Puerto Rico is making the best. They’re not No, no, no. Sovereign state. I you to go, I need you to go more towards the, the middle of of the, the east. The middle of, oh, the Middle East. Yeah. Uh, but it’s not always known as like a Middle Eastern country, Georgia, Republic of Georgia. No, no, no, no. I don’t know. They got good food. Armenia, you’re so close. Azerbaijan, you’re so close to Armenia. Uh, what do some people dispute this country sovereignty. Think about we are in an area that has a lot of Armenian people. Yeah. So what is the Iran? No, what is the like, not the inverse, but what is the inverse of Armenia? I would say Azerbaijan, they’re sort of diametrically opposite. Go back, go back, go back. Go back in time. Yeah. I mean they were a Soviet republic. Go. Keep going back. The Ottoman, Turkey. Oh my God. The Ottoman Turks, that’s Turkey. You’re so correct to say go back. Turkey is number six. Turkey. Okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So right now, according to taste, Alice Greek is number one. Italian is number two. Mexican is three. Spanish is four. Portuguese is five. Turkish is sixth, Indonesian is seventh. French is eighth. Japanese is ninth, and Chinese is 10th. What the hell? I dunno. This is what the side says, I think. I think. Okay. How do you think are the best cuisines in the world when we are talking about ranking anything? Yeah, so, uh, you don’t follow college football very closely. I don’t Shocker, but let’s, let’s go back to. To college football real quick, because this is important to me. Sure. So now there’s a college football playoff. They’re expanding it, but it was eight teams and, and what they did, eight teams. Eight teams. There’s only eight college football teams. No, they, they make the college football playoff. Okay. But it used to be Nicole, where only the top two teams in the nation. Mm-hmm. By ranking, which is subjective inherently. ’cause a lot of teams say five teams were undefeated. You needed a way to figure out who the top two were that would play in the national championship, which has millions of dollars interest. At stake for like, you know, okay. Uh, branding and marketing and whatever. And so you had to have a way to figure it out. They used to do like a poll. Mm-hmm. The Associated Press poll or the coaches poll. Okay. They would just pull all the coaches and go, who do you think the best is? Okay. You know, the coaches, and they weren’t, but they, or the coaches or the Associated Press, like there was a, a, a membership of gatekeepers. Okay. That they would ask, but then it find it’s the Hollywood Foreign Press. Exactly. It’s similar, right? Yeah. Yeah. It’s even Oscars are kind of weird to rank art, you know? But anyways, college football. Then they were like, there’s a kind of bias here. People seem to be biased towards the teams from the south. Um Oh really? And so what they did is they created a computer program called the BCS, the Bowl Championship series. Okay. And so they had a computer program that like they took, this is in like the early mid two thousands. Okay. Right. Just post.com, boom. And they’re like, we took all these different. Factors and this way is to take the human element out of it. Okay. And it just gave funky results and everyone hated it, and nobody knew how it worked. Mm. And so then they went back to a poll, and then they went back to a committee. So there’s like never a good way to rank something that is subjective. Right? Yeah, I, I agree with that. The way. But what I love is when people take insane obscure methodologies and go, this is how we’re doing it. ’cause I think that’s what Taste Atlas does well. They say, go ahead. They say it’s based on 477,287 valid ratings for 15,478 foods in our database. Correct. These cuisines have earned That’s nuts. The highest average scores. That’s nuts. So what they’ll do mm-hmm. Is they’ll be like. They’ll have taste atlas. We’ll just have a a, a post for like carb, spaghetti, carbonara. Right. And people will rate spaghetti carbonara out of five. Yes. And then we’ll have another one for like. Pizza Nana or something. Uhhuh, and they’ll rate that out a five. And then they combine those average ratings out of five for individual dishes. Mm-hmm. Which one more people are gonna know about spaghetti carbonara. Or like spanta. Yeah. Than they are like Lac. Yeah. Lac. Or like Ada from Brazil. Absolutely. Or whatever. And so it is kind of a very strange thing. So if you look at like United States at eight, okay. We have a lot of great carbonara in the United States, right? Sure, we do. We have, we are a nation of immigrants. All of the best food in the United States is here. States generally came from somewhere else initially. Sure. Yes. Right. And so if you’re to like, what do you put