Is a Burrito a Wrap?
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This is A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What?

Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Shearer. And I'm your host, Nicole Inaidi. And today we're doing a very charged discussion here. This might be the dumbest thing we've ever talked about. I don't think it's the dumbest thing. I think this is actually really smart. It's pretty stupid. It's a little bit stupid. However, this did come up in my life recently because I was in Mexico, but

You were? I was, but I was in a part of Mexico that I'd never been before. What part was that? I was in the Yucatan. I was somewhere near Cancun in Quintana Roo, which is like much closer to Belize than it is to America. And I went, it was an all-inclusive resort, and I went up to the pool bar and I ordered something called El Super Wrap. And El Super Wrap literally had romaine lettuce, Caesar dressing, Parmesan cheese, and chicken in it.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a wrap. That's a wrap. And I agreed, but it was in, like, an actual really good flour tortilla.

Yeah, well, a lot of wraps are in tortillas. What else would they be in? And I asked, I said, is this a burrito? And they were just like, no. No mames. No mames way. No mames way. But also, I took a tortilla making class. I had a whole time at this resort. Wow, how long were you in the resort? Like eight days? Like six days. It was great. It was one of those things where if you're in an all-inclusive resort, the first three days are like super fun. And then the last three days, you're like, this is a little bit hell on earth. You're like, I guess I'll do water aquatic wraps.

Aerobics. Aerobics at like 4 a.m. I got nothing else to do. All you can eat shrimp for breakfast and tequila sodas at 9 a.m. no longer feel quite as quaint and fun. Nope, nope, nope. You get a little sick at all-inclusives. You get a little sick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people there got really sick, in fact. Yeah, yeah. I get sick at all-inclusives sometimes. And I think it might be like the alcohol thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Copious amounts of alcohol will do that. And like the food just like left out. Sure. Yeah. A lot of open air shrimp. But I've been to some really good ones too, but I've been to some really dramatically bad ones too. Well,

But, like, I'm in Mexico taking a tortilla-making class, and they're asking people what they know about tortillas, and Julia had to kind of poke me and go, like, don't say it. Don't do it. And then I did. I started talking about the miracle of nixtamalización 10,000 years ago. But the person there said something that I had to stop myself from jumping in on, where they said, and, you know, burritos and nachos, those aren't Mexican. Those are American. Nachos were literally invented by Chef Ignacio Ayala in—

Again, the state of Coahuila in Piedras Negras, which is in Mexico. You're talking about the individual nachos? Yeah, yeah. The first recipe for nachos ever was just melted cheese and jalapenos on whole tostadas that were then baked. But that was literally invented in Mexico. Right. And the burrito, a lot of people say, is an American invention. Maybe a lot of the burritos that we know of, like, say, the Chipotle burrito, right, which is based on the Mission-style burrito in San Francisco, that might be true. Which is delicious. Yeah.

I believe burritos were invented likely in the city of Juarez in Mexico. But that got me thinking, Juarez, right? If you look at a map, because I know y'all are looking at a map of Mexico right now. I haven't looked at a map of Mexico in a long time. I haven't looked at a map period in a long time. Well, you've heard of the city of Juarez, right? I don't know what municipality or part of Mexico it's in. Well, that's what I was going to ask. Where would you guess Juarez is? I don't know. Probably somewhere in the middle next to Oaxaca.

Juarez is literally on the border of the United States in northern Mexico. I believe the state of Chihuahua, maybe. It goes like Sonora, Chihuahua. Anyways, but it's right here. Your chair is so squeaky today. Why is your chair so squeaky? Why are you blaming me? Why do you think I have answers to this? I just sat in the chair. And why are you sitting so low? I don't know. I just showed up and the chair was here. Maggie, he looks wrong to me. Aw. Do you know?

That's worse. Does that feel better? Yeah, now you're more like where you typically are before you weren't where you were supposed to be. Thank you for fixing that. So somebody like from the Yucatan, a Mexican person, the culture of Juarez is probably very, very, very different. And I'm sure it is. So to them, burritos might be American even though they were technically invented in Mexico because it's on the border of El Paso, right? It's on the border.

So it's like what you consider Mexican, what you consider American, which I believe is like fully endemic to this debate. Well, what about Tex-Mex? That's what I'm saying. What about the states where, you know, they were just Mexico when burritos were mean? Exactly. You know, even up to like how the immigration patterns ended up in Colorado. Fair. You know? This all makes sense to me, Josh. What is your criteria for what a burrito is and what a wrap is? Because I have upsetting criteria for it. A burrito.

Must be warm.

A burrito must contain at least 90... Whenever you bite into a burrito, it needs to be at least 90% warm things. 90% by volume or by mass? Don't quiz me on this. Volume and mass, similar. They sometimes can be... No, they're almost opposite. Volume is by water displacement. You can see by water displacement. And then mass is just like physical? Mass is weight.

So I would say by volume, not including the tortilla. So it's the innards of the tortilla need to be 90% warm. Because whenever I think about a burrito, the colds are normally veg. Yeah. Like the tomato, the lettuce. Yes.

and the sour cream, and the avocado. Cheese. Cheese can be cold. Cheese gets melted, though. It should be melted, which is why I don't like Chipotle burritos. I was going to say, we're all building up to something where we're about to accuse Chipotle of not making burritos, of making wraps. But they're warm. That's where this is going. But they're warm. They're not. When's the last time you've eaten a Chipotle burrito and it was warm? Well, we get it delivered all the time at work, so... Well, that's part of it. But even eating there... You know, I actually ordered a...

