Does Fat Equal Flavor?
53:56 Share

This is Bithycal.

Craftsman days are here at Lowe's with big savings on the tools you need. Right now, get a free select tool when you buy the Craftsman V20 2-pack battery kit. Whether it's the backyard, the bathroom, or beyond, Craftsman has the tools to help you power through and get the project done right. Because DIYing is unpredictable, but your tools shouldn't be. Shop Craftsman at Lowe's today. Valid through 618 while supplies last. Selection varies by location.

Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? Well, with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company, seniority, skills, and

Wait, did I say job title yet? Get started today and see how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. We'll even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign. Get started at linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. I support chefs' rights. Oh yeah, but I also support chefs' wrongs, if you know what I mean. This is a hot dog as 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 we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Scherr. And I'm your host, Nicole Inaidi. And I also support Chef Strong. Doesn't that feel good to kind of do that gross hand motion while going ha ha ha? No, I actually hate rubbing my hands together. What if you stuck out your tongue a little bit? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

That didn't feel good for you. I don't like being malicious or evil. I don't think it's malicious or evil. I think it's like a... This is an evil, malicious hand movement. No, it's like an F-boy thing. It's like an F-boy thing. F-boys are evil and malicious. I wouldn't say evil and malicious. I'd say maligned for sure with our priorities. But that's not what we're talking about today. No, no, no. We are talking about...

All of those phrases that chefs specifically on television have told you in the past that you took as dogma and canon. And today we're focusing on one specific one. That's right. That I heard every single chef say growing up. And that is, does fat equal flavor? What a great question.

Does fat equal flavor? Fat equals flavor. As Rachel Ray drizzles olive oil on her canned chili pozole. On herself, on the asparagus. She EVOO'd on everything. Remember, fat equals flavor. Her rice pilaf's just drenched in extra virgin olive oil.

If I had a nickel for every rice pilaf I watch Rachel Ray make... 17 freaking nickels. Yeah, that's a lot of nickels. Is that 85 cents? That'll get me 12 minutes of parking in Beverly Hills. You know what my problem is? I can't do that math in my head. No? What's wrong with me? Well, 17 times 5 is 85. Am I wrong? No, you're probably right. It just gave me a shiver down my back because I'm really bad at... I'm really remedial at math. Fat, I think... I was a gifted child. Really? I'm not surprised. Yeah.

You were saying? I think fat equals... Some fats have flavor, but they don't equal the big F flavor. Break that down. When you say some fats have flavor, what are you talking about? When I think about... Well, when I was younger, my mom used to give me a tablespoon of olive oil at night. I think it was for constipation reasons, but she probably said like, it's good for your hair, skin, and nails. Right? Yeah. That's what you do to like a dog to get a shiny coat.

We used to be at our boxer olive. Well, look at this lovely, luscious. Your hair reminds me of the shininess of our boxer olives coat. Boxers are short. Yeah, but you should see how shiny and luster her coat is just like your hair. Whatever. He tried to compliment me by saying I look like his former dog, everybody. She's dead. Dave has a tattoo of her because she's beautiful and special. Um,

I think olive oil has a distinct flavor, especially... Of course, but that's not the flavor of fat. That's the flavor of olives. But it just so happens the fat is derived from the olives. Sure, correct. So whenever I think of like tallow, like does tallow have a quote-unquote beef-like flavor?

I would say it has a touch of beef stank to it. But I think then you're not talking about the flavor of the fat specifically. That's like saying... It's derived from it, so it has it. Honey tastes like bees. Okay, so... You ever eat a bee and crunch out the honey? Never. Don't reckon that's the way it works. But if you really break down what taste is, right? So we all know, like, sweet, sour... Umami, bitter. Umami, bitter, and...

Sweet, sour, umami, bitter. What are we missing? Sweet, sour. Salty one of them? Yeah. Salty. Salty. Salty. God, we're so done. I said umami, but it's savory. Well, umami is the fifth taste, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What we're actually talking about here is, is there a sixth taste, and is that taste fat? Right? Because you can talk about the beefy flavor of tallow, which it has, certainly. Peanut oil has its own flavor. Sesame oil certainly has its own flavor. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

But that's the flavor of the sesame. When you are to like ultra-refine all of that out, and I think the closest we've gotten to ultra-refined pure fat is basically vegetable oil, right? Right. Canola. Yeah, canola. Which, God, what is... So canola... Rapeseed. Yeah, rapeseed, which makes sense why they changed the name of it. They still call it that in, I think, a lot of parts of Europe. Right.

But anyways, a lot of it was grown in Canada. So canola literally means Canadian oil. Like ola meaning oil. Are you for real? Oh, do you not know that? You just blew my freaking mind. Yeah, yeah. That's the origin of canola. It's like or Ida potatoes, just Oregon, Idaho. Canola is just Canadian oil. Wait, or Ida potatoes?

Did you not know that? What other abbreviations are you about to spew? Dude, I don't know. Give me one more. That was incredible. Oh, God. Do I have another one? That was so good. It's okay. No pressure. I don't think so. If I think of one, I'll let you know. But vegetable oil is ultra-refined. Does the actual fat that you are consuming have an independent flavor that we could call the sixth dimension of taste? So you're saying in order for it to be considered on the tongue grid—

you're talking about. Correct, correct, correct. It needs to be so super refined that it is just its own standalone thing, like sugar, like salt. Yeah, so like sugar, you can break down like pure glucose, right? Yeah, sure. The pure form, and you can taste that. It tastes like sugar. C6H12O6, I think, is glucose. Okay, and then Nassl. Nassl. Nackle, depending on where you're from. That's salt, right? Yeah. And then what would be the refinement of umami? Umami.

