Taste Testing Doritos Naked

This, this, this, this is Mythical. Every person has exactly two things in common. We all gotta eat and we're all gonna die. But are we all gonna food die? I say yes. Oh, okay. This is a hot dog is a sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What? Welcome to Good Mythical Crew, the podcast, where some of your favorite members of the Mythical crew talk about all things Mythical. I'm your host, Chase Hilt, and this month we're chatting with Josh. That's probably too deep of a cut for the majority of your listeners. No, no, no. One, a majority of our listeners were definitely third-tier Mythical Society members, and so they have all listened to it. Also, I really like your NPR voice. You can tell that both you and I grew up listening to the Ira Glasses, the Amishai Artsies of the world. It really sunk in through osmosis for me growing up because I was carpooled by a lot of my friends' parents who loved listening to NPR, and that would put me right to sleep. Oh, man. It's incredible. Yeah. My best friend, who just texted me that his wife had their baby. Congratulations, Nils. I used to get in the back of his mom's car, and then she would put NPR on, and I would fall asleep within minutes, because it was just like that drone of, like, that your standard vocal fry, but like just enough of it to kind of soothe you into a sleep. We're talking to a pair of Norwegian sisters who are redefining the way that the greater Oslo region thinks about folk music. Mm. Mm. Well, that is unpleasant. Really, really does not hit the ear the way you want it to. Now, I love how atonal your music is. Was that intentional? Or is that just how you are? God, I love NPR. That's not what we're doing today. We're doing something much more exciting. Well, it's less exciting for a very specific reason because the chips that we have in front of us, these used to be the most exciting chips in the world because they were so bright red and bright orange. And very flavorful. And very flavorful. And now the PepsiCo Corporation, which owns Frito-Lay, there's kind of two companies that exist in the world anymore. There's like Palantir and then like Starbucks, Walmart or something. And then Mythical is all the way down here in a corner by itself just doing its own thing. Just begging to be acquired by PepsiCo. Anyways, they have taken the artificial food dyes and artificial flavors out of their chips. Now, this is not – they're not substituting all of the current Cheetos and Doritos on the market. But this was a direct response to the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. led Health and Human Services and by Association FDA's edict. The Maha movement has edicted that all petrochemical-based food dyes be eliminated on a reasonable timetable. I'm not sure the specifics on the timetable or if it's been spelled out yet. I don't think they do either. They're flying by the seat of their pants, baby. I don't know. There's one of those things. There used to be an old tweet meme that was just, I apologize for my previous statement. You never have to, quote, hand it to ISIS. and that's a little bit how I feel with the food dyes thing where I'm like we shouldn't be eating food dyes it's not even that I I don't know the actual science on it I know red dye 3 cancer and lab rats and studies 30 years ago I know the potential behavioral changes that you saw in studies in red dye 40 I don't know the actual veracity of all those things but like we just don't need it yeah it's not necessary it's not like it's really enhancing flavor and I don't think people really need it to be enticed by, like, snacks that you're going to grab anyway. No, they're enticing enough. I will say that the packaging is way less enticing as they, like, go for just making it all white and removing all of the vowels from... So it's harder to read. It's harder to look at probably when you're at that grocery store horrible incandescent lighting. So that part, I would say, bring back the dye that you use to print your bags. I do still believe you're allowed to dye the bags. Yeah, I don't think I've seen anything about that. There's something kind of Soviet about this packaging. You know what I mean? Yeah, and you know, like, they have to, it's not like it comes out of the paper. Like, they turn it white. They dye it white. Yeah, they can dye it white, they can dye it red. This was an aesthetic choice. This was a choice that I don't like, personally. It's really funny the way, I have the press release from PepsiCo pulled up right here, because I think it's really fascinating. Because at no point, they're not just going to come out and say, like, okay, the government is making us remove the red from our chips. Right. It has to be their decision that they're really proud of. Yeah, yeah. So here's the press release. At PepsiCo, innovation isn't just a buzzword. It's in our DNA. Ooh. I'm buzzing already, but I know that's not what they're going for. Today we're taking one of our boldest steps yet with the launch of Simply NKD, which is pronounced... Naked. Naked. Simply Naked. Simply Naked. Simply Naked, a reinvention of iconic Doritos and Cheetos flavors now made with no artificial flavors or dyes and completely colorless. Rest assured, I want my rest to be assured here, our iconic Cheetos and Doritos remain unchanged. Neket is an additive option, not a replacement. Introduced to meet consumer demand. The funnier thing is, though, they're