there? Hamburger, hot dog, because pizza’s already taken up by Italy. You know what I mean? Well, so this is a very strange methodology. Well, they say that, well, American cuisine was 13 ranked out of the a hundred best cuisines in the world. How did Lithuania beat Taiwan? I think I don’t, I have no idea. I have no idea. But like for example, they say the must try items in America whenever you visit America or wanna eat American cuisine is American Lobster, Pacific smoked salmon, wild Alaskan salmon, south Texas barbecue and boiled Maine lobster. So these are all, sorry, what? Sorry. So if you say those again. Sure. So if you were to look at this, Tates at is a hundred Best Cuisines of the world, Uhhuh, America’s 13. Yeah. It says the must try items if you wanna try. American cuisine are American Lobster. Then what was the last thing you said? So American Lobster has a 4.8 rating and then a boiled main lobster has a 4.5 rating. Yeah. It’s almost like this is not a good way to conduct any sort of scientific research, but, but like, but my, my thing is, is like. As far as like, I know the way that I’ve always like quote unquote ranked food like Italian, Mexican, Japanese, those three have always been circulating on my list or what I see as the most popular. Yeah. Well, most, most popular is like a way that you could likely rank, but not best. Of course. Yeah. Best food is so, so, so stupidly impossible. Yeah. To say you shouldn’t even go down that route. I mean, even talking about the Oscars, like it’s very silly to kind of like rank. Sure. Art in a certain way, and there’s politics behind all this. Always. Yeah. But certainly like most popular is a thing that you could track. Like most restaurants per capita, would that work? Like Yeah. Or even the now delivery orders on DoorDash. Right? Yeah. Is such an easy way to do it. Yeah. Yeah. But like even the politics behind a lot of that mm-hmm. Is really interesting. The reason Thai food. Is so popular. Like I don’t think there are that many tie people in America comparatively to any other. Um, like ethnic, ethnic backgrounds. Mm-hmm. Especially from like, you know, or Southeast Asia. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Sure. But the Thai government did an incredible job of like, they had a massive PR campaign. Right, right, right. Remember you told me about this Yeah. To basically like, um, spread the joy of Thai food and then use that as a way to get tourism back to Thailand. Sure. So they were basically like paying people to open Thai restaurants. Yeah. And in LA we see a lot of ’em, like the Thai embassy was doing this, which is awesome. So Thai food. It’s one of my favorite cuisines in the world. But also I was only exposed to it because of this like government program by Thailand. Which rules, right? Yeah. But we don’t, like for example, like the countries around Thailand. You have Cambodia. You have Laos. Yeah. Do I don’t see any Cambodian or Laotian food Very go to Long Beach baby. But that’s what I’m saying, like, like if you were to like pull PanAm pen noodle Shack, what’s up? Like if you were to pull like the average American that lives in like Nebraska Yeah. They would know Thai food. Because that would probably be more popularized versus like Laotian food. Oh, a hundred, a hundred percent. It’d they’d be like, what is the difference between the two? But whenever I think of the difference between Thai food and, and Laotian food, because we have that knowledge of, of like food. ’cause we work with it so often. Like I experience latian food as being a little bit more intensely spiced, intensely sour. While Thai food, at least through the American lens, has been like, there’s like pad cu and Pat Thai noodles and like peanuts and stuff like that. So the, at least according to recent census data mm-hmm. They’re, damn, this seems crazy. This seems low. 253,000 Thai immigrants, or was that only that came over this year? Maybe only this year. Because that’s, maybe, that was in, in 2023. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So in 2023 anyway, 20 23, 250 3000 from Thailand. Mm-hmm. 161 from Laos, 150 from Cambodia. So like more combined Latian and Cambodian immigrants than Thai immigrants. Mm-hmm. But like the outsized representation that Thai food has, you know, gives people like a skewed perspective on it. Right. Which is it like even looking at, um, Indonesia combining like Indonesia and Malaysia, which they’re, you know, different cultures and different foods. Right. But more similar to each other than, you know, say. I don’t know, like a, a Thai and like Chinese. So we have to start saying, I wanna try Cambodian food, or let’s go get Cambodian food. Well, I do, I do that a lot. But we have that ability. Good. But talking do that, talking about thero. The royal wee. The royal wee. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I wanna ask you about, uh, French cuisine, because I know that this is currently number eight. Yeah. In the top 100. What do they say the best French foods to try are? Lemme, lemme pull that up. Baguette. Duck out. Lauren, let me tell. Let me see because I know you have a bone to pick. With French being on this list at all, I don’t have a bone to pick. With French being on the list, I have a bone to pick with the way that I think culture has. Lionized French food over other cuisines, do you think, for a long, long time. Do you think it’s because it’s been codified in a very specific way with like the brigade system? I think so, yeah. I mean, and um, like, uh, what’s his name? Ette. Like there’s a lot of like famous French chefs throughout history. Mm-hmm. You know, um, and these people have been written about, so you look like, um, I believe Maria Wan Rem was his name. Mm-hmm. And then that led into like August Escal Scalier. Sure. And so Escal like wrote down, you know, the, the French mother sauces and all their derivations. So there’s a lot of like written record in history that has made it into like western sort of education. Sure. Yeah. Sure. And then also, um, the Michelin Guide, which has been. You know the number one gatekeeper, even more than Taste Atlas or Gordon Ramsey via puberty.com pub, right? The Michelin Guide, yeah. Has been the number one world gatekeeper in terms of naming the best restaurants. Yeah. Michelin is a French tire company. Right. And the guide was literally meant to say, Hey, everybody, hop in your cars with your new Michelin tires, travel. Yeah. And drive to restaurants. If it’s a three Michelin star restaurant, that means it’s worth the longest drive you can take in our tires. Right, right, right. And so even like from that origin mm-hmm. You know, it was all based on French food. Do you like French food? I do like, I like all, this is the other thing. All food is great. I love all, if not the majority of foods and if I’m, I was just in, in France or the Cannes Lions Festival and like That’s right, you were in France. And anywhere I travel I just try and get the local delight. Right. I went what’s local to Kahan? Local to ka? Yeah. Is like, um, it’s very like ol food and so a lot of it, and we’re on the seaside. Mm-hmm. So like one of my favorite things I got is called Pan. Okay. What is that? It’s just a sandwich. I was getting it from like seaside shacks while like sweaty on the beach. How fun. Okay. And it’s just like a like round, like bull, like a sourdough kind of round loaf. Mm-hmm. And they cut it in half and they just slap on a bunch of like fresh like tomato, onion, greens, some sort of aioli. Yum. And then a bunch of tuna anchovies and chopped hard-boiled egg. God and, and it’s, and just all it’s soaked in olive oil and vinegar and it’s just this like just bright. It’s basically a sise salad, which is in bread. In bread, yeah. That you’re like eating on the beach sounds. And so you know, would I rather have that or a carne asada burrito in a vacuum carne ADA burrito. It’s what I grew up on. Can I tell you something? But I’m in France. I won’t eat that. If you told me any combination of food, the fact that you explained that you were sweating on the beach and your seaside. I probably would’ve said it was delicious. A hundred percent. It’s so crazy to me. I once, when I was at the Jersey Shore, I was sweating seaside of the beach, eating a fried Taylor pork roll sandwich with white American cheese and it was romantic and delicious. It was the local fair. Exactly. And I was on the beach. Right. Yeah, like any food is great. A, a food wouldn’t exist unless it was delicious, right? Yeah. You travel anywhere in the world. If you’re eating a local fair, you can find something delicious according to Taste. Taste Atlas, who is our Bible and God. Now the must try items from French cuisine are Meal de Provence, which is just. Proven salt honey. They like, they’re, they’re ranking. I did eat honey in, in Provence. Delicious. It’s okay. They have a lot of lavender honey. Exactly. It’s lavender honey. That’s great. But um, but yeah, that’s nuts. That like they’re ranking lavender honey. A product made by bees. I know. Versus like boiled Maine lobster shot to Brion. Uh, Saint Fe, which is a type of, um, soft cheese, rotan de, which is also another soft cheese. And then cru it’s bread, and mushrooms with a cream sauce. Bizarre. So anyways, there are people that are like taking these rankings ’cause they will just Google best food country in world and an image of this pops up. Mm-hmm. And it’s all very, very silly. Um, what do you love about French food? I love butter. If you must know the truth. I just love, it’s a