Of umami. So umami is a collection of amino acids. So there's, God, I forgot how many amino acids are there. Maggie, can you Google how many amino acids there are that make up a complete protein? I'm going to say 82. I think there's like seven. I don't think there's that many. I'm going to say 82.

20 standard amino acids. There's somewhere in between us. But anyways, the flavor of umami is literally the prevalence of amino acids, which make up or the building blocks of proteins. And then citric acid would be kind of sour. Malic acid. Right. Citric, malic, tartaric acid all contribute to. Oh, my God. It hurt my glands. You know your glands? Yeah.

Okay, think about citric acid, right? Think about like a nice tart strawberry. Love it. Or an orange as citric acid. Okay. Your mouth feels good thinking about that. Think about malic acid. What's your mouth doing right now? Warhead. It feels icky at the back of my throat. You shuddered. You physically were repulsed by it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That is because all taste is, and this isn't my own original thought, this is coming from a journal called Flavor that I believe stopped being published in 2017. So like, do we really need a whole journal called Flavor? Sad. But anyways, they wrote a really fascinating piece on this where they call taste simply like a nutrient toxin detection system.

Toxin? Toxin. What did you just do? Oh. You shuddered. My eyebrows raised. Sorry, when you were talking about malic acid, yeah. I did shudder. You went, ah! My receptors went up. And when you think about the taste of bitter, right?

The taste of bitter makes you kind of recoil because that is the detection of toxins. Tanniny. My tongue got tanniny when you talked about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's bitter taste that we now like, but your body is meant to, you know, be repulsed by toxins. Whereas citric acid or sour is a really interesting phenomenon where the right amount of sourness means like the right amount of certain vitamins and nutrients. Sure. Okay. The wrong amount of sourness means like, oh, something is going wrong. Poison, poison, poison. It's poison. Oh.

And so if we think about that simply as nutrient detection, umami, the fifth taste, is your body wanting to get proteins and amino acids because it's, you know, you're predisposed to want that. Sugar is very obvious. Fat, though. Fat is like...

a very necessary part of development, right? Like, fat is your brain functions better on calories that are digested from fat. You talk about hormone regulation. Eating fats is really important. Wouldn't it make sense that if taste is just a nutrient toxin detection system, that we would have a detection for the actual flavor of fat?

Yeah, but if her tongues don't detect it, they're detecting where it's derived from, then I don't think so. Because I'm trying to think of...

Maybe it's a carrier. Maybe it helps carry. Well, so that is certainly one theory, right? And also we need to – we're talking about a bunch of weird science-y jargon from like one journal that I found. But it's still super interesting. It is. But also when we're talking about Rachel Ray saying fat is flavor, what she probably means is like fat carries flavor really well. Right, right, right. It's the reason if you were to just put straight vinegar, salt, lemon on a salad –

It's not going to be nearly as pleasant as if you add olive oil to that and make it a vinaigrette. Right. Because what fat does is it carries flavor. Fat increases viscosity, decreases the flow rate of certain things, so it lingers on your palate for a long time. The fat molecules bind to it and it tastes really good. Yeah. But to me, asking whether or not it's a real flavor is interesting.

Spring always gets me in the mood for fresh starts, cleaning out closets, planting something new, and this year, I'm diving into a new language with Rosetta Stone. You know what that was, Nicole? That was you speaking...

Excellent Spanish. That was me trying my best. But I think there's something really exciting about the idea of traveling somewhere and actually speaking the language, ordering food, chatting with locals. It's a totally different experience when you can truly connect, which is why I used Rosetta Stone before going to Mexico recently, and I was able to talk about Oaxacan food with a wonderful chef that I met. That's so awesome. Rosetta Stone has been the trusted leader in language learning for over 30 years, and their immersive approach actually helps you absorb information

and retain a new language naturally, whether you're on your desktop or learning on the go with the app. What I love most is the True Accent speech recognition feature. It gives you real-time feedback on your pronunciation, so you sound way, way more natural. Plus, there's no translation crutch. It trains you to think and speak in your new language from the start.

Did you know that? I was literally Googling jitomate a few days ago trying to find out what a jitomate is. And I learned that because I was in Mexico. Oh.

Don't wait. Unlock your language learning potential now. A Hot Dog is a Sandwich listeners can grab Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. That's right. That's unlimited access to 25 language courses for life. Visit rosettastone.com slash hotdog to get started and claim your 50% off today. Don't miss out. Go to rosettastone.com slash hotdog and start learning today.

Whenever I think, have I ever taken a drink of canola oil? No. You've never just sipped on it just to see what it's like? I've never found it valuable like that. Oh, it's incredible. But what does it taste like, though? Nothing? Well, I mean, God, what is... What does canola oil taste like? I remember hearing somebody ask a Japanese chef what umami tastes like, and he just goes, it's like the feeling of taking a sip of cold beer at the end of a long day, and you go, umami is the...

The point is if you try... It's not. Wait, no, I totally disagree. No, but what does umami taste like? Umami tastes like... My brain instantly goes to coconut, aminos, and soy sauce. Yeah, but like you're just talking about a food tasting like... You're talking about a thing tasting like another food. So if you were to ask me what pure fat tastes like, I'd say it tastes like olive oil. It tastes like butter. It tastes like canola oil. Right? You can't really describe the taste because the tongue is like the only part of your body that has that. Well, sugar is sweet. Fat is fatty. Fat is fatty. That's what I'm saying.

It's hard to use the words to describe it that are already there. What about like, what about, well, how do we, let's determine like rendered fat versus unrendered fat. Like how about, how does that equate into this? When you think about something like beef tallow and butter and

and things like that versus like you eat a steak and it has that really fatty bit that hasn't been cooked all the way. Those two things have different fats, right? Like the fats are different. Oh, 100%. Yeah. And like different fats have a lot of different flavors. Butter is...