Burrito from El Pollo Loco today, and they had a burrito section and a wrap section. Did you notice that today? No, I didn't. They had two separate sections, and I'm convinced that the burritos are warmer. Like, the majority of the ingredients... Okay, we won't say 90%. How about we say 70% by volume, the items in the burrito are by 70% going to be on the warmer side.

Albeit the rice or the carbs or the potatoes you put in there and the meat that you put in there. It's 70% those ingredients and then the rest is all the cold stuff. But once they're all like in a coagulated mass in the burrito, it all becomes a little bit warmer than you would anticipate. I do generally agree with that dichotomy right there. Oh, and all the ingredients have to be like Latinx. Yeah.

In origin. No, I think like a majority of like, you know, Mexican ingredients is key. But then like, does Chipotle cilantro limon rice count? I don't... Yeah, sure. Why not? I don't know. Why not? Cilantro and lime are ingredients that are used a lot in Mexican cooking. Yeah. So putting them in rice would make sense. But also they do that in the Caribbean as well. So...

That's a fair point. They're next to each other. They're close. If you took, like, the rice at Chipotle. I don't get rice from Chipotle, but okay. Humor me if you will. The majority of people, that's how Chipotle makes their money. If you look at my order today for my. If you don't get rice in Chipotle, it's just a soup. I don't get. I get brown rice maybe sometimes. Oh, and you ask them to drain your beans well. See, you do know things about me. I do. I listen a lot. I told you I drained the beans. Okay, continue. Sorry.

I'm saying if you took Chipotle's rice and you had it in just a clear bowl and you had like rices from multiple different cultures on a table, right? Because you know what Mexican rice looks like, right? Like the arroz rojo? Yeah, like arroz rojo, right? It's like, you know, it's fluffy, it's brown, it's generally cooked with a fat that kind of like seeps in there. It's utterly delicious. Sure. Occasionally you'll get some like peas and carrots kind of in there. Ganduales? Is that how you say peas? Gondules? Gondules. It's...

I consider gondoles more with like Caribbean Spanish. I just like the word. But anyways, like that's distinctly different from even like a jolof, like another red rice. Right. But if you saw Chipotle's rice sitting among a bunch of rice, I don't know that I could look at that and be like, you know what? That's Mexican. I would maybe think that that rice is actually like Indonesian. Same. Right. Yeah. It's like just steamed white rice.

It's got like an herb in it. And I'm like, yeah, maybe they do that in a part of Indonesia that I'm not familiar with. If I were to look at it, close my eyes and open it, and there's a bowl of cilantro lime rice from Chipotle, I might think that that's Indonesian. And I know we're like, we're essentializing the whole cuisine here. I know people in Mexico still just eat steamed white rice. Yeah, of course. You know, but I'm saying like, if you're a Mexican restaurant serving Mexican rice, at least in America, our context is like, that's an orange flavorful rice. I'll give you that. Yes. Right? Yes. And so if you consider that a Mexican ingredient, I don't know.

I think when you look at it, when you look at the panoply of ingredients that are offered to you at the Chipotle buffet, you would collect all the information, all the data, and it would lead you to believe that it is Mexican influence. Yeah, you had their new pollo con chipotle y miel. Yeah, it's all right. Yeah. It's all right.

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Hi, this is Deb Perlman. And I'm Kenji Lopez-Altz. On our podcast, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb, we share the basic building blocks of recipes so that you can learn everything you need to create your own perfect recipe. Yes, and let's get real. Not only do we share our know-how, we also share our opinions. And if you think that there's no right way to cut a sandwich, you are wrong. There is definitely a right way and a wrong way to cut a sandwich. That is everyone's way but mine. From PRX's Radiotopia, it's The Recipe with Kenji and Deb. Out now on your favorite podcast platform.

I got a bowl at Chipotle recently with white rice and no beans because I didn't want to fart on camera that day. I was having tummy troubles. I'm always farting on camera. And I got the honey Chipotle chicken and I tasted it and I was like, this is Panda Express. Yes, it is. It was just sugary sweet chicken on steamed white rice. And I was like, this is Panda more than Chipotle. Mmm.

They're straying from their Mexican-ness. It was founded by a white guy named Steve from Colorado. I understand all of those things. But again, I don't think Chipotle is like the monolith with which we should base this conversation on. They are selling the most burritos of any single entity in history, which is crazy. I understand that. But

But imagine, do you know what I think of whenever I think of a burrito or a wrap? I think about when I'm at the pool. Okay. When I'm at the pool, like a community pool. And then there's like a little shack that gives you like, like foods. There's like ice cream and like tuna salads. I got a hot dog. Or like a hot dog. Sure. Like a hot dog. And whenever I think about it, I think about the times whenever I would order a wrap.

And it would be this crazy, like either a roasted red pepper wrap or like a spinach wrap with God knows what is in there. Like a Chinese chicken salad mix just wrapped up and put in that green tortilla in front of me whenever I'm swimming. So I don't know. There's something about the tortillas that are used to because normally whenever I think about burritos, I think about flour tortillas. But whenever I'm thinking of a wrap, I'm thinking of a flour tortilla, a whole wheat tortilla, those roasted red pepper ones.

Which are all flour tortillas, but they've been adulterated in some way. But still, like, that abnormal red and green and, like, random yellows, they're so abnormal to me. And the filling is typically not Mexican-inspired. And then I just look at it, and I'm like, that's a wrap. But the way that they roll it, and to the untrained eye, I would also say, damn, maybe that's a burrito. Yeah.

I want to go back to El Pollo Loco. Go back. So did you see what I said? I'm looking at the El Pollo Loco menu right now. You saw what I said? You said what I saw? I'm seeing what you're seeing. I'm saying what you're saying. So El Pollo Loco is my favorite fast food restaurant in history. He really loves El Pollo Loco. We're getting it for lunch today. I'm so excited. New mango habanero chicken. Fantastic. But...