sort of, they say the big question that sparked it all, what if we stripped our most iconic snacks down to their fundamentals? They're kind of saying, like, we didn't even need that food dye in the first place, dog, we've still got the best delicious spices and chemicals in the game that's going to make it taste delicious. So yeah, they're cutting costs and also meeting the standards that are being set by the somewhat crazy people who may or may not have worms in their brains. I know. It's so funny looking at so many of these things. Like, I think my thing about food dyes is I just don't think we should train children specifically to believe that an unnatural color of food is like the norm. Right. Then they see an apple and an apple just looks boring as hell. They see a regular raspberry and they're like, why isn't it a vibrant blue electric? Why is it glowing in the dark? Yeah. Yeah. And I just, you know, it's a kind of small thing, but it's like a kind of deeper cultural shift. And the switching of high fructose corn syrup to sugar, it's really funny because the reason that we went to high fructose corn syrup in the first place is because there was like a global sugar shortage. There was a literal, in the Soviet Union, one, we just agreed to start trading corn to the Soviets because they had massive crop failures in the 70s. So we're like, fine, we'll send you corn as like a way of like almost like soft strongman diplomacy of like you can't even feed your people, we'll feed you. And so we had an excess of corn to start planting more. And then the Russian- I know we've got an excess of corn. When I go visit my family in Ohio, we drive by a lot of corn. Dude, so much. And Ohio's not even like one of the main places we get corn in the United States. No, it's such a big American. I mean, these are literally all made of corn. But then there was also a sugar beet crop failure in Russia. So it rose sugar prices and dropped corn prices. This is 50 years ago. Sugar prices now are hella cheap. So it's not even like there's that big of an advantage to using corn syrup anymore. So it's kind of a bunch of weird little changes that are going on at the same time. But today, Chase, we're putting politics aside. Finally. That's the only way I can talk to you, Josh, is if we put our politics aside. I know. You're getting to so much. There's the Tylenol and the Doritos. That's what the hell's going on. But today we are going to try the Pepsi crystal of the chip world. Remember that? They just took the caramel coloring out of Pepsi. Yep. Made it clear. Wow. Incredible. I'm pretty sure Rhett and Link are still very obsessed with that era, which I don't know why. I'm obsessed with the Coke Black era. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Espresso. The perfect mixture of espresso and Coca-Cola is in the sexy, slim bottles. It looked like a Zima, but for an 11-year-old. I can make that for you in the kitchen if you really want. So, yeah. I make it sometimes when I'm really sleepy. I do. Anyways, we're going to try these. We should, I think, try these blindfolded. Okay. To see if we can tell the difference between normal nacho cheese Doritos, Cool Ranch Doritos, Cheetos Puffs, all naked. Sounds good to me. Let's do it. Who's going first? I feel like I should go first because I think I'm going to be worse at it. And we could really hit home with you knocking it out of the park afterwards. I don't know, man. I used to smoke a pack of menthols a day. You know, my palate is torched, frankly. I don't know if I can taste anything anymore. Yeah, but at least you can talk about it better. But I don't know if it really matters. All right. You put on the blindfold. I'm going to shuffle chips around. Do I have consent to put chips in your mouth? Yes, absolutely. Thank you. The first time I was blindfolded and had stuff put in my mouth was on camera. It was Link feeding me a very big burrito. And so I had to open mouth really wide. and he took a long time because he was like really vamping for camera as he was doing it. You know, probably doing like, oh, oh, oh. That's a good link impression. And it made it so uncomfortable. I was sitting there for so long at probably like 22 years old, like just very uncomfortable where there were only like 10 of us at the company. I didn't know what to do. So eventually I just started getting like really scared and like flinching back and nothing was happening. I won't do that to you, Chase. I won't do that to you. Oh yeah, I know. You're far from link. The smell of a freshly opened bag of Doritos I want that as my car air freshener. They don't give me that option at the Sonora car wash. You ever go there? I've never been to the Sonora car wash. Have you ever driven by it? Where's that one? It's like you go towards that weird entrance to the 5 that's by the border of Glendale and Burbank. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You kind of get a forest lawn drive. It's right tucked on the corner there. Lovely little car wash. I'm just buying time as I shuffle Doritos around. And so let's go to the HWB one, Hollywood Way and Burbank by Smart and Final. Listeners, write into what your favorite Burbank area car wash is. Okay, so Chase's blindfold is on, so this doesn't affect him. I'm looking at the Cool Ranch naked, and it looks almost identical to the Cool Ranch non-naked. There's like, you can picture the Cool Ranch Dorito, right? Yeah, there's not much to it color-wise. No, there's the green and red flecks, which I thought were just bell pepper that had been dehydrated, but looking at them now, I think they are food dyed. Huh, okay, Chase, cover your ears. I'm beating him the normal Dorito. Shh okay Chase uncover your ear All right Open your mouth please That a big one It a full unbroken shape I should tell you the size and shape of them That was wide. Okay. Cool ranch, for sure. My palate works that well, at least. Do you want a palate cleanser? Is that the diet, Dr. Pepper? Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. That's a good palate cleanser. I have Celsius because I'm very sleepy. I've just already had many many caffeinated beverages today so a lighter caffeinated yeah oh god I think I drink 30 ounces of coffee alright second Dorito coming in this is the other one I forgot to describe the shape that was almost a full triangle but with about a half centimeter of tip broken off I felt it yeah yeah yeah I also don't know if you could tell by just flipping it to try to make sure I got the most seasoning in my mouth I could see that I was curious what that was about it was just yeah You know how real cool people can flip a toothpick? Yeah. Less cool people can flip a chip in their mouth. The podcast is where we should address controversies on other videos. I recently cooked with a toothpick in my mouth, and it said that it gave a lot of people the ick. And I understand that, but what happened is I quit vaping. I quit entirely, and I've been fully smoke-free for a month, But for the first several weeks, I did use a toothpick to deal with the oral fixation. And so that's what that was about, if you saw me doing that. I know a few people who've gotten those, like, kind of fake vapes that just have, like, a little bit of an aroma on them. Yeah, yeah. But you still inhale it, and it still goes in your lungs, right? Yeah, but there's, like, no gas? Oh, oh, it's just an aroma. There's no— It's just an aroma and, like, a piece of wood that you suck. So I think that would drive me insane. Which you can get flavored toothpicks, too. So I got nicotine-dipped toothpicks, but then I realized that I think it's just some guy dipping normal toothpicks into vape juice, and that really disgusted me, so I threw those away. And then a buddy of mine who quit vaping started vaping a non-nicotine vape, but then I've been using the nicotine patch because I've developed an actual dependency over a decade, right, on nicotine. So I've been using the patch to quit, and it titrates. I shouldn't have laughed about that. I'm sorry that I laughed about your nicotine dependency. Also, I've never felt more like my father than the first time that I put on a nicotine patch. I was like, you have transformed into your dad. But anyway, so my friend was vaping a non-nicotine vape. And then I had my nicotine patch on, and I was like, this just equals vaping now. This just, I have the non-nicotine that I'm smoking and the nicotine going into my bloodstream. You just recreated vaping, dude. So none of that. And no more toothpicks either, because they were cutting my mouth. And no more ick. And no more ick. There we go. So thank you all for bearing with me. Are you tasting any difference in the Doritos? Yes. The second one was definitely more flavorful, and I couldn't tell if that was just, you know, like you always look for the chip with the most stuff on it, the most dust. That second one was definitely a lot more Cool Ranch-y. It packed a punch compared to the first one, which was a little more natural, or just like more corn chip and less flavor on it. And my sense is that if they're going to make any kind of change, especially for this one where there's not much dye, maybe they're trying to overcompensate. So I would guess that maybe the second one was the naked. But it was better. But it was better. It was better. I'm just feeling like maybe they were trying to hedge their bets a little bit. No, that makes sense. That was my, like, kind of initial conspiratorial belief. Yeah. Because there's a weird amount of flexing. Is that right? You are correct. The second more flavorful one was the naked. That was way more flavorful. Did you try them? I haven't tried them yet. I kind of want to try them blindfolded. Okay. And I want to wait. Okay, do you want to try the next chip? Yes. All right. I'm telling you, my palate is good enough that I can tell you whether or not it's a nacho cheese Dorito or a Cheeto puff without you having to tell me. I was about to say, I'm not going to tell you which chip it is. Okay. Now, there is a stark color difference here. Yeah, I'm sure one looks like a packing peanut, and the other one looks like a packing peanut. We'll say one's bigger. Why is it bigger? Wait. Hold on, hold on. Yeah, they're different size and shape. That's fascinating. Okay, Chase, close your ears. Close your ears. Wait, wait, wait. You can do whatever you want. Close your ears. I'm going to feed him the natural one first. the naked one. Okay, Chase, open ears. You don't even have to. I hope you cut out the fact that I was, like, breathing loud because I was trying to not cheat. The Doritos going in. Oh! Watching somebody eat a Cheeto blindfolded is a strange experience. There's something animalistic about it. It's like watching a lizard eat, like, a large bug. Yeah. I can see that. I did kind of feel that way, too. Okay. Okay. I'm going to give a quick cleanse. Did you enjoy that? Cheeto puffs