Interesting, because I think people underestimate the flavor of dairy. People, especially who grew up in America, are big dairy-consuming worlds. We're like, oh, butter is a relatively neutral-ish taste, but then... It's not. Who calls butter neutral? But there's a way to refine butter to then make it slightly more neutral-tasting. It's called ghee. It's called clarifying butter, as we'd call it. You get rid of the milk solids and the water, and it's just pure fat. 100%. It still has its own taste. It's freaking delicious because it's dairy, and all fats taste different. And it's toasted.

You know, but like there is a lot of emerging evidence to say that fat is indeed the sixth taste. And they have like there's basically a couple different things that you need to qualify something as having a taste or having a flavor. And part of it literally comes down to hooking up neurons in people's brains that.

see if there is a direct link to it being on the tongue and like a neurotransmitter release. Okay. Right? Interesting. So is it like isolating just the tongue or is it the whole mouth? Basically, I think it's isolating just like the tongue and like the relationship to the taste bud. But there were experiments done where they said that they basically found all of the precepts that you would need for fat to be considered a flavor.

So it effectively is the sixth taste. So it is. So fat equals a type of flavor. Fat is literally a flavor. I don't know if this is like consensus among the scientific community. But what about because with chefs, I think fat does equal flavor.

A hundred percent. And like, again, this is a weird mix of scientific jargon and then like cooking advice, you know, like add drizzle olive oil on top of your roasted vegetables. Yeah. You know what I mean? But like, is there ever a point in your home where you're like adding excess fat to this dish would not make it better?

No. Right? It always kind of does. Yeah. There's a breaking point. I reached that at a restaurant this weekend. I say that. The only time I've ever done this when I tried to make kimchi fried rice and I accidentally put way too much oil. By the time I put it in my bowl, it was literally swimming in like an inch and a half of oil.

of oil. Yeah, yeah. Because I had no idea what I was doing. Which happens to, you know, the best of us. I was at a restaurant this weekend and for some reason I've encountered this now at two restaurants in the last like two weeks that I've never seen before in my life. What's going on? Where they had, it was at Dunsmore in Los Angeles. Love that place. Great freaking restaurant. Oh my God. They make a cornbread that...

Somehow, the weight of the butter in the cornbread is more than the cornbread weighs itself. It's tough to describe. It creates like a... What do they call it? Yeah, it's like a... A black hole? Yeah, it kind of like sucks the butter into the cornbread and makes it disappear, but then it explodes in your mouth like a...

freaking gusher when you eat it. A disappearing star. There's something, no, I was thinking about something called like, Supernova. It's like a super solution or if something is super soluble in science, it's like a water can actually absorb more solid than water but still maintain a liquid. I was thinking about science in this space. But anyways, place, when you say fattest flavor, Dunsmore is like the epitome of that restaurant. Yeah, that's actually really true. They had a dish that was just like roasted dates swimming in like brown butter. Okay, how did that make it? That was the whole dish.

God dang it, it was delicious. It was so good. I love dates. Fudgy, sweet. They were just like hit on the, over the open fire. So you got some kiss of wood on it and then just swimming in fat. And I was like, this is gonna be too much. And I ate it and I was like, God, that fat makes the date so much fudgier. Yeah, dude. Sometimes I just slice open a date and then I put a pat of butter in there and I dip it in

sea salt and it's the bombest snack. Damn, dude. It's just, it's a sensory overload. And then I was at the Walrus and the Carpenter up in Seattle, another great restaurant, a shadow chef, Renee Erickson. But they had a like warm date dish just swimming in olive oil. And like that fat changes the flavor so, so, so much. Of course. Part of that's because it's making it sort of travel across your palate. Right. But then I think part of that is also just like you add fat to any food.

It's going to make it taste better. Yeah, I think it's because me and you were raised in the fat-free moment of diet culture. So fat was kind of foreign in my house. It was a little bit like...

It wasn't taboo, I would say, but like American food, when my mom would make it, she'd be using very, very low calorie substitutes. Yeah, yeah. A lot of spray bottles of oils and stuff. Well, what about when she made Persian food? Because a lot of Persian stews. A lot. People don't know this. Persian food has a lot of good old fat in it. A lot. And I actually have specific cooking oils for Persian food that I only use for Persian food.

What are they? I use a lot of grapes. So I use a lot of grapeseed oil and I use ghee. Oh, funny. Because a lot of Persian khorash, Persian stews, I would bet there's probably some historical link with like the cooking of Indian curries just because they share so many different food ways. Right, yeah. But there's almost like a layer of oil slipped on top. There has to be. It's almost like if you ever had like Ethiopian food, there's like at least...

like a finger's worth of oil at the top and the oil is typically perfumed with whatever spice or whatever herb you're using so it changes color so if you're making like a red stew a lot of the time it would be tinted the oil is tinted orange because you've been cooking tomatoes in that for like hours and hours and it's not always it's not supposed to be emulsified which I

I learned the hard way. As someone who's learning how to cook Persian food, you do not want the fat emulsified. You just want it sitting on top. Whenever you make fesenjoon, which is this walnut pomegranate molasses, it's gorgeous. It has this bright green-yellow oil from the turmeric, and it just sits on top of this brown stew. And then with horma sabzi, it's like this dark green sludge of oil.

Sorry. I was another little chefism. Butter makes everything better. And there's been, I feel like a rising tide in people talking about why the reason restaurant food is good is simply because chefs are adding a ton of salt and butter. Yeah, we had Josh Weissman on and he said that's why. I tend to agree with that, though I was also talking to the homie Internet Shaquille O'Neal.