combination of butter and salt that is just so delicious to me. A lot of countries got butter. A lot of countries got salt. You’re so right. You’re so right. Maybe it’s just like this weird fetish fetishization of like, yeah, French food is the best food, but I’ve had it recently and it hasn’t been, it hasn’t like tickled me the way that it used to. Yeah, it doesn’t, doesn’t, it doesn’t do it for me anymore. The way that it used to, unfortunately, and I think it’s just. It’s just not fun anymore. It’s not fun food anymore. Like going to eat sea snails at a, at a Vietnamese restaurant. That’s fun. That’s good. Those are punchy flavors and delicious meats that I don’t have all the time. But something like French food, it’s like. I had duck so much in culinary school, like, yeah, yeah. How many times can I eat duck? How many times can I eat beef? How many times can I eat an airline breast of chicken? You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. It’s just not the same anymore. For me. It doesn’t, it doesn’t like tickle me the way that it used to, but something like eating those really intense flavors from like Vietnam and things like that, that’s something that excites me thoroughly. And also I love Persian food again, which is nice. Like I think whenever you have a food repeatedly growing up with it, you get sick of it. Yeah. Which happened to me. A few years ago, but now I like call my mom asking her to make me like the classics a lot of the time, which is great. Yeah. Yeah. And even when we talk about French food, it’s somewhat similar to talking about American food. Right. France is not a monolith. There’s so much influence in France. Some of the best food I had when I was there mm-hmm. Was Lebanese food. Oh, well of course. Yeah. Naturally, you know, it’s Lebanese, it’s, it’s North African, and then chefs are also using like French technique and French products using flavors. From North Africa. From West Africa, right. From Southeast Asia. Right. Just like chefs are in America and chefs in Mexico are, are using, you know, techniques and ingredients from Korea. When I, when I went to, uh, to Cabo mm-hmm. Like in Baja, California, west Coast, there was this like big wave of like Japanese flavors at like Right. You know, their local kind of like. Fancier, kinda like hipster taquerias. Is that called ni Nikkei food? What is it called? Nikkei cuisine is a fusion. Uh, wait, Peru’s not on this list. Yeah, I was about to say. There’s no Peru on here. Wait, literally, where is Peru? A pers number? Peru finished 10th in 2022. Lemme see where Peru is right now. Ah, um, Peru, uh, Nique cuisine is a fusion of Japanese I Peruvian food. No, Matsu. Yeah. Was the one really popularized it. Mm-hmm. If, if we were to try and create any sort of objective ranking. Okay. Do you like, do you think there are any actual criteria that you could put on a ranking that would make sense? No. You know, even in terms of like no available produce, no, because even countries that don’t have available produce can still make incredible food out of that. I think Italian should be on the list. That’s what you know is Italian. Should be top 10, Italian should be top 10 no matter what. It can be number one, it could be number 10. It just needs to be there. I, I want to see, here’s, here’s data that I wanna see and I think we could probably find it is like what? No, ’cause that’d be heavily skewed. I was gonna say, what country like spends the most amount of time cooking or eating, or like who is simply devoting the most time to cook time and energy to it? Right. That’s hard or disposable income because Americans, despite the fact that our food seems very expensive. We spend like less of our disposable income on food than I believe most developed nations. That’s crazy to me. You know, and, and again, we also spend a lot more money on healthcare, so there’s other offsetting costs. Um, but like other countries really do put a lot of thought into food. And that is something that I’ve always loved right. About Italian food and Italian people right. Is they care so much. Right. And I think that reflects in the food. Yeah, I agree. And also like the, the items that they use, like. Tomatoes like beautiful, fresh, gorgeous tomatoes. Tomatoes invented in Italy. No, they weren’t native of Italian food. No, they’re not. But now they’re known for, if you think of Italian food and tomatoes aren’t like in the top five of the foods that you associate with. With Italy. Yeah. Yeah. I would say that you’re, you’re just being a contrarian. Yeah, no, I get that. But like, something like, like beautiful breads, beautiful tomatoes, beautiful cheese, beautiful fresh produce. Like those things are just good foods to have at your disposal and to combine them all into like a pizza. I