They are a legitimate Mexican fast food chain. They started in Mexico, and then their first branch in America was on Alvarado Street in Los Angeles. Sick. Like, El Pollo Loco, it's traditional pollo al carbón. That's why they make tamales and, like, I think they do, like, pozole every year, too. Who does? El Pollo Loco. They make pozole? They make pozole now. Yeah, so El Pollo Loco is, like, actually inauthentic. They're playing more to an American audience now, but...

They have something called a citrus avocado fresca wrap. One, my dad, when he was like really, really poor, would eat three cheesy bean and rice burritos every day. The BCRs? The BCR. I think they trademarked the BCR. They should. The bean cheese rice burrito. It's great. It's filling. So they have like proper burritos there, right? But this is the citrus avocado fresca wrap. This is a new limited time menu item. So the citrus avocado fresca wrap combines juicy citrus marinated chicken breast. They use Mexican spices on the chicken.

Creamy avocado slices. Avocado comes from a Nahuatl word for testicle. And salsa fresca, all with a subtle kick of spice. Avocado, salsa fresca, or pico de gallo, and grilled meat. That's my favorite burrito of all time, right? That's like a San Diego-style asada burrito. Okay. However, the kicker here, Nicole, what do you think this is wrapped in?

I'm going to guess. I'm going to guess and say a whole wheat burrito. A whole wheat tortilla. Tortilla de harina entero.

There you go. That is like, that's telling. Maybe that's not the only thing that differentiates a wrap from a burrito. But that is definitely one thing. I agree. I think the fact that it's wrapped in something other than just a flour tortilla is one small part of the equation. That's very bizarre. Yes, it is weird. This thing in another world. It's anglicized. It's just anglicized.

A wrap is just an anglicized burrito. I agree with that in general. Well, maybe even, okay, I would say anglicized, but also. Judeo-Christian. Christofascist burrito. Christofascistized. No, so many of the world's best foods are wraps, right?

I love, like, it's my favorite thing to eat. You know, you get a doner, you know, that's a wrap. Do you consider a Turkish doner, you consider that a wrap?

I don't have a lot. I actually have almost no basis of knowledge for Turkish food. I just went to Donair for some reason. We have like no Turkish food in Los Angeles. We need to take you to Germany and you need to go eat Turkish Donair in Germany. I love how you're like, you need to eat Turkish food. We're going to Germany. Because they have the best. They may have like invented Donair as we know it. I literally went to Germany and Turkey and I literally went. It was the same trip. And the Turkish food that I ate in Germany, like the late night donor was amazing.

miles better than what I had in Turkey. I'm talking about late night donor though. I'll never forget my dad telling me because he used to fly for free because he worked for the airlines. And so he ended up like in Rome with a cab driver and he said, hey, where do I get the best pizza? And the guy goes, New York City. Yeah.

That's incredible. Oh, wraps. Wraps around the world. Think of like a shawarma wrap that you might get, right? Think about Mia Mia shawarma, right? They're taking a flat bread. It's hardly leavened. Very similar to a tortilla. I believe it's yeasted, but it's flat. And they're wrapped. They're taking garlic spread. They're putting chicken in there. They're wrapped. That's like... You still can see it. You can still see it. You can still see it. Whenever they wrap it, you can see it. Oh, you leave it open. Yeah.

Whenever, okay, so my association with burrito is the fully encapsulated rolled and then rolled in some sort of like protective layer of paper or foil that you remove. That can't be endemic to burrito though, the foil. What are you talking about? The foil. Okay, I'm just saying for the ease of the traveler, it's the closing of the burrito and it's the rolling of the burrito.

That makes it a burrito. Because what you're trying to say right now is that a shawarma is in the burrito family. And I don't agree with that because a shawarma is typically wrapped or a jiro is wrapped in almost like a chalupa way. It's like you can still see the fill. So it's like a flower arrangement, right? So whenever you go buy flowers from Bristol Farms. I've never done that in my life. You've never bought flowers for your wife? I've bought flowers, but I get a bit like...

I'm going to kick your ass. The first time in five years of podcasting, Nicole has really threatened me with physical violence. I've gotten her flowers. I go to like Whole Foods. I don't know. You go to Whole Foods and then what do you do? So they wrap it in the back. I scratch off the price tag with my keys. Smart, smart.

but they wrap it in the back, right? And then on the inside is this beautiful bouquet of flowers. That wrapping style is the same wrapping style of a shawarma. I see what you're saying. You're saying it's almost like conical in a way. It's conical. Not Mia Mia shawarma, it's just Jordanian style shawarma. It's very, very tight. It is open at the end. It's not fully sealed.

Okay. But it's like, it is a very tight tube of bread and grilled meat. I understand that. And then they griddle it at the end? And then they griddle it at the end. They like kiss, they kiss the end of it. Okay. And we also know, you can tell the people about tacos arabes as well, just because it was cooked on a trompo or whatever. Yeah. And then, so there's a lot of

crossbreeding between these foods and I agree with you. Every culture figured out that wrapping, John Bing in China is in the wrap family. I agree. So when we talk about an anglicized burrito, I think the wrap as a large umbrella could also be very inclusive to world cultures. So you think wrap is the overarching term with which all of these foods should be compared to? That is so

So anglicized. Yeah, it's anglicized because we speak English. It's not the national language. But it's so... I speak it. It's the only language I speak. We're going to teach you more languages. I don't know Chinese. If I knew a Chinese term for that... I know, I know. I could call it that. I'm just trying to think. Would you consider it a Venn diagram? Almost. So we're doing an umbrella. Yeah, yeah. But maybe we need to change it to a Venn diagram. Maybe it needs to be like...

burrito, wrap, shawarma, jiro, jambing, and like... Sabich? Sabich? Sabich? A filled... Well, I was thinking about a filled pita. A leffa? La la laffa, the way that it's rolled, that is more burrito-like.