And he was kind of railing against that. We went to Dunn's more sister restaurant with him. Hatchet Hall with Internet Shack. We went to Hatchet Hall with him. Good old Net Shack. But he put out this great video where he was talking about how people use that as an excuse for why their food isn't good at home. Oh, well, my food can never be as good as a restaurant's because they're adding so much butter and salt. Well, it's not only...

It's not only because of butter and salt. It's also the techniques that are used. I 100% agree. Yeah, you've said 100% like 50 times already. Really? You've said, I 100% agree. Like, right, Maggie? I 100% agree. I'm saying 100% a lot. You keep saying it. It totally distracted me. Continue. Sometimes you just get stuck in a little loop. I get like that too. But there is...

If you were to take two burgers cooked with the same exact technique, right, like a nice hard seared, we're not talking about smash burgers even, just a nice hard seared burger cooked to like a medium, medium well on a brioche bun, whatever. Right.

If one of those burgers is 90-10 lean to fat and the other is 80-20 lean to fat, the fattier one is going to taste better. We've done this. We've done this. I agree. If one of those buns is toasted in butter and the other is toasted dry, the butter toasted one is going to taste better. Yeah, that's true. If all else being equal, adding fat up to a point, don't make the – don't toss the whole bun in melted butter and serve it up wet. We're not animals. We're not animals.

But adding that fat is going to make that better. It's all about a balance. I think also chefs balance their food very well. And fat's a big key in that balance. And exactly. Seminoe Strat. She made a whole book called Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat. Sold millions of copies probably. I'm not sure. It's because these are all the cornerstones of being a good cook and delicious food. It contains all of these ingredients.

I would say tactics in order to be delicious food. Yeah. And we've talked about the Thai idea in cooking of klom klom. Oh, yeah. Tell them about klom klom. Klom klom. So this idea of balance, but it's not balancing everything at, say, a level of 5 out of 10 taste. It's balancing everything to 10 or 11 taste.

On the 10-point scale, right? So if you have more fat, you can then add more acid. You can then add more salt. You can then add more heat. So fat allows you to do that, which I think is really, really cool. Do you want to know the five criteria for something to be considered a taste?

Because there are five criteria. There are five criteria that they laid out in the scientific study. Lay it on me. So one, there must be a distinct class of affective stimuli and the stimuli responsible for fat taste are the breakdown products of fats and fatty acids. There should also be a transduction mechanism for receptors to change the chemical code of stimuli to the electric signal. So basically, the fat has to have something that is independently detectable.

Okay. And so the thing in this case that they found was literally the prevalence of fatty acids being independently- Triggered? Independently triggered. Okay. And then number two, transsexual, we talked about that. Number three, there should be neurotransmission of the electrical signal to the processing regions of the brain. So we talked about that. Number four, there should be perceptual independence from other taste qualities. Okay.

which I think is really interesting. They actually say this is controversial, uh, because there's no obvious perception such as like sweetness of sucrose or saltiness of sodium. Um, and then, uh,

Some scientists suggest that the fatty acid taste component is at detection threshold only and any definable perceptions are associated with either aroma or chemestesis. So there's no scientific consensus on whether or not fat really is like the sixth flavor. But there is some compelling evidence to believe that it is. That was very interesting. Was it? It was a lot of scientific jargon. It was a lot of scientific jargon. I really had a fun time reading this study. But to be honest, I think fat is a carrier of flavor because food tastes better when it has fat in it.

regardless of what it is. What foods do you think are most transformed? I think pastries is a big one. Whenever I think of something like a...

Like a chiffon cake, like that airy nature. It has no fat in it, right? The fat weighs it down. So it's just egg whites and the yolks are the fat. Yolks are fat, yeah. Yeah, but whenever I think of something like a butter cake or a pound cake, I think the mouthfeel and that crumb and that texture really sends it into overdrive for me. And I think it makes it so much more of a more enjoyable experience instead of like,

fluffy, I'm not a big fluffy, airy person. Like, I don't like the idea. You want dense. I think I'm a dense girl. All my cake to take me to pound town. I think I'm a dense cake. I think I'm a dense food girl, if you want to know the truth. When people are like, oh, volume eating, you got to eat a lot of like, like cabbage and stuff. I'm like, I don't really find value in that, but I'll like, I'll like house a steak and I'll eat all the fat off of it.

I like the density of Indian sweets. You know what I mean? It's just a lot of sugar and ghee pounded with nuts and just kind of in a... It's round and hard. I like dense foods too, like a mochi butter cake. Me too. Me too. To me, I think like the ultimate expression of fat equaling flavor, it's so dumb. It's buffalo sauce.

Oh, that is such an interesting take. Okay. Okay, so check this out. If you ever want to do a fun little experiment of how fat affects flavor, Frank's Red Hot, which to me is the best wing sauce, the best like vinegary Louisiana style hot sauce. Frank's Red Hot original or the buffalo sauce? Well, this is where I'm going with that, right? Take Frank's Red Hot original and mix that with butter versus eating Frank's Red Hot buffalo style sauce. Because Frank's Red Hot buffalo style sauce

It's great for bodybuilders who are trying to stay within certain macros because it's like a delicious sauce. It's vinegary, but it's got some body to it. So it makes you kind of think of fat. Gives a lot on all your stuff. But there's like basically no calories in it. Right. When you add butter to it, obviously there's much calories in it. Try the buttery Frank's Red Hot original versus the Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Sauce that has no fat in it and you will see exactly how fat affects flavor. Dude, let me tell you though. I love the Buffalo Sauce of Frank's Red Hot so much more.