have always been kind of like my least favorite chip. Yeah, I'll have them at a party if that's the only option. My mom used to bulk buy a lot of big things, Cheeto puffs and red vines and things like that. Costco? Smart and final. Smart and final. Hey, that's a good little hack. Smart and final is where you go save lots of money, shop like a pro. But I never touch the Cheeto puffs. No? Yeah. Same. Are you ready for the next one? I'm ready. all cheddar cheese is dyed. There's no naturally occurring orange cheese. Oh, that makes sense. Right? Because like cow's milk, you've seen it, it's white. I don't know. The most you can get is a little bit of yellowishness on it, which tends to come from, I believe, more grass-fed cows. It can even be based on the seasonality of the milk. But yeah, so any cheddar cheese that you get that is not white is going to be dyed, and it can be... It's generally probably not an artificial petrol chemical based dye. It's likely a natto seed and or paprika extractive, which is another funny thing because there's so many good natural dyes out there to make food look good. You know what I mean? Achote paste. Yeah. See any like al pastor, delicious red pork, you know, it's achote paste. It's wonderful. If we're going, if I'm going to keep with the method that worked last time, the first one was more flavorful, which is, uh, means that if they're again, just trying to make sure that you like them still, that the first one would be the naked. Wait, did we, I think you're correct. I think we've uncovered the conspiracy. They, yeah, they, they're, they're both good. But if you have something that is naked, that doesn't have food dyes and it tastes like bland and you're placebo or nocebo, I guess, you're like wondering why does it taste bland? It's because of the dyes and you don't buy it again. They want you to buy the more flavorful one. They're conditioning people. They're packing the punch. And maybe they cut back on that after it's like on the market for six months or a year. I don't know. But right now, yeah, that first one was the Naked one and it was definitely the more flavorful one. There's kind of another, like there's that angle, which I don't doubt could be true, but there's another slightly more inane angle, which is like, it's the reason that Coke Zero exists. So Diet Coke, right, came out in like, I think it was 84, 86 or something. But basically when like the science behind artificial sweeteners wasn't that good, all they had was aspartame and then like sweet and low, which tastes like straight poison. And so like all they had was aspartame, so they made the soda the best they could. And the original Diet Coke, like it tastes bad, like objectively. I drink a lot of it. It just tastes terrible. I'm not a Diet Coke fan at all. And then as the science got better, they tried to revamp it. And people are like, no, give me back the poison that I love. And so they had to create a separate brand called Coke Zero where they're using the better artificial sweetener advancements. And they've been updating Coke Zero. They changed it to Coke Zero Sugar and changed the formula. But they had to keep Diet Coke the same because it's such a recognized brand and taste. Yeah. So maybe that's the thing now with like Cheetos is they're like people's palates have been evolving and literally they're getting more numb to these heavy, heavy artificial flavors. And so maybe this is just their opportunity to fully reformulate the Cheeto flavor and put more dust on it. I'd believe that. And it is better. It is better despite having a way weaker package. I feel really bad like I'm slamming on the designers. Our design team told me yesterday, and I don't know if this is true or not, I can't read sarcasm, but they told me that all designers in America know each other, so I feel really bad that they said that. They said that, and now I'm slamming some of their friends who just designed it. You're just dissing Hank. Hank over at PepsiCo. Alright, we're moving on to the final chip. This is Nacho Cheese Dorito. Alright. We're going to see if your strategy holds up. Okay. I'm going to earmuff real fast. This is my fantasy as a large child was just being surrounded by all these chips, man. Yeah, I'm looking at them. Pretty stark difference here. I don't know that I can tell the difference between Nacho Cheese Naked Doritos and The Cool Ranch. Alright, first one I'm feeding him. It's the natural one. Okay, Chase. first one going in there is a blunted tip on this one alright just like in the end of a knight's tale where Count Adhemar played wonderfully by Rufus Sewell he blunts the tip of his lance to shatter hidden inside a really cool fist shape yeah just like you want to punch Heath Ledger in the face that was so sick the fist tipped lance dude come on then it gets wedged in his armor and Heath Ledger can't hold it and he goes lash it to me arm and Mark Addy and Alan Tudyk Alan Tudyk in front of the show He goes, William, no. And he goes, lash it to me, um. And then he does. I love at the beginning when he gets on the horse and he's, for the very first time, pretending to be a knight. He's holding it and they go, get in the pocket, get in the pocket. Get in the pocket. Such a good training montage scene. I say that when I'm merging on the freeway. I just love the depiction of Chaucer. Yeah. With Paul Bettany. And I look at that's like historically accurate because there was a period of time where he just