That's what I'm saying. So, okay. So, if we, if we have, can we write, can we draw this? Yeah, yeah. Can we get a piece of paper? Can we get like pens? Do you have pens? Whiteboard. Maggie, we need, we're too dumb to do this. Thank you so much. We're not,

I'm a visual learner. I will also say, in Juarez, the burritos are not closed. Would you like me to be the secretary? Would you like me to annotate what you're saying? That would be really nice. Well, no, I'd like to draw. You talk. In Juarez, the burritos are not closed. Okay, so at the top, I think we have, do it vertical orientation portrait. Okay.

At the top, I would say there could be an overarching umbrella called wraps. So you want to do umbrella? You want to do an umbrella with a Venn diagram? Well, let's explore it. No, no. I think no Venn diagram. I think we go like umbrella style. Do a Venn diagram. Draw a Venn diagram. If you don't want me to draw it, tell me you don't want me to draw it.

So when water is a burrito is not closed. A lot of people say like, well, a burrito is closed and a taco is not. So obviously you can have a taco and a large flour tortilla. But if it's rolled, people think it's not a burrito. That's not true. A burrito is a regional term for a taco. God dang it. That's not the umbrella that I meant. I just meant like a line coming down, like wrap at the top. And then you have. I drew an umbrella backwards. That was actually really impressive. That's pretty. I thought it was like a Dr. Seuss character that you drew. You know what? Yeah.

I was on the other side of Mexico, right? Oh, sure, Mickey. I was in Baja, California. And they had something on a menu called El Super Burro. What is Baja? El Super Burro, for them, was a big-ass flour tortilla that was filled with beans and meat and delicious things. That's a burrito. But this is Baja, California.

Well, we would call it a burrito. In Baja, California, where we were, they called it a super burrito. And then a burrito for them was filled with white people ingredients. Oh. So for them – That's crazy. A burrito must have been something that they associate with America. So literally, like, I ordered a burrito, and it was, like, iceberg lettuce, Thousand Island tomato, and lunch meat ham. Oh.

Pretty good, if we're being honest. But they called that a burrito. And then at actual restaurants where they were making what I call a burrito, they called it a super burro. Not only that, I've been to a food truck that does a Puerto Vallarta-style food. Okay. So another far... Puerto Vallarta's...

East Coast, right? I don't know. Well, no, isn't Cancun is East Coast? Yeah, Maggie, look up where Puerto Vallarta is. Yes, it is. It's next to Cancun. I've been to those places. Yeah, yeah. So that's also like... No sé, no sé. Lo siento. Anyway, zoom out. Jalisco. Oh, no, Puerto Vallarta is... Is next to us. No, so Puerto Vallarta is... It's West Coast, Mexico, but it's a lot farther south.

So I went to a restaurant that did Puerto Vallarta-style food, and they called it a burrita. Oh, feminization. Feminization. And so for them, a burrita was a big-ass sour tortilla that was filled. This is some of the most delicious food I've ever had in my life. It was at a food truck in Moreno Valley. Incredible.

Down far in the desert. But it was filled with like jamon del mar, the smoked marlin. It was filled with fried shrimp. It was filled with crema, chipotle, mayonnaise, and queso oaxaca. So it was a seafood burrito called a burrita? Correct. But that's what they call burritos. At least these people claim because I was chatting with them. Am I the only one who gets the joke? What? It's a seafood burrito feminized.

As burrita. Yeah, but why is it feminized? Because it's seafood? Oh, no. Hello. Good morning, ladies. No, that's not the joke. There's no way that that's what they're going for. Then why is it called a burrita? I just, I don't know. That's regional terms. Why is it called a super burro? I don't think they're talking about, I don't think they're talking about that. Maggie, you know the joke? Yes, she gets it. No. Okay, so we'll probably have to talk about it after because last time I talked about this joke, I got it. You got it. Canceled.

I got a lot of people telling me that that's both ableist and misogynist. And I'm like, it's not me. It's Afro Man, right? I don't know. Isn't it Afro Man? I don't know. It's Afro Man. It's not me. And Afro Man can do it no wrong. I've been holding this sign saying rap for the past five minutes. Give me the thing. You talk to them about stuff. Josh, tell them about the origin of the word burrito, if you don't mind. Yeah, so there's like an...

You could do both two things at one time. You're not Gerald Ford. What's that reference? He couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. I think that was probably like a weird campaign propaganda. Oh, really? Oh. You know? Well, come on. How about you do some good campaign propaganda when you run for president? Hold on. I think Josh would make a good president. Does anybody else think that? Josh. It's a burrito.

I don't know. I don't know enough. I don't know how to do stuff. Give it to me. What I'm trying to say is wrap the umbrella term and then burrito is underneath that. And then what subsets of burrito do we have? Like a Sonoran style burrito, right?

Have you ever had, this is another spot in Moreno Valley I went to. I really had a time in Moreno Valley. I can tell. But there was a Sonoran-style restaurant that they made this burrito that's like two and a half feet long using three tortillas, and they wrap the entire thing in bacon, and then they grill off the bacon so it fuses to the tortilla. Keto!