I do because I've done this exact test before. Really? Why? I think it's the viscosity of it. Add some guar gum to your buttery sauce. The viscosity of the buffalo sauce negates the need for butter for me, though, because I feel like I'm getting that fattiness from the rendered chicken wings.

Oh, that's a fair point, though, because there is subcutaneous fat. That's what I'm saying. And if you're frying the chicken wings off. That's what I'm saying. The subcutaneous fat takes the place of, but let me tell you, a good buffalo wing, you could taste the butter and the little dash of Worcestershire sauce that someone else added that's not from the bottle. You're like, all right, somebody cooked here. You know what I mean? I think probably the best expression of fat carrying flavor used in foods is in Indian food. Sure.

Sure, okay. In like a Tarka. Tarka, yeah. In blooming spices. That's another thing that if a seasoned cook who like knows how to bloom spices in oil to the appropriate temperature makes food versus an unseasoned cook who might just be like dumping some jarred powders into a delicious sauce and calling it curry, that difference to me is so massive. It is so massive. Nicole, it is...

100% different. Take a shot every time Josh says 100%. I think Indian food is a fantastic expression of fat equaling flavor. At least Americans, they're like, oh no, the flavor comes from the spices that it uses. It comes from the curry powders, it comes from the

her release. And it does, but that flavor gotta get transmitted somehow. Yeah, I totally agree with you. But can you confidently say on this podcast that fat equals flavor? Because I'm gonna say, yes, fat equals flavor. What flavor is it? I don't know. Take it up with your mama. I would say

That fat alone is not an independent taste. I believe that they have found evidence to suggest that it is, and I think that that does probably have certain implications in the research of obesogenic foods. However...

I've never heard that before. Obesogenic? Yeah, foods that are linked to large-scale obesity. Okay, cool. And that's kind of the reason people study this is if we classify it as a flavor, can we then start researching what fats people reach for and potentially overconsume because fat is so much more calorie-dense than even any carbohydrate. How cool. Okay. And they're studying this in Lab Rats right now. Sorry to cut you off while you were on your soliloquy. I'm on my jamiroquai right now.

I don't think fat is necessarily a standalone flavor. However, if you were to add excess fat to 85% to 90% of the foods that you're eating right now, is that food going to taste better and have more flavor or not?

Yes. If you switch from 2% milk to whole milk in your cereal, that is going to have more flavor. So in that sense, does fat equal flavor? Absolutely, dude. 100%. 100%. 100%. 100%. Does flour, I want to ask you, does flour have flavor? Does flour have flavor? Mm-hmm. You know what's a fun experiment? Mm-hmm.

You take any food. This kind of goes back a little bit to Fletcherism. If you take any food and you just chew it in your mouth for long enough, eventually it will taste just like glucose. It'll taste like sugar, including flour. Any food? I believe this to be true. Or maybe it's just any food. Like a green bean? Yes. If I crunch a green bean in between my molars for seven minutes, it'll taste like sugar? Absolutely. Absolutely, because the process of digestion...

You're a liar. The process of digestion. Maggie, if you can Google this to make sure I'm not a dum-dum. But the process of digestion happens within saliva. That's the first line of defense. Most of us just swallow our food like a duck. I think it's a food people thing. What? Swallowing our foods and not chewing. Yeah, or normies out there. Okay, wait. Hold on. Chewing some food like bread for a prolonged period around seven minutes can lead to a sweet taste as saliva breaks down complex carbohydrates and simple sugars like maltose.

But green beans have carbohydrates in them, right? Salivary amylase, one of my favorite medical terms. But green beans do have carbohydrates in them, which means that that carbohydrate would eventually break down long after. You'd probably have to eat a lot of green beans. You'd get a real wad going, a real wad of GBs. So you've got to tell people, eat your food slower so it'll taste better.

I mean, yeah, I think that's more of a metaphorical sense of like lingering on the savoriness of life. We have to ask the normies if they'd swallow their food or chew. I feel like me, you and everyone on the food team, like this is something I figured out whenever I was working at the cafe in my culinary school was the absolute insane rapid fire eating you have to do while on the line. Yeah.

You literally, I remember vividly in my chef whites bending down because someone handed me a deli cup filled with mashed potatoes, tri-tip and broccoli and said, eat this now. There's a lull in service. That's crazy. And I literally remember and I hoovered it and everyone around me also was crouching down like we were in the trenches of war. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hoovering our food and then the expo guy was like, okay, everybody get up. It's time to go again. Yeah.

And then everyone was like, getting up and like wiping their mouths. But I think there's a link between chefs and food people and the way that they eat and how they eat and how it absolutely screws their whole entire relationship with food. I've

Have you seen that handsome young man line cook from Brooklyn who will do the parody videos? Like, outside the restaurant he actually cooks at. That's just like, hey, what's up? I'm a second year line cook in Brooklyn. Here's what I'm eating for staff meal. Shaggy hair, tattoos. Where's a tank top? Yeah, yeah. Piercings. And he'll be like, here I have four rounds of deli cup filled with, like, mashed potatoes and salad. And then I have three hand-rolled cigarettes and a quarter of a date. Oh, that's a joke? It's a joke. I thought it was real this whole time.

Rooted in reality, of course. I'm sure they did consume that. But listen, it's hard out here. Hard life.

Summer's here and Nordstrom has everything you need for your best dress season ever. From beach days and weddings to weekend getaways and your everyday wardrobe. Discover stylish options under $100 from tons of your favorite brands like Mango, Skims, Princess Polly and Madewell. It's easy too with free shipping and free returns. In-store order pickup and more. Shop today in stores online at nordstrom.com or download the Nordstrom app.