disappeared and he's known to be a gambler. He was known to be a drinker and it totally could have fit that window. He was just a ledge. Yeah. Also Shannon Sossman man I don know that anyone has looked more beautiful in a movie role in the history of movies I think I might concur Yeah Very very pretty Shannon Sossman come on the show She has been weighed and she has been measured and she has been found Worthy of appearing on Mythical Kitchens, a hot dog and a sandwich. Any of Mythical Kitchens' properties. Fantastic drummer in the band. Here, another Dorito coming in. Drummer, come on, what's the band? Shannon Sossman. Warpaint. Warpaint, Warpaint, Warpaint. Warpaint, great band. I think she was the drummer in there for like two or three years. I don't think I know Warpaint we'll play some Warpaint afterwards kind of like ethereal indie rock good stuff like without Warpaint there's no Hello Cowboy you know which Dorito is the real one? real one was the first the naked was the second because the naked packed more punch that's nuts that the naked ones just taste better just objectively are better that's wild you can take off your blindfold now we've done GMM episodes in the dark that are like just pitch black and we like block out every single part of light every camera that has a light all the exit signs and I just really enjoyed being in pitch blackness with like nothing happening this is a very calming experience for me you can keep your blindfold on if you'd like we can do a sensory deprivation it would be really weird for me to feed you the chips because I don't know which one's which but yeah I would happily go on a sensory deprivation take with you Chase what do you think you learned through all that I'm eating them side by side you are dead correct I don't even think I need to do the blindfold challenge here. I'm tempted to make a joke about changing political affiliations. But I think it is interesting that it is so much more flavorful. And the size is weird. I don't understand why they would change the sizes of the Cheeto Puffs like you were saying. Well, like they literally might. Sorry, I'm holding the Cheetos side by side. And the new Cheetos Naked are probably like 15, 20% bigger. These are just so bland comparatively. It's really interesting when people talk about the science behind making a convenience food like a chip. Where they're like, they have evil scientists trying to get you addicted to it. And it's like, well, yes and no. They have flavor chemists who are trying to figure out how to make the most delicious chip. That's sort of the name of the game. And also like... Everyone wants a repeat customer. I want you to watch and listen to another episode of A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. I know, 100%, but we also would likely differentiate between what we do at Mythical and what somebody like Mr. Beast does or a similar accolade. Yeah, absolutely. There's these people I found out called the Stokes Twins, and their thumbnails really scare the hell out of me, man. It'll be like surviving babysitting most evil baby, and it'll be like a baby AI to have vampire teeth. It's very frightening. So we like to differentiate between that. Mm-hmm. And so I don't know where you draw the line on snacks being made tasty or quote-unquote addictive. But anyways, they do have a lot of people devoted to the science of even, like, the mouthfeel and the crunch. Oh, yeah. And taking all of this data. So I'm wondering if they literally found that, like, a larger Cheeto now for today's consumer has a better crunch and mouthfeel. you do get the option of being able to bite it or just like put it fully in your mouth too where you get a little bit less of that with the Cheeto Puff, the original also just looking at them too now and seeing that like this isn't fully coated in flavoring it makes me wonder if part of that is because of the price of the dye and just like a little bit more expensive ingredients that go into making them look the way that they have looked for so long, and therefore you might be able to do more coding for the same price or even cheaper with the naked version. And that could be enough that across the board here, you don't have to worry about people looking to the bag and trying to find the couple that are really pungently red or orange because they're all just similarly coated. Yeah, you can almost hide more flaws without the dye. It's like Room Raiders. Right? All the stains were hidden until they brought out the blacklight. Semen everywhere on the ceiling. You do not want to go into Renling's office. That show had me believe that anything that showed up on a blacklight, that showed me believe that blacklight was strictly a semen detector. Oh, yeah, 100%. And that a washer and dryer could not fix anything. You can't clean away the semen that exists. once it's out there in the world, it's out there in the world. Surely a black light shows other things, right? I don't know if the science of how it works, but 12-year-old me is watching MTV just like, man, is that normal just to spray paint the room? I would watch it, I think it was on up after next, and I would watch next, and then if Room Raiders started and I wasn't fast enough, I'd be like, yeah, okay, I'm in. See, I was the opposite. I was there for Room Raiders, but if I showed up early to Room Raiders, I'd be like, well, I'll watch the last eight minutes of next. The best show of that entire era though, a