No, there's like a whole tortilla on it. It's not keto. Adding bacon to stuff doesn't make it keto, Nicole. I don't know. Is that what you think keto is? You just add bacon to things? No, I didn't hear the tortilla. I was writing. It was hard for me to concentrate and do both. Josh, how do you feel about the chicken Caesar salad boom and how it coincides with the chicken Caesar salad wrap boom?

Chicken Caesar salad boom. I think it speaks to the anti-intellectualization of America. People say that it has to do with comfort food. We saw this in the pandemic. Any restaurant that opened after the pandemic, it either has to be pizza, steak, or...

pasta, mac and cheese, fried chicken sandwiches or smash burgers. And chicken Caesar salad falls within that easily recognizable sort of meme foods. You know, and it's a delicious salad. I'm not saying it's not delicious, but I think the ability for anybody to think beyond mimetic recognition of a single food is really holding us back as a culture. Um, and that's all I have to say about that. I love a good chicken Caesar salad wrap.

Don't call it a burrito, though. Okay, Josh, I helped you out a little bit. So over here, we have the wraps. Caesar salad's Mexican. Oh. Oh, man. Oh. And if it's 80% hot chicken in there. Oh, man, Josh. Which is likely not. But does that make it a burrito? We discussed this. I don't actually think Caesar salad was invented in Mexico, but kind of like what we're talking about with the border town and nachos, and now it's kind of an Italian-American thing.

What do you got here, Nicole? I don't know. I'm really upset that you brought that up because now my list doesn't make sense, but it's okay. So we have a wrap, right? We have a big old wrap at the top of the list, which is where everything else is compared to. So we have burritos. We have shawarma. We'll just say a shawarma wrap. We'll say that, just a shawarma. And then Jianbing. And then we have a chicken Caesar salad. And then we have lettuce wraps over here, all right?

So without the burrito, you don't have the Sonora-style burrito. And without that, you don't have the convergence of the Chicken Caesar salad burrito. I can't speak. The Chicken Caesar salad wrap.

coming in and meeting together at the Southwest Wrap area. Now you've had a Southwest Wrap before, haven't you? With like chipotle mayo and stuff. Yeah, sometimes there'll be like little nubbins of corn and black beans in there, like a corn black bean salsa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's what constitutes a Southwest Wrap. Interesting. And I would not consider, I consider it a convergence, a convergence, if you will, of a wrap and a burrito. The singularity point of wrap food. Yes, yes, yes. Because it is cold most of the time. It is cold chicken going into the Caesar. Oh my God.

God, I hate this. And then you have your shawarma, which I believe is a standalone. For the sake of this conversation, you know what? Actually, I think shawarma shouldn't even be on this list.

Why not? When I say it is a wrap, I'm not saying it should be listed on a menu as wraps. Even though, frankly, you go to some Middle Eastern restaurants and I'm thinking about Crimson, they have a whole section for wraps, right? That's just like a lava shawarma. I put a question mark next to shawarma because it's just one big question mark. What is even shawarma? That's a great point. But shawarma, because shawarma refers to just the meat, but if you go get a shawarma, it's like people in London saying get a kebab.

And they generally mean something that is wrapped in bread that you can eat, right? Right, right. You know? So I'm simply saying if you are, if I'm trying to explain to a friend who knows nothing about food, knows nothing about the world, maybe they've been hit in the head recently. They are concussed. They are concussed. And I'm saying, let's go get a shawarma. And they go, what is it? And I'm like, well, so it's got this, it's called like sangak bread. Not sangak. No, what's it called? What's the Jordanian bread? Lahogh?

Is it Lechok? I don't know actually. Anyways, I'm like trying to describe. It's like a flat bread and then you shave the meat into it and there's a garlic sauce. It's called Tum. And then they go, I don't understand. And I go, it's like a wrap. It's like a wrap. It's a thing wrapped in bread. It's a hot wrap. I would say it's a hot wrap. How do you feel about people that say like wrap versus hot wrap? What's a friggin' hot wrap? Why are you getting so mad at me? Hot wrap sounds like a spa treatment. Hey, see you at the hot wrap tonight, baby. Okay.

And then I wrote lettuce wraps because lettuce wraps are still valid. You know, you ever been to, oh my God, have you ever been to Jimmy John's and they do the lettuce wrap thingy majiggy? If I ever have to end up at a Jimmy John's eating a lettuce wrap, I will assume something horrible has gone on in my life. You've given up on everything. I've absolutely capitulated to the demands of life and I've lost the war.

Well, on that subject. I would rather go to a 7-Eleven and get just like taquitos off the roller than get a lettuce wrap. I don't mind a Jimmy John's sandwich, but if I'm getting a lettuce wrap. There's also like the collard green wraps that they're selling now at the health food stores. I think that's pretty upsetting. That falls into lettuce wrap. But also, I went ahead and wrote pinwheels. You know the little, so without the wrap and you cut it in pieces, it's a pinwheel. Things you see on mommy blogs all the time. Yeah, I agree with that. They are derivative of wraps.

I would agree. I think rap is an overarching category. But I will say it's a little bit upsetting because of the connotations of raps because I think it was...

really carb phobic white ladies that popularize them. Which is weird because wouldn't the carbs in a whole wheat tortilla be the same? But it's like thinner than bread and frankly tortillas do generally have less carbs like per if you were to make an equivalently sized sandwich or a wrap the wrap is likely going to have less carbs. It's not all the time true but the fact that it is so thin really does generally decrease the amount. I get that. I think right how many people do you know that would order a wrap over a sandwich because they think it's healthier?

Nine out of ten people. Nine out of ten people. You know? I think they're wrong, though. And I attribute carb phobia to mostly white ladies. I know it affects everybody. This isn't just white ladies. Everybody has a little bit of carb phobia. I don't mean to blame women for this problem. I'm part of it. And then there's also Jianbing here for some reason. Well, I wanted to see how far we could take it. Because Jianbing, it's like a Chinese, you know, sort of like egg crepe that often has filling. Or a Taiwanese beef roll.