Hey there, travelers. Kaley Cuoco here. Sorry to interrupt your music, great artist BT Dubs, but wouldn't you rather be there to hear it live? With Priceline, you can get out of your dreams and into your dream concert. They've got millions of travel deals to get you to that festival, gig, rave, sound bath, or sonic experience you've been dreaming of. Download the Priceline app today, and you can save up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights. So don't just dream about that trip. Book it with Priceline. ♪ Got your happy price, Priceline ♪

Are you still quoting 30-year-old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now. It pays to discover. Learn more at discover.com slash credit card. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen Report.

Josh, I need you to close your eyes. We're going to do an experiment together. Do I have to? Yes. Okay. So you're going to try five different kinds of mayonnaise. Because I know how much you love mayonnaise, and I know that you love putting it in everything from your deli sandwiches to your mashed potatoes. So I wanted you to try these, and I want you to tell me which is which. Do you ever get dizzy when you close your eyes? No. No?

Here's the first one. Open sesame. If you could take a guess as to what that one is, what would you say? These are all normal mayonnaises, but I'm guessing the brand. Exactly. Okay, I believe that is Sir Kensington's. Okay, great. So here is... I think they may have gone bankrupt. Okay, open up, young man. Here comes the choo-choo train. Don't mash in the microphone. Tangy, I'm going to say Best Foods. Okay. Next...

I believe that is Kraft. A little bit sweeter on the palate. Nice. Okay, now. Oh, God. Are any of these store brand? None of these are store brand. They are all OG products. I believe that is. No, I think that's Best Foods. And I think I had Duke's earlier.

So you think that's best foods? Yep. Okay. I think Duke's was, what is that, number two? Got it. Okay, give me one second. Thank you. Just give me one second. Hold on. I want you to know that I don't like this and I kind of feel like throwing up. Okay, whatever. These mayonnaise are very hot. Okay, get over yourself. Okay. Last one. Ew, God. I think that's one of those awful avocado oil...

I don't even know the brand, but it maybe says something paleo on it. It's like I can picture the freaking jar. It almost looks like Sir Kensington's, but it's got like weird graffiti writing on it. Is it called Follow Your Heart? Yeah, I'll say that. Okay, great. Josh, guess what? You got zero out of five. What were they? The first one was Kewpie. Oh, really? The second one was Sir Kensington's, the tangy one. The third one was Hellman's or Best Foods, depending on what part of the country you're from.

D was Duke's, and the last one was Kraft. That is utterly fascinating, and I found out that I have a terrible palate. There you go. Well, guess what, Josh? Tell them what time it is. It's time for a little segment we go. I'm sorry. I ate a lot of hot mayonnaise. Opinions are like casseroles.

Are you going to be okay with all the mayonnaise you ate? Yeah, it was just a lot. I'm so sorry. Some of them were big. I'm sorry. I'll try to make them smaller next time. We're doing it next time? Mm-hmm. I don't want to. I don't care. I'm hungry for real food, not mayonnaise. I don't care.

She's speaking!

Every time I have a Parmesan rind, I chop it up and I put it in the microwave for a few seconds. Yeah. And it crisps up like this really delicious Parmesan chip. It's a great snack for me. It's a great snack for pets. Right. And I really recommend trying it. Have either of you ever tried this before? And do you have any other uses for the ends of Parmesan rinds?

Let me tell you, let me tell you, I've seen this on TikTok, so I feel like I've done it. I've never done it before, but I feel like I've done it because I've seen it on TikTok. What a frightening indictment to modernity that you just said that. That's so crazy. What a frightening indictment to modernity. That's like so dystopian to me that you're like, well, I feel like I've experienced it because I watched it on my phone. Yeah. Oh, God. Like 30 times. Oh, I feel like I suddenly understand all the horrors in the world now. Go ahead.

Well, now I'm embarrassed. No, talk about the cheese. Talk about the cheesy experience on your phone. What's the texture of it like, Nicole? It's light and airy because I heard the crisp whenever they do it. You're so fake right now. Just because I force fed you mayonnaise, this is how you treat me? You love mayonnaise. Sorry, we're fighting. Oh, yeah. I save mine for soup. I save mine for soup.

Uh, no, I don't know what else you'd do with it. I guess you'd probably try grating it. I freeze it and I put it in my soup or I put it in my sauces and then I take it out. Yeah, I'm just, I'm sort of fine just letting that be the end of my cheese journey. Yeah.

You know, that's where the cheese stops for me. I also. What did you say? Terrifying? What into modernity? Terrifying indictment against modernity. I want that on my tombstone. Oh, my God. And I want a video looping of like me doing like crazy stuff on the Internet. This is a very good hack. And I would like to try it one day. I really, really don't cook with a lot of cheese at home.

I know. You're not a big cheese guy. I'm not a big cheese guy. Which is weird because your wife loves cheese. She identifies as a cheese B word, and that's her word to say, not mine, so she can say it.

Cheese Beowulf. Do you remember going to restaurants and they'd be like, you can get a little cheese plate for $14 and here's a cheese that we selected for you. There's a little jam. Like a honey thing. This Maria Bamford ass voice. You've been doing it for so long. There's like a pickled fig. I'm Maria Bamford's normal voice.

Oh my god, Tom, that's incredible. That's my Maria Bamford normal voice impression. That's pretty good. Speaking of which, we need to get Amy Sedaris on the show because I love that woman. I'll take either Sedaris. You know what I've read? I don't read a lot of books.

But I have read many a David Sedaris book. That's his name, right? David Sedaris? Yeah, yeah. I've read like four David Sedaris books. I love that David Sedaris turned being funny into being a bestselling author. And if David Sedaris was born, say, like 30, 40 years later, he would have just been making TikToks for free with all his funny musings. But I love that he was able to turn that into something meaningful that people sat down with and really contemplated. Again, I think he might be my favorite author.