hard turn on the topic of conversation. I don't care where you're here. This is making me so nostalgic for the early 2000s. The best show is Parental Control. Do you remember that one? It'd be like two parents who'd just be like, my daughter's dating a bum and then like switch to B-roll of just like a 35-year-old man like skateboarding and like, I don't know, drinking a beer on a curb. Yeah, I got in a little late to the MTV VH1. and I was watching Nick and Toon Disney and Disney Channel a little bit longer. And so I got in around the Dudesons era. Dudesons, the Scandinavian jackass. The Scandinavian jackass who taught me a few different Scandinavian swear words, which I think mostly boil down to them saying devil or devil's wife or hell or whatever. There's like sartene, which just means Satan. and one of them would let you throw darts at his stomach and paint like a target human dartboard go at it boys there was a certain whimsy that jackass had that all of the like especially the eastern block versions they simply could not capture no not at all but at least they could fall through the ice and stuff they had a lot more access to ice All right, Chase. We've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky idiots are rattling out there in the universe. Time for the segment we call... Opinions are like casseroles. We can put on our headphones now. Okay. Your hair is really giving Hamish Linklater. Oh, I'll take it. It's like pandemic length for me. This is how I grew out the similar length in the pandemic, but curly this time for some reason. I don't know what changed. Hamish Linklater. Mm-hmm. His hair can get longer. It's not in any of these photos that you're showing me. Yeah, I guess I imagined Hamish Linklater with longer hair. Well, that's when it was straighter. Chase, your hair is no longer giving Hamish Linklater. All right, let's get to that first voicemail. Hi, Josh and Emily, possibly. Oh, good guess. I just wanted to know why other meats, specifically meats like alligator, frog, and turtle, which happen to be some of my personal favorites, do never really spread past some places in the South. I know I do gator nuggets, but why is it not, at least where I am in Iowa, it's not made its way up to Mississippi. Have you guys ever tried those meats, and why do you think they're not as popular? Yeah, have you tried them? There were eggs that I tried that were reptilian, and I can't remember what reptile it was. I want to say it was gator. Gator eggs? Yeah. It might have been gator eggs. It might have been some other more lizard-esque, but I remember they were pretty soft and all stuck together. Yeah. Yeah, and I feel like for me, I mean, I've definitely had some reptile meats that we've prepared for the guys back when I was doing a lot more culinary things. But that's the only time. I think maybe, maybe frog's legs at one point. Yeah, you go to like a random French-ish restaurant with your parents. Right, yeah. But really, I mean, when I was doing that and sourcing all of those meats and things and different culinary, you know, adventures that I was attempting to go on and bring the guys on, I could not find a lot of those meats. It was a struggle to find. We had sketchy sources that I'm happy I don't think they use anymore that offered things that were very illegal. I got a call from him like several years after we decided to not go through this exotic meat broker. I don't know what happened, but I just got a call out of the blue from a number I don't recognize. And they're just like, hey, we have six pounds of antelope meat. And I was like, what? He goes, we have your six pounds of antelope meat. Is this your address? And I'm like, yeah, but when was that order placed? And they're like, looks like two years ago. Sorry about that. And I'm like, my need for antelope has passed. Thank you, though. Please lose this number. That's insane. Insane. But, yeah, I think limited experiences with trying. I would be happy to try some of those. I think there's outside of the spots where you have access, there becomes this weird thing where the disconnect that people usually have with their meat no longer exists. And so you immediately bring in the, like, ethics of eating that animal. Yeah, yeah. Where, like, yeah, we're so used to eating chicken and cow and, you know, anything else. I'm so used to eating chicken and cow. Chicken, cow, pork, lamb. Pork, lamb, dog. Yeah, and then if you move away from those. Well, you got to go to, like, a nice local butcher for the dog. Yes, exactly. You can't. Don't go by the Costco dog meat. That's a little macabre joke for we've never eaten dog. For all I know, I have never eaten a dog. Yeah. But when someone says that and you're not used to having dog in your cuisine, then all of a sudden you're like, oh, crap, now I'm thinking about the ethics of that. And so even though people also don think about the ethics or consciousness of animals outside of mammals very often it all of a sudden comes back in when you going to eat it if you going to eat a gator or a frog You used to seeing gators on a swamp tour and in the wild and all that Not in your food. I have a simpler explanation for why they haven't made their way up to Iowa and whatnot. And you can. There might be a specialty like a Cajun restaurant that'll do a little fried gator appetizer. And alligator's good. I don't think it's—it kind of just tastes like a very firm-fleshed fish. Kind of somewhere in between a