A Taiwanese beef roll. Taiwanese beef roll. We're leaving mainland China. We're going to Taiwan, which is a country. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. We're talking about a beef wrap. Oh, my God, Josh. You're so smart. Did I say it all together? No, no, no. Or beef roll, not beef wrap. Beef roll. Well, the Jianbing, let's just go ahead and do it over here, is related to the Taiwanese beef roll, which is related to pinwheels that your mom makes you. You put in your lunchbox. Oh, my God.

Oh my god, I love making lists. I need to work on my handwriting though. So what have we just, Josh? I think we need to answer the question. Is a burrito a rap? Is a rap a burrito? Tell the people what you really feel. I think it would be perfectly appropriate to use rap as an overarching category, but use it with a lowercase w, not in a way where

Somebody would say, let's get burritos. You go, that's just a Mexican wrap. No, don't do that. But understand that there are several foods around the world that are wrapped in a flatbread and thus share some phenotypical similarities. And the biggest similarity is that I love to put all of them in my mouth. However, burritos have a much longer and more complicated history than that. Also, we didn't get into it, but the story about why they're called burritos, where there was like one salesman in Chihuahua who would ride them around on a donkey. I think his name was Juan Mendez.

and called him burritos because he was on a burro. I think that's been pretty well debunked. Disappointing. Yeah, right. However, yeah, I don't know, man. Go eat a burrito. It's probably a wrap.

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If you went on a road trip and you didn't stop for a Big Mac or drop a crispy fry between the car seats or use your McDonald's bag as a placemat, then that wasn't a road trip. It was just a really long drive. At participating McDonald's. All right, Nicole, we've heard what you and I had to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky opinions are rattling out there in the universe. It's time for the segment we call... Opinions I Like Casserole!

All right, Maggie, fire up that first hot take. Hey, this is Spencer. I'm a dentist in Georgia. You're probably thinking, wow, he has such a silky, luscious voice. He really does. That's really only because the pollen outside is raining down like sulfur from the pits of hell. I heard it's been a really bad pollen year. My food opinion is that people need to stop calling food names after something that it's clearly not.

even close to. What do you mean? Like, I really hate when people say this is cauliflower mac and cheese. Oh. And it's just cauliflower with cheese. That's a gratin. That's not similar to mac and cheese at all. That's a gratin. Just call it something else. Gratin. Tell me what you guys think. Are there any other foods that you just really don't like the name of? All right, bye-bye.

So many. So many. One, silky smooth voice. Two, thank you for your service as a dentist. Nothing comes to... I love dentists. I've got a lot of dentist friends. Nothing comes to mind. Oh, this was really, really big. And one, the cauliflower mac and cheese thing. I remember when people were making, quote, cauliflower mashed potatoes. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was just...

At least mac and cheese has several ingredients, right? Okay. Cheese sauce, there's cheese in it, there's macaroni. So if you were to make like a cheese sauce and put bits of cauliflower in there instead of macaroni and call it cauliflower mac and cheese, it's still pretty inaccurate and a little bit infuriating, right? But like a potato is the name of something that grows from the ground.

So when you're calling something cauliflower potatoes. Is that like vegan chicken wings? Like a little bit, but at least that like serves a purpose. Buffalo cauliflower? You know what I mean? Like this, like buffalo cauliflower makes sense. Buffalo is just a style of sauce you put on cauliflower. Okay. But the cauliflower mashed potatoes thing. But is it mac and cheese? Just isn't that a sauce?

I suppose. That's why I'm saying this is an asinic. Cauliflower mashed potatoes were something that was like crazy to me because the potatoes are something that grows on the ground. Cauliflower is something that grows on the ground. What you've made is mashed cauliflower, not cauliflower mashed potatoes. Just cauliflower mashed. And it's delicious. And again, like all this just springs from carb phobia because people think that potatoes aren't good for you. I actually think potatoes are like very, very, very good for you.

I think potatoes are the most nutrientally dense or something like that. I think sweet potatoes are more dense than white potatoes. But there was like a war against white potatoes where they tried to get people on – they tried to pass legislation. It may have been passed where you couldn't buy white potatoes on food stamps. Oh. There was actually a potato farmer. Why? Who I think – because he said it wasn't nutritionally dense enough. It was deficient. That's screwed up. And –

I think it was a potato farmer who was like, I'm only going to eat potatoes for a year to show you that I can do it. And he did. But a lot of this is, yeah, carb-phobic type of stuff, trying to make stuff healthier, less filled with carbs because you're obviously not that worried about health if you're still making mac and cheese with it. But the thing is, I just love vegetables, right? Like I love mashed cauliflower, especially if you're serving it with –

Say there's something like a super rich braised short rib and like rich creamy mashed potatoes are going to be like kind of rich on rich. You want something a little bit lighter, a nice cauliflower puree, especially you roast that cauliflower before. It's incredible. Or a parsnip puree. Parsnip. Yeah. Puree something else, man. But this was happening a lot with like the Pinterest ass food blogs in the 2000s. Good times. Avocado pudding. The food. Chia pudding. The food styling on those. I still, I love so much. The aesthetic was incredible. They're perfectly imperfect. Perfect.

You know what I mean? But yeah, I remember people making like avocado chocolate pudding where they just blend avocado with like almond milk, cocoa powder and like a date. Right. You know, and it's like, well, no, a pudding in America is like a starch and dairy. Well, we could talk about puddings all day, every day. Yeah. They mean to different people. But then there's stuff like a cauliflower steak. Yeah.