Which is crazy because, again, don't read. Where were we? Talking about cheese? Okay, next. Next opinion. I'd like to try it. Hi, Nicole and Josh. I have...

Oh my God. Oh, I love that. We were excited. So, um, my mom recently recreated one of my grandma's old recipes. At least that's what they said. Um, and I just need to tell you this because the whiteness is crazy. Yes. Let's go. Pineapple, cheddar cheese, crackers, and you bake it. And like my whole family's way, I'm adopted from Asia. Um, so I was like, this is like crazy white people stuff. And here's the thing. I tried it and

And it is delicious. And I am so, so confused. Please advise. Thank you. Dude.

Do not yuck white people yum. Listen, this is a hot take. White people are people too. You know what I mean? And they don't know any better than to bake ripped crackers with pineapple. That's simply the food of their homeland. Yeah, and you know, that's cool, man. It like kind of is. When you think about like white American culture, the food culture of it is sort of just commerce in a way. And like canned pineapple is the ultimate tale of commerce, right?

That was particularly marketed towards white Americans as like part of culture. Pineapples got cool when we bought Hawaii. Yeah, forcibly annexed violently because of their pineapple farms and the Dole Corporation. Like that is... Did you ever find out if pineapples were native to Hawaii? Pineapples are not native to Hawaii. But they're... Are they even a canoe crop? I think they might be post canoe crop even. I remember you wanted to look it up.

Yeah, no, pineapples are not native to Hawaii, but they have been cultivated there for a very long time. But yeah, I really genuinely love that for you, though, because I think every single...

every single dish tells a story in its own way. Sure. And a lot of those stories are, like, weird and sad, especially if you look at even, like, Korean fried chicken, right? One of the most delicious chicken dishes in the world is kind of only there because of, like, American military occupation, right? Right, right. And, like, an unjust war fought over communism. You know, so, like...

The history of the world is simultaneously bleak and hopeful and terrible things come from it and wonderful things come from it and the world moves on and we eat food and we share stories with each other and I think that's cool. I think it's cool that you're adopted. Yeah, that too. I think that's awesome.

Hi, Josh and Nicole. This is Braxton from Utah. Long time listener. This is about to involve pineapple and cheese too. I just found out they're not making Pepsi Nitro anymore. What? And I'm very offended. What? What? I just can't believe they ever do such things. So if you could use your connections over there at Pepsi and get them to make it again, that'd be great.

What's Pepsi Nitro? Tell you what, Braxton. Long before I try and get him to bring back Pepsi Nitro, I'm getting him to bring back Pepsi Holiday Spice. And I'm getting him to bring back Pepsi Blue. Pepsi Holiday Spice, of course, flavored with just kind of clove. Really bad. And then Pepsi Blue had nothing to do with Pepsi, but it was bright blue. And they had the most incredible 2000s branding ever.

Pepsi Nitro, this is when like Nitro cold brews were becoming popular. Oh my gosh. Especially the RTD, the canned ones. Obsessed with them. So for people that don't know, there's kind of, I guess, two ways to, I don't even, it's not carbonate, two ways to make drinks a little fizzy to change the mouthfeel of a drink. One is by adding like carbonic acid or carbon dioxide, I suppose, that creates carbonic acid, which is.

fizzy and then you can also nitrogenate something. So some beers are, you know, carbonated and some are nitrogenated. Like a Guinness is nitrogenated, which is why it isn't particularly fizzy. Ditto for, I think maybe Abbott's has a nitrogenated blonde ale. Um, so they did that with Pepsi and,

And I tried it, and I'll tell you what, I really prefer carbon to nitrogen in that regard. It's just like it tastes just kind of flat and thick. Just like a flat and thick flavored Pepsi. Oh. And I found it very unnerving. So Braxton, you are in this fight alone. I apologize, but Godspeed to you. I've never had it before, so I can't really say yes or no, but I'm sorry that you're losing one of your favorites. It's always tough. You know what happens with me and skincare a lot?

Like I use a face lotion for like two years. Then they're like, oh, we're discontinuing it. And I'm like, why? So look at the can. They tried to make the can of Pepsi Nitro look like La Cologne coffee. Yeah, I'm looking at it too. It's so crazy. Oh, I love innovation in the snack food space. I find it very silly. Me too. You know what we never did? We never talked about your exclusivity.

ex-girlfriend and why you don't go to Chili's? Was that it? Or tipping? Oh, why you and your ex-girlfriend don't go to don't tip or whatever? Look at the Pepsi blue branding though. It looks like something that a guy in 2006 had tattooed on his shoulder. It looks like an Affliction t-shirt. Yes, it does. Tell the story because we have to follow up because you said we were going to follow up. That's right. I said I'd talk about this. Regards to tipping at buffets. Oh!

My ex, still smartest person I've ever met, much smarter than I am, knows a lot more trivia than I do, and I know a fair amount about trivia, but they actually went on a game show and they were asked the question, according to the Emily Post Guide to Etiquette,

What is the correct amount to tip at a buffet? And it's between 10%, 15%, 20%. You know the answer? I'm going to say 10%. It is indeed 10%. And she said 20. Me and your ex-girlfriend are the same. And I totally understood where she was coming from because if she says 10% on television and the answer is 20, people are like, wow, what a dick. This person's only tipping 10%. I wouldn't think that. But it was according to the Emily Post guide to etiquette. Obviously. And I remember my dad telling me that weirdly because we went to a lot of buffets. Yeah.