think it’s like a winning, it’s, it’s a win for me. But I think you could say that, you could say that by any country. You could say that about, uh, Vietnam. Right. Be beautiful herbs. Beautifully made noodles. Yes, you could, you know, beautiful fermented sauces like cheese is just. Fish sauce in Vietnam. You’re correct in a way, right? Yes. It’s umami. Sure. You know, you could say that about any single country, but you could say that about Senegal. Right? Beautiful. Like, uh, grains with their steamed millet with beautiful dried crawfish powder. Right, right, right. Every country just has beautiful food, which is awesome. You know what I mean? So what country do you think has the best food? I like. Like what? What country should be on a top 10 list no matter what. How about that? I won’t tell you what I won’t ask you. Yeah. Non-negotiables to be on a top 10 list. Non-negotiable, Mexico for sure. Okay. Peru, for sure. Okay. I agree with Italy. I love how I say this is futile and you can’t do it. And now I’m doing it. Yeah. You, I mean, India just because it, it’s such a massive country and also such beautiful history of cuisine. I know. Um, I would wanna like spread this out. Right, right. I think Japan and probably Korea too, maybe. I mean. To be honest, Tokyo, but I couldn’t leave off Vietnam. Tokyo is one of the best food cities I’ve ever been to. Vietnam. Vietnamese food is just like, has my heart, you know, there’s just every country I could name has such delicious food. To be honest, I think this is impossible. South Africa is the best produce I’ve ever had in my really life. Dude, the, the avocados from Li Poppo in South Africa, dude blew me the hell away. The best. Turkish donor kebab I had was in Germany. You know, I, what are we gonna do? What are we supposed to do? We can’t listen Slovenia put Slovenia on there. I think we need more people to cook foods from more countries. Yeah. So that way there’s more availability for us common folk to eat them. I would love to eat more Senegalese food. I would love to eat more Latvian food. I would love to eat more Iraqi food. I haven’t been to an Iraqi restaurant ever in my life. Yo, you go down to like El Cajon, but see like inland. Yeah. This is Okay. Real quick. Just gonna stand for California here. Go for it. There’s so many like. Neighborhoods in California where you’re like, right? Oh, there’s like 10 Iraqi restaurants and a half mile radius. Yeah. Little like little blink. Like little, yeah, yeah. Like little Bangladesh or like little Tehran or stuff like that. Do like little India and Artesia. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. There’s uh, little Arabia and Anaheim where it’s a bunch of like Lebanese restaurants. Sure. But you go to like, um, east, like East County San Diego. Okay. And there’s a ton of Iraqi restaurants. They make that big old, uh, big old grilled fish. Yum. What’s it called? Like malu? I dunno. I don’t know. See, that’s the thing. I don’t know. Literally Iran and Iraq are neighbors, and I’ve never had Iraqi food. Yeah. I, I mean, have you ever had Canadian food? I’ve never had Canadian. I mean, I’ve had like, yeah, actually I have, there was a, we, me and, and Julia went to a Canadian, it’s called She Ante. It’s like a French Canadian food. It’s a French Canadian, yeah. Yeah. And so what does Canadian food actually mean, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, we had like kri, which is like a very Canadian dish. Based off of a Middle Eastern dish, based off of a British dish that is made with Salt Co in Canada. It’s a whole thing. Isn’t it Indian too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh no. Yes. An Indian dish that made its way to Britain, that made its way to Canada, but has been transformed all the while, you know? Yeah. Um, but yeah, they ate Canadian food there. It’s just so, it’s just so hard to define. Yeah. And I think it’s gonna get harder to define the most, and we don’t need to define it. Go out there. The world of food is wide and wonderful, and not everything needs to be ranked except, uh, I love that Bulgaria finished ahead of England. In this ranking, go Bulgaria, this time of year always gets me thinking about fresh starts, whether it’s getting organized, setting new routines, or swapping out my wardrobe. And when it comes to style, quince is my go-to for those timeless high quality pieces that actually last I describe their knit maternity spaghetti strap unitard and their 100% organic cotton poppin maternity long sleeve shirt. And both. Instantly elevated my everyday look. The texture of the jumpsuit feels incredible. It’s light, it’s lux, and it’s totally easy to care for. And the Popin shirt, perfectly chic, thrown on top of just about everything I’ve paid. 