Right? I like that. I love it too. I think it's fun. I think it's fun too. Greg the dentist, I don't agree with you. Where is your whimsy? It's too stifling almost.

I feel like in order for people to relate, I think we have to add these like footnotes, you know? Ultimately, language is merely a tool to communicate ideas. So if you're trying to tell somebody, I have made a spoonable, sweet, chocolatey, creamy thing, which we would call pudding, but I've made it out of avocados. It like does seem perfectly reasonable to call it –

Avocado pudding. Yeah. Chocolate hummus. I thought I liked dessert hummus, man. I know it's crazy and maybe disrespectful, but I love it. The Mina community was in shambles. The Mina community? I love that. I mean, it's okay. I understand it. I've had it maybe like once or twice, but I'm not going to actively look for dessert hummus. Yeah, but like blending chickpeas, I mean, it ultimately at that point becomes like a Japanese or Chinese like bean paste based dessert. There you go. Just sweet blended chickpeas. It's like a zuki bean.

Adzuki beans. So I see where your frustration comes from. But I think it's whack. But ultimately, I think you have to swallow that. Give in, Greg the dentist. You know, and understand that this is merely how we use language as a tool. We need to do it this way. Despite there's no macaroni in that macaroni and cheese.

Hello, Josh and Nicole. Hi. My name is Abby. I'm from the Central Valley. And talking right now is really nerve-wracking because I don't know if I have more than one shot at this. But something that I do at every single salad bar that I go to, if they have Jell-O, it doesn't matter if it's the kind of Jell-O that has like that pudding stuff mixed in with it, but it does have to be that red Jell-O.

cherry jello. I get a plate of that and I top it with a bunch of sunflower seeds and it is the most delicious combination. Oh, wow. Thank you. This is so salad bar. This is only things that you could achieve at a salad bar. And I love it. I love sunflower seeds. I'm a big sun butter advocate. I love sun butter so much. And I love sunflower seeds. I just eat them by the handful, the unshelled ones, because, you know, I don't,

I don't like spit out the seeds. We covered this a few pods ago. So I just love this so much. And I think it's, I can taste it. I close my eyes and I can taste it. And I love it.

Getting weird with Jell-O. Getting weird with Jell-O. That's a quintessential salad bar experience. I'm not at the salad bar to make a nice romaine and radish and canned olive salad. No, no, no. I'm there to get freaky with the Jell-O. I'm here to get freaky with the Jell-O too. I'm putting like Jell-O, raisins, vanilla ice cream, mashing it into a slurpable paste, chewing on the raisins. That's what I'm there for. I miss my mom's Jell-O, man. She used to make the best Jell-O.

Great little, like, speaking of carbophobia, like kind of a little bodybuilder hack. Poor mom. She really tried her best. Sugar-free Jell-O. Was she doing the sugar-free Jell-O? I don't remember. I just remember it being good. You take sugar-free Jell-O and you just put a bunch of, like, fruits in there. Pomegranate seeds, man. Yep. Oh, my God. You know, I'm going to ask her to make it for me.

And I'll report back because let me tell you, my mom's jello bunts, they were perfect every time. Your mom was whipping jello molds out? She made jello bunts. Dude, that's awesome. With pomegranates. They would never sink to the bottom. She was smart. She would lay the first layer down and then she would wait and then she would do another layer with the pomegranates so it would look like they were floating.

Very aesthetically pleasing. Bring back Jell-O desserts, man. I'm a huge fan of all gelatin-based desserts from Vietnam to Mexico to the Philippines. Oh my God, Mexican mosaic gelatina? Oh my God. Me and my mom used to go to Northgate Market and we would get the little individuals of it and just sit in the car and eat. There's a Filipino dessert that's called Cathedral Window.

Have you ever seen this? That's literally look up mosaic. Look up gelatina de mosaico. It's the same thing. Gelatina de mosaico.

Same exact thing. Oh my God. Wait, literally the same thing. I told you. Yeah. Oh, that's so funny. That's probably Spanish influence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I bet. Cathedral. Catholus. Cathodials are Catholic? They're Catholic, yeah. Philippines, Mexico. But for some reason, our Catholic God insists that you eat multicolored geometric shaped jello desserts. Because you can't have fun with like premarital stuff. So you have to eat colorful jello. So you make up for it. We got to do hand stuff and jello. That's all we get. Yeah.

Hey Josh and Nicole, long time fan, first time caller, smash that like button, hit the bell to be notified. Subscribe really helps the channel out. That's great. My take is that coriander, ground coriander, is the best spice. Oh. And it's not even close. Yeah. Everything else pales in comparison. No one else talks about that. Love the content, keep it up. Congrats, Nicole. Party on. Party on. Party on with your coriander. Hell yeah.

Incredible take. Incredible take. Not a lot of people...

Eat coriander seeds. No. Start doing it. Put it in. If you're going to use cumin. Yes. Put a little bit of coriander. It'll set it apart. Use coriander as your like base spice for most things. Like coriander over black pepper. Well, I'm telling people to introduce it in a more. Yeah, cumin and coriander. That's a great. Yeah. One of my favorite uses of fresh toasted cumin and coriander. I, in fact, I stopped buying ground cumin and coriander because.

And pepper as well. But I'm like, anytime I'm using those spices, I'm toasting it fresh and I'm grinding it fresh. In a mortar and pestle? In a mortar and pestle, I also have a spice grinder that I can get pretty coarse. Good. But like you do a fresh toasted coriander coarsely ground. Mmm.