And he would probably tip like a quarter. So she was worried about the public perception of her. Yeah, and I understood it. On a game show? Yeah. You know, what are you going to do? Girl. What are you going to do? I would love to be on a game show. Lost the game show because of it. I would have loved to be on a game show. Oh, she lost because of it? Lost because of it. Bring back Coke Black. Coca-Cola Black.

Hello, my name is Theodore, and my heart was not prepared for your sultry voicemail. What about the rest of your body? Gird your loins. I'm from Oregon, and I make a thing that I call the liquor. I put it in everything. It's a can of Campbell's condensed French onion soup, two big handfuls of dried shiitake mushrooms, and an entire can of bamboo shoots.

You reduce that until you can wipe it off the back of the spoon, if that makes any sense. A nappe, if you will. And then drain it and reserve the liquid. I add it to everything. A couple tablespoons in ramen. Put it in your meatloaf. Make salad dressing with it. Don't laugh. I hope that enriches your day. Stop laughing.

This is great. This is the most unique thing I've ever heard on this podcast. This is just an umami flavor bomb. It sure is. So making like the shiitake broth liquid. But he said it was Campbell's condensed. Which one? Which soup? Was it? French onion. French onion. So not cream of... Yeah. So it's onion soup. It's condensed onion soup. Yeah. It's shiitake mushrooms dried. In bamboo shoots. Dude, he just made a flavor bomb. You can...

If you go to any ramen restaurant in LA, they will charge you $7 to add that flavor combo. So way to go. True. But that flavor combo, when you add it to ramen, it's literally called tare, right? Yeah.

Yeah, sure. Tare is an oil, isn't it? No, I believe tare is like a kind of concentrate of dashi, dashi kombu, soy, and some other things. What you've made is a very heritage American tare. Sounds delicious. But albeit with shiitake and bamboo shoots, with the Campbell's soup, I do think 95% of what you've achieved could be just achieved by the Campbell's soup itself.

You know what I'm saying? Don't tell him. It's fun for him. Well, no, I know it's very fun. And again, this is like incredibly unique and I love that you have that. Strictly from a culinary standpoint, how much of those bamboo shoots doing?

They're adding body, probably. Adding body, straining it off. You think the bamboo shoot's boiling? It's going to add body? But still some comes in. What do you mean? Bamboo shoots are like, I feel like you eat bamboo shoots for the texture, not the flavor. His bamboo shoots are probably the really like gummy, like soft ones, not the hard ones that you're used to. I'm fascinated by this. It sounds good to me. It definitely sounds good. Bamboo shoots have a very clean, clear bacterial taste to them. It's like the bay leaf. The bamboo shoot is the bay leaf.

You know what I mean? It's like that little subtle bass line coming in. It's a subtle something. I'd put some wood chips in there. Freak. Have you seen that guy? Yeah. That makes the wood flavored ice cream? Yes, I have. That's the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. He made it with these weird trees that smell really gross. Saw that. Birchwood pear tree? Is that what it's called? Something. Birch rind pear. Beach pear. Peach plum pear. Yeah.

And he made an ice cream out of the flowers and the wood. And he said, ew, it tastes like it smells. Yeah, but then he just made like an oak ice cream and it was great. Put some wood chips in there. Do you feel like you've tasted it because you've seen it? Absolutely not. I hate that.

I hate you. Absolutely not. I literally hate you. But I am inspired by the idea. You mean to tell me that you can't qualify in your head that what you've seen and all the experience of your life, you've been able to, like, you've been around wood chips and you've been around ice cream and you've probably had some wacky ice cream, so you can't put yourself in the creator's shoes? I can put myself there mentally, but I also think there is something endemic to the human experience about

Being in a place physically and tactilely experiencing the world forever. Seeing a photo of a mountain doesn't do the justice of standing in its majesty. That's fair. That's fair. But you can't like... I want to eat the wood. But you can't taste the wood without eating it? No. Maybe you have synesthesia. No, I think you're just addicted to TikTok. Did you see a TikTok saying that you might have synesthesia? I don't know.

And now you think you do? No, no, no, no. What color is nine? Purple. Oh, maybe she got it. Maybe she's got it, folks. I do have a form of synesthesia. Sometimes I smell emotions. Love smells like birch wood. It's giving scared. I smell different. Oh my gosh, she's pregnant.

Well, on that note, thank you so much for stopping by Hot Dog is a Sandwich. We've got new episodes out on audio platforms every Wednesday. New videos out on Thursday. Sorry, dude, new videos are out on Sunday. What? I just said Thursday. That's crazy. I was like, what's the day next to Wednesday? And it's Sunday now. It would make sense for it to be on Thursday. Yeah, one would think.

If you want to be featured on Opinions and Like Cast, we'll put us up at 833-DOG-POD1. And if you like seeing videos of our faces saying words, we got plenty more. With that, came over to the Myth Kitchen channel. That's over at the YouTube's Hot Dogs. Check it out. Thanks again. Bye-bye. Starting your own business can be intimidating. Suddenly, you're wearing all the hats. Designer, marketer, customer support, shipping expert, insurer.

It's a lot. That's where Shopify comes in. Shopify is the global commerce platform powering millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. Shopify has your back. With hundreds of ready-to-use templates, you can launch a beautiful, professional online store that looks and feels like you. Need content? Shopify's AI tools can help you write product descriptions, headlines, even enhance your product photos.

Want to grow your reach? Easily create email and social media campaigns to meet your audience wherever they're scrolling. And with Shopify's world-class support, you'll have expert help for everything. Turn your big business idea into... with Shopify on your side. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash odysseypodcast. Go to shopify.com slash odysseypodcast. shopify.com slash odysseypodcast.