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Listeners can grab Rosetta Stone’s lifetime membership for 50% off. That’s. Unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit rosetta stone.com/hotdog to get started and claim you’re 50% off today. Don’t miss out. Go to rosetta stone.com/hotdog and start learning today. All right, Nicole. Alright, Josh. Alright, Nicole. Alright, John. Alright. Alright. Okay. Okay. That’s alright then. Well, we’ve heard what you and I have to say. It’s time to find out what other wack idiots are rattling out there in the universe. It’s time for a little segment we call. Opinions are like cast road. Put a Judy Garland stink on there. You like that? She lived a tough life. She sure did. Judy Garland. Really a cautionary tale. Very sad. Judy. Not Julie. Judy, like Liza with a zine. Not Eli Judy Garland. They had her on a diet of him. PHS and chicken broth. That’s right, they did. She deserved better. A life of pain deserved a lot better. Some would say she deserved better. Judy Garland deserved better. Hey, Josh. Hey Nicole. My name’s Bill. I’m from Asheville, North Carolina area. Um, you guys were talking about interesting ways to eat candy bars the other day. Uh, Snickers with the vein, Josh. Um, but did you know with Kit Kats, the filling between the layers is more crushed up? Kit Kats, I. I did research it. Find out, figure yourselves. That’s why it’s so good. Keep it up. Bye guys. No, you keep it up. Wait, you’re telling me? Yeah, you’re gonna say it. They’re grinding up whole Kit Kats to use as the mortar. I think it in between the Kit Kat wafer Bricks. Yeah. The Morro is old Kit Kats and the, what is it? I don’t know what it is. Crane. What’s Morro? Morro is like on a Rosh Hashanah Seder. Yeah. It’s to represent the thing in between the bricks. Oh, that’s right. That’s what Morro is, right? I don’t know. So the Morro is more Kit Kat, the Morro, the ro, the hair, the, the, yeah. How do you pronounce it? Ha what? Hal Halek In Farsi. It’s Hal I. Any like Hebrew Jewish bird I grew up hearing was, was via the lens of a very Victorian South African accents fine. So my grandma was a re Josh need to eat. And your sits all like junky? Ours is smooth and pasty. No, we would generally blend it, but I’ve had a lot of chunky. Ro I don’t like chunky hairs. No. I like it to be a paste, but, but ro it’s like one of my favorite things. I like to, I like use blend like apples, walnuts, honey, sweet wine, wine dip it, dip a cracker in it. My mom goes, DC’s the first energy bar and it’s just matza and hair set. It’s good, but no, yeah, basically it’s, it’s the hair set. Yeah. Yum. I, I did find out. I think it’s the rejects. I think it’s the rejects. Sorry to interrupt you. Sorry. Best friend. Oh. It’s like the ones that get messed up do like grind them up into fish food. Yeah. Okay. Um, I didn’t know that much about Asheville, North Carolina, but I’ve been, uh, I’ve seen a couple sketches that go like that. One couple that lives in Asheville. There’s a lot of breweries in Ashe. That adds up. They’re very, and they’re very like progressive. I, I don’t know, like Cringingly Progressive Oh. Is what these sketches are suggesting. Oh. What sketches are you watching? Not a lot. Like the drop, like from Dropout? No, it’s just a random, uh, sketch. What the hell are you talking? Like a TikTok sketch. Oh, I see, I see. I really don’t scroll very much anymore, but I got one from Asheville. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I like calling petition to call people from Asheville, Ashe assholes. I think we should. Okay, deal. Hey guys, my name’s Drew. I’m from Utah and I was thinking, shout out. Shout out. Drew, Utah. Is that the major city of every state in the United States should have its own hotdog style. Much like the Chicago hotdog. Oh my God. The Seattle hotdog. Yes, sir. And that would really help add to our countries. Uh, thing where every state has like a flower in tree. Oh my God. But I think we should all have a hot dog too. God bless America. That’s true. Drew came out swinging. Drew, you need to get hired by some sort of cabinet, right? Uh, yeah. Like the cabinet of the United States of America for being Awesome. That’s a great idea. Get him out here. ’cause here’s the thing, we. Idea. We grew up doing like state reports in California. Yes, we did. It was like fifth grade. You had to choose a state. I had Maryland. You had Maryland. I picked it ’cause it had the weirdest flag. It does have a weird flag. Weird ass flag. I picked Louisiana because I had already started loving Cajun food. I would’ve been like nine, 10 years old. So I was like funny. I love beignets and gumbo. I like weird shapes and colors. But, but like I, but because of that, I know that the state flower of. Of Louisiana is the Magnolia. I know