With cumin, and my favorite application on it is on a, I think, I believe a Lebanese potato dish called batata hara. Oh, I love batata hara. Oh, my God. You just, you fry the hell out of potatoes. I'll, like, boil them, batter them, double fry them. Fresh lemon, cilantro, chilies, cumin, coriander. I love that. Toss it, and it's just one of the best things in the entire world. Serve it with some sort of yogurt. Yogurt.

Oh my god. Oh, fresh-toasted coriander. Great opinion. Also, one of the Pachami spices. Yeah, underrated. More people need to have coriander seeds in their cabinets. Leave it whole, dude. Crunch through seeds. Some people don't like that. Yeah, grow up. Well, if people are down to eat everything bagel seasoning... That's what I'm saying.

Yeah. You know what? Grow up. Grow up. Grow up. Eat whole seeds. Eat whole spices. Eat them. It's good. Bet you won't. Maybe you should. Double dog dare ya. Though I did. I made like a whole pink peppercorn sauce and I kind of boiled the pink peppercorns so they get softer. Not as soft as green peppercorn but definitely softer than black peppercorn. Uh huh.

And then I went to the gym after I ate a bunch of peppercorn sauce. I was burping up pepper for a long time. I made a fish sauce caramel the other day and I put white pepper in it and I didn't grind it fine enough. Yeah, white pepper is... It was assertive. Yeah, it's a quite assertive flavor. It was assertive, but it was good.

Hey, Molly here. Hey, Molly. Love the name Molly. I am from South Carolina. Am I calling you Molls? And my opinion is that cornbread should not be sweet. Classic Southern cornbread is just corn meal.

Oatmeal, butter, milk, salt. Josh. The whole shebang. Yeah, this is something. Maybe you put some frozen corn kernels in it. Okay. Maybe you put some cheddar cheese in it. Okay. But this store brought cornbread that almost tastes like cake. Uh-uh. Okay. That's not it. Let me know what you guys think. I'll tell you what I think. Thank you. You're so welcome, Molly. I'll tell you what I think.

I don't agree with you. I like my cornbread sweet. I love my cornbread sweet. I need it sweet so much so that a little drizzle of honey on top of my already sweet cornbread makes it a better cornbread eating experience. This is one of those things that if you're not from the South, if you're like divorced from that culture. I am not from the South. And you eat like proper cornbread from the South, you go like, boy, that needs more sugar.

Right. Because we grew up eating the cornbread that a lot of us grew up eating. If you're not from the South, like Jiffy Box cornbread mix. Right. They're using sugar as kind of like a cheap palliative to make it taste better. It's like a corn cake at that point. Yeah. I've been to some restaurants in L.A. to make their cornbread. They're putting like a ton of eggs in there as well and like butter and like literally making it like a cake.

And it's a delight, but yeah, it ain't like southern hot water cornbread. Yeah, I guess my cornbread experiences are mostly from, what's it called, like the grocery store. Yeah. From like Kroger or Ralph's. You get the corn muffins that have like the kind of corn syrupy consistency to it. Yeah. But it is like very different from the context of eating proper southern cornbread. My dad loves store-bought Ralph's probably.

On sale cornbread. That's his one of his with like a so cute with like a little like softened butter and like salt. That's like his jam. Do you have any like regional foods like that that you grew up with that they get sort of adulterated by a different culture? And you're like, listen, I get why you think that tastes better, but I don't want it. Not right now. I need to think about it.

I can't give you like a true answer right now. I'd have to go deep into the recesses of my mind. I don't know. Is there like anything that like people keep doing this thing where they're like griddling cheese on the outside of a burrito? Yeah. And I just like I hate it.

I love it. I hate it. Oh, I love it. I don't want that burnt cheese flavor with the ingredients inside of the burrito. You don't like a grilled cheese burrito? No. What do you mean a grilled cheese burrito? That term's been around for like two years since Taco Bell invented it. A grilled cheese burrito? You don't like it? No, not at all. Okay. I want the outside of my burrito to be a solid tortilla. Oh, my God. Is a Crunchwrap Supreme a burrito? No. Burritos need to have some semblance of cylindricality. I believe that in my heart of hearts. All right. Okay. Okay.

All right. Well, that's about all the time we got for today. Thank you for listening to A Hot Dog is a Sandwich. We've got new audio-only episodes every Wednesday and a video version here on YouTube every Sunday. If you want to be featured on Opinions or like Casseroles, hit us up at 833-DOGPOD1. It's the only phone number I've memorized since my own. I remember, like, some elementary school friends' phone numbers. Yeah, me too. But this is the first phone number. I don't even have my husband's number memorized. I don't even know what Julia's area code is. Oh, that's bad. You should probably know the area code now.

But like, yeah, this is the first number I've been able to memorize in like years. I'm very proud. If everybody, here's what I think everybody should do. I don't know if podcasts is over, but here's what everybody should do. Because dog pod one, like we still remember roughly what, you know, those letters correspond to. Yeah. We could all certainly spell words with our own numbers.

You want to see what ours is and then tell people and they can find out what our phone numbers are. No, that's not what I'm saying. And then it can be really scary. Julia should, you know, maybe it's like VagPol or something. One time I saved a lady. One time I saved an old senile lady that somehow was in our garage at like 3 a.m. She was just posted in our garage and she gave me her phone number and it's 155-CAROL.

Her number was area code and then 1555ZAROL or something like that. Funny. Because her name was Carol. I love that. She got a vanity number. She got a vanity phone number. Everybody's phone numbers, you should have words that you can spell and that'd be easier to remember. We can do that off camera later. And we come out with new YouTube videos all the time over on Mythical Kitchen. Please check those out. Like, subscribe, comment, hit that bell. Do whatever you want in life. Go eat a burrito.

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