mahi-mahi and a chicken, not a really distinct flavor. If you brine it, Cajun spice, fry it up. Some ranch is great. Frog legs, again, very similar to a chicken wing. Yeah. But we don't farm carnivores. We farm all the other animals because all the other animals, they eat, feed. They can graze. They can graze, you know, but we don't farm carnivores. So we wouldn't add giant large-scale alligator farms, like industrial alligator farms would be crazy. Just feeding them chunks of other meats to grow their meats would be inefficient. Yeah, very inefficient. You know? But yeah, I think it's one of those things that whatever you grow up eating and – but also like maybe what you find exotic and exciting is also disproportionately exciting to you. Because I don't think you could make the case that like gator actively tastes better than a chicken or a bird meat. No. I mean, yeah. I think talking about the flavor of those meats too, I think that's why now you've got so much more fake meat that it's actually starting to take off. It's because it's just how you season it a lot of times. Once you get to a certain level of the chemical structure and how it's been engineered, it's just a matter of how a chef can prepare it and then eventually how you can prepare it at home. So there was, speaking of which, turtle. Turtle, they were just like hunted into basic non-existence like tarot. In the UK, yeah, it's almost extinction with turtle soup. Turtle soup was so popular that Campbell's up until, I think like the 1940s, made mock turtle soup. And you can still find a recipe for mock turtle soup that uses like veal sweetbreads and stuff like that. Yeah. Because the soup was so popular. Ditto for when the dog trade is mostly like illegalized across the world now. But there's a very traditional northern Vietnamese and they would raise the dogs for food. It wasn't weird. It was like just another food animal that we're raising on a farm. There is a dish in Vietnamese. It's something like yakai. But it was made with like a turmeric and fermented rice paste in a stew. And I think like rau ram, the herb. And it was really delicious. But they're like, oh, we make it with pork now, you know. and they smoke the pork with hay to imbue it with that live fire flavor. So, you know, we find a way to create the things that we love with the animals we have available. Is that enriching and enlightening? I think that makes a lot of sense, yeah. I mean, it's also just like, yeah, why are you going to make a farm with animals that aren't readily available in your area? Yeah, we kind of figured out the pork and chickens of it all. Nicole, Maggie, and guests. This is Matt calling from Montreal, Quebec and I want to talk about chewing cocktails. So I've recently been enjoying mixing my gin with that OKF aloe vera drink. I find chewing the aloe adds a really nice texture to the experience. Okay. So my question to you guys is, what other chewable cocktails can I experiment with? Glad you asked. All up the pod, keep up the good work. I love how fast you immediately have something in mind and are Googling. The first thing that comes to my mind is just like, how much of a salad is almost present in a Bloody Mary. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, everyone, I think a lot of people are familiar with the kids' experiment of putting food dye into water and then putting like celery stalks in that water. And then slowly, if you've got like a red mason jar, a blue mason jar in the celery stalks, the celery will turn that color. And so like, you know, the similar- I've never done that. That's so cool. If you wait long enough at brunch with your Bloody Mary, you can actually just chew your Bloody Mary with the celery. Take all the garnishes, but even if they have the sliders and the chicken wing and all that, shout out to all the Wisco people, Wisconsin. They love garnishing a Bloody Mary. Sobelman's Deli, But you push the sliders and everything into the Bloody Mary, and then it's kind of like a French dip meets chewable cocktail. Yeah, absolutely. Chase, do you see what's on the screen right here? I do. Did you ever drink an Orbitz? I don't think I ever drank an Orbitz. Logan, do you know what an Orbitz is? No. And it's so close to Orbeez that I'm saying right now, do not consume Orbitz. No, but if you can find an Orbitz, this is the same era as Coke Black. I remember these. But I never had one. Effectively. So molecular gastronomy, right? Big in the early 2000s, chefs using chemicals to make things. There's a thing people would be like, we've made ketchup caviar. And you would basically take ketchup, mix it with like sodium alginate, and then drop it into an oil solution. We've done it a bunch on GMM. Yeah, we like Dippin' Dots things or Orbeez things. You can make the Orbeez things. But they had a bottle of drinks called Orbits that had these multicolored little, I think, sodium alginate orbs in them. Globs. And I was at a fancy restaurant. It was a restaurant pop-up inside a fancy restaurant. It was the, God, I forgot what it was called. It was like a Vietnamese pop-up inside a place called All Day Baby in Silver Lake. And they did a large format punch bowl cocktail, which I love. I was there with the Kitcheneers, and we got a giant punch bowl cocktail, and it was very Vietnamese, Southeast Asian flavored, you know, pandan, all that. And they made pandan-flavored little mini Orbitz boba things. And it was really wonderful. Like I hate