that the Aw, you mag the state bird is the pelican, you know? Aw. Um, but I don’t know what its state hotdog is. I’ve, I’ve actually eaten. Oh my God. I’ve eaten a crawfish relo hotdog in New Orleans. You know what we have to do? Let’s, okay, drew, we’re just going to borrow your idea. Yeah. We need to make a list of 50 hot dogs. I know there’s some that exist, obviously, Chicago dog, whatever. We need to make a list of all the hot dogs and then lick, lick the envelope and send it to somebody in the White House. We need yeah, to design a hot hotdog for every major, for, for the biggest city in every state. Not biggest, but most important city. Is the capital. Okay. I don’t think it should be capital because then you’re left with like, uh, I believe Washington’s what? Like Olympia instead of Seattle. Oh, okay. Party. Did I lie about that or no? The capital of Washington, Seattle. But there’s already a Seattle dog, but like the capital of New York is Albany. Oh, there’s already a Seattle dog. No, the capital of Washington’s Olympia. Yeah, right. Like are we gonna make like there’s already a Seattle dog? That’s what I’m saying. Like we take the major city and I think it can be intuitive. It doesn’t have to be biggest because then you’re doing like, how about most iconic? That’s what I’m saying. Yeah. What’s the most iconic city in Nebraska? Why do I, why am I so obsessed with Nebraska? What’s going on Lincoln? We’d make a Lincoln dog. Make a Lincoln dog. Oh my God. Can we, I’m not even kidding. I know that we would, and it would be inspired by Aza. We work together all the time, but I think this would be such a good project for us to do. Pier Pier, South Dakota. Oh my God. A dec Uh, a South Dakota dog can make put chisel on it. Oh my God. Or testicles. Or, or like dandelion greens. Dandelion greens. But something. Oh my God. Can we please do this after A fun exercise I got, I got hired by till Mac years ago to design grilled cheeses like the regional grilled cheeses grill. Yeah. And you know, you end up in Portland, you’re making like pickled huckleberry jam and stuff. Yeah. We talked about this. It’s rad. I think. I think we should do that. We should do a podcast called the United States of Hotdog. Okay. Where we put one minute on the clock to decide what each major drew. You did it and then, and it’s all because of you. True. And then we send it to Condoleezza Rice, who’s still in the White House. Condoleezza Rice. Speaking of, she was one of the people on the college football playoff voting committee. Oh, no way. Condoleezza Rice. I loved Condoleezza Rice growing up. She was like an icon to me. I think she was so strong in beautiful, and it was just so nice to see her like. Taken on a lot of stuff. Yeah, I bet. A lot of respect for her. If she did anything politically monstrous, which she, oh, I don’t dunno about that. You don’t. Don’t blame me. I was like, I was like 12 and I just thought she was so inspiring. I dunno what she’s up to now. It had something to do with Stanford. I don’t, but I don’t know. She was iconic to me. So iconic. Yeah. Hello, are you laughing? Josh Nicole Hotdog Nation. This is NATA and Nick calling from Hot Dog Nation, California and we are laying in bed. I tell taking care of business in the last few minutes can tell before our daughter wakes up, which means debating the important stuff like we all know you could fright. An egg on the hood of a car on a hot day. But I am wondering if you could hard boil an egg on the inside of a car on a hot day. My husband says, there’s no way. No way. But I think, I think that you could. So please settle this for us. Sure. You have to. In order to boil an egg, the temperature of the water needs to be like. Boiling is 212. Yeah. But like you could still like warm up an egg at like one, like 90 or something. Well, so sovi like sovi eggs, you get to like 1 70, 1 75. Yeah. They, they end up like kind of cooked in jammy and whites will start to coagulate at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Don’t think that’s sable unless you put like a magnifying glass. I feel like in the water, I’m trying to think of like the hottest my car I think has ever gotten. ’cause I, I’m in a lot of saunas. I think one 30 might be the hottest my car’s ever gotten. I feel like my car’s probably gotten in the one forties, one fifties. That’s so scary. Don’t leave. A baby or animals in what? Who brought a baby into my car? It was just, it was, I’m probably gonna make a baby into, it was me and some old cans. Yeah. And I wouldn’t leave your baby in the hot car. You better not. I’m not, uncle Josh is not allowed. But yeah. So even if your car got up to like 150 and could warm the water to that, which would also take a long time. ’cause water tends to like, you know, you can’t diffuse heat into it that fast. Yeah. Uh, no. Impossible. But you could, impossible, you could warm up a hot dog to a pleasant temp. You know if, if you’re into that, I like that they said Hotdog Nation. That was good. We should start addressing the, the Vox populi, is that the right word? Yeah. Great. Huh? The Vox Populi as Hotdog Nation. Like Britney Broski has Broski Nation. Yeah, we can be station like that. I think Wiener World better. Hey Josh, Nicole. Um. Here’s, here’s a hot take. When I was a kid, I’d do this. What’s up? I would like to, sounds ashamed. Dip my bacon and orange juice, and kind of like a pineapple ham situation also, how do you feel about chi cheese coming back this year? What? Chei. Oh, I didn’t, goodbye. I didn’t know Goodbye. That was so creepy. Wait, wait, wait. Chee Cheese’s is coming back. What’s Che’s? Chee Chi’s is a, a chain of like casual Mexican dining restaurants. Oh, I think sounds familiar. God. Is it from Minnesota? Sounds familiar. I think Che Chi’s may have been founded in Minnesota. I’ve never been. We mostly know Chichis from their jarred salsa. That’s how. That’s why the name is familiar to me. Yeah, we didn’t add for them once. We didn’t add for, it’s perfectly fine jarred salsa. Um, but. Gosh, apparently physical restaurant locations will reopen in 2025. Uh, the physical products, um, stayed the same. I am. Ha listen, happy for Chichis. Happy for you if you partake. I’ve never been to one because we don’t have them in California, I don’t believe. Um, bacon and orange juice. I can see how that would make. It’s like squeezing lemon on a steak or I like it. Any cooked meat, that’s fine. That’s great. The thing I worry about, what’s it doing to your juice? Who cares about the juice? I I Are you if you are like taking, you think, you think they’re pouring it over the bacon? Well, no. If he’s dipping his bacon into a glass of orange juice. And then are you drinking the orange juice after it’s gonna get warmer or it’s gonna get greasy? I mean, it’s not that big of a deal, you know? But I’m not like, I don’t think, I don’t think, I’m not gonna stop day. I don’t. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I think that this is a good idea and it sounds pretty damn good to me. And don’t listen to that guy. He’s just trying to be silly. If you took like a pastry brush and you dipped it in orange juice and then painted that on your bacon, you know Yeah. Hear me out. Marm related a little bit. Marmalade. You should be doing it. You should be dipty doing it in marmalade, not in juice. Right. I had a marmalade recently. That was way too much. Too much pth. Too much pith. Way too much pith, marmalade. I do too, but it was like very bracing. Was it hor? Was it hormone? Was it homemade? It was in France. Oh. That’s why they respect the pith apparently. We don’t resp. It’s like pulp and juice. Suck my pit. Do you like pulp in your, uh, orange juice? No, I do not. I love pulp. I don’t, I don’t think I’ve had a glass of orange juice in probably three years. I had one recently for no reason. I just like, don’t encounter it. I had some tropic. Oh my god. It was, it’s nice. So good. Sometimes the human body just needs. A swig of orange juice, but typically I don’t, ’cause I have really bad acid reflux, like always my whole life. So I never had orange juice growing up. Like at the, at like the breakfast table? Yeah. Oh. Little fun fact about me. That’s a fun fact. Hi, Josh and Nicole. Hi, this is Allison from Michigan. Hey Allison. Uh, my husband and I were just talking and we feel as though your next cookbook should be Recipes from Last Meals. Ah, specifically these zucchini Juan from Terry Cruz’s episode. Oh, love you guys. Thank you. That’s a great idea, Josh. I like that idea. I think it’s a good idea. That’s a great idea. I think it’s a good idea. I think writing another cookbooks certainly a good idea. I think we might might want to get on that at some point. Yeah. But yeah, gotta see. Gotta wait and see. You should wink at the camera. Wink. Gotta wait and see if there’s gonna be another cookbook. I’ll do it to my own. Gotta wait and see. Me too. Me too. And then at each other’s cameras. Oh, and on that note, thank you so much for stopping by. A hot dog is a sandwich. We got new audio only episodes every Wednesday and a video version here on YouTube every Sunday. If you wanna be featured on opinions or like casseroles, hit us. Sup at. Three. Three Dog Pod one. The number again is 8 3 3 dog pod one. And sorry, my voice cracked a little. My voice is torched man. For more Mythical Kitchen, check out our other videos. We launch new episodes every week. See you all next Sunday. Tickets are on sale for an evening with Rhett and Link, an exclusive Wonderhole season two premiere event now at wonderhole.com.