like a vodka-soaked gummy bear. Jell-O shots are like just disgusting. But having that little bit of chew with this like rum-based tiki cocktail that was already sweet was really cool. So I'd say try those sodium alginate pearls. Mess around with it if you really want to get crazy with it. Absolutely. I mean, yeah, I think I'm not a big – I do like the aloe drinks that have chewy bits of aloe and stuff in them. I would happily do this. I'm always on the fence with boba, but you could do that with boba too. I always get a craving for boba two to three times a year, go grab it, and then I'm like, okay, I can wait for another four to five months. Do you always do boba or do you ever do the fun jellies, like the grass jelly? I've never done the jellies. Egg pudding inside of a boba, that's great. No, I've never strayed outside the boba because I'm like, I'm only going to do this once. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm just going to try it again and see if I like it. And I'm kind of like, eh, I don't know. But maybe that's another way to go is using any of those kind of classic things that you would get at a boba shop and then going for an old-fashioned. Like a liquored up, like I don't know about an old-fashioned, but like a liquored up like horchata or even like a coquito. Yeah. Like a coquito with like an egg custard that you kind of chew through it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even when you get to the bottom of like, you know, that good crunchy ice, sonic ice kind of stuff. Yeah. And if that's what you've had your cocktail in, you're chewing that cocktail for the most part. I would do that. You might get too watery. Man, I like you. I like you, friend. Oh, yeah. All right. That's a wrap. That's a wrap, Logan. We can't do one more. We can. You just have a meeting in 10 minutes. I have a meeting in 10 minutes? One more. One more. Okay. One more. What's up, guys? What's up, dude? I'm looking for recommendations. I hate seafood. Anything out of the ocean is disgusting, except for I can do some tuna salad, a little chicken of the sea with half a gallon of mayo in there. Yeah, there you go. That's as good as I can do. Other than that, any other seafood, even your most basic, like fish sticks, can't do it. Wow. What are some recommendations to maybe get me to like seafood? I don't like the seafood-y taste, anything like that. So let me know. What can I try? we've had a lot of people write in like I don't like celery how do I get myself to like it and I've never quite gotten a great answer for a motivation why that's what I was thinking is like you don't have to like seafood unless you're you're married to and in the family of and all your friends all they want to do is have seafood all the time my life is heir to the Gorton's fisherman throne and I've been told I will not be in the will unless I enjoy seafood and stomach these fish sticks they're going to hook me into a lie detector test Well, let's start from the place that you're starting from, the seafood, which is canned tuna. Canned tuna, pretty indistinguishable from chicken, especially if you're using the real albacore white meat. That's just a very, very blank protein canvas to start from. Right. So you think of a very firm-fleshed fish, something like, is swordfish crazy to say? No, I don't think so. I think swordfish is very tasty, not very fishy. yeah I think swordfish is a great answer there and like having swordfish like I remember having it once as a kid and because I'm a kid I just like covered it in ketchup and it was delicious like it was and you can eat it like a steak and you just cover the steak in ketchup why not I was gonna say that like calamari could be a great way to go but if you don't like fish sticks that are like a fried fish thing you might not enjoy calamari but it doesn't have a crazy fishiness to it. It's more just about kind of a rubbery texture if you're into that or not. And that comes down to, I think, more of a texture thing than a taste thing. But yeah, if you're not into fish fingers, fish sticks kind of a thing, it might not be for you. The first time I had swordfish was January 31st, 1999. At a Super Bowl party? Yeah, at a Super Bowl party. It was a church Super Bowl party. My dad had, my dad was, every Josh story is sad. My dad was homeless and he got taken in by a church pastor in Carlsbad, California. And then we went to this church pastor's home for Super Bowl and it was like a potluck and somebody brought swordfish and I tried it for the first time. And then he kicked my dad out of the home because my dad admitted that he wasn't actually Christian and he only went to the church to try and meet women. And the pastor didn't like that. Well, I don't like that pastor. You should just be helping people because you're somebody who believes in the tenets of Christianity. I agree. You're trying to do something good, including giving them swordfish. Why not bring somebody into the fold with the sport fish that you can eat? Sport fish in Jesus. That's what we do over here in Mythical Kitchen. Amen. Thank you so much for stopping by. Hot Dog is a Sandwich. We got new episodes out every Wednesday. If you want to be featured, call 1-833-DOG-POD-1. Chase, you got anything to plug? uh yeah uh chase.hilt is my social media chase.hilt uh i produce good mythical morning you can watch that at youtube.com slash good mythical morning ain't no one gonna watch that all right see y'all later