Is Chili Crisp Overrated?
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Josh, you know who loves Lao Gan Ma? John Cena. John Cena loves Lao Gan Ma. Man, like, I was gonna do like a whole joke about it. Like, you know, make it funny. Why did you jump all over like that? Now I've become Death, destroyer of jokes. 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 we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Shearer. And I got my joke taken away from me, but I'm Nicole Inayadi, I guess. And I hope you learned a valuable lesson that bad things happen to good people. John Cena?

Well, yeah, John Cena has said... John Cena's married to a Persian girl, so I automatically love him. I didn't know that. I love him because he is very large. He's so large. And I trust large men like John Cena and Jack Reacher. You trust large men? I think the world trusts large men. I think that's a thing. Does that mean you distrust small men? I don't want to perjure myself here in front of the court. Mm-hmm.

But I think it's like scientifically shown, and this is messed up. This is a bias that the world has, that larger men induce more trust in people. Lyndon B. Johnson, giant. How do you feel about Chris Kattan? I love Chris Kattan, dude. Corky Romano. Mango. Mango, like incredible. Night at the Roxbury. Chris Kattan is an American hero. But if him and Will Ferrell are next to each other, which one are you going to ask for directions?

Both of them. I guess. No, I don't know. I'm not saying anything about Sherpa. I've lived my whole life, and that's my bias. That's my privilege as a tall person. You're tall? Are you considered like a tall guy? Like statistically, yeah. How tall are you? 6'2". Maggie, can you look up where 6'2". On a good day? Is that real? Is that real? Is that real?

I'm a real 6'2", but I got the measuring tape. I just wear small shoes. Look at where 6'2 is in relation to statistical distribution. What percentile? Say 6'2", what percentile American height? Chili crisp. That's what we're eating today. We are eating a bunch of, I would call it Sichuan chili crisp.

But I don't know if that's necessarily true for all the things that we're going to eat today. I think, yeah, it started as Szechuan Chili Crisp. Yes, and that's what I knew it as. And I mostly only ate the one brand. 6'2 is in the 90th percentile. I am taller than 9 out of 10 men. Okay. Go off, queen. It's not something that I hold as part of my personality. But, you know, statistically, I wish I was 6'4. Everyone wishes they were something else.

The Sichuan chili crisp that I grew up eating and that I still... You grew up eating this. Not like grew up eating, but probably since I was like a late teen. Okay, fair. At least last decade plus, I've been eating Lao Gan Ma chili crisp that you will see over here. Right, right. That is kind of like the progenitor. Is that? Progenitor. I say progenitor.

You can say progenitor. I think progenitor is what most people say. I like progenitor because it makes it sound like terminator. You don't say terminator. Terminator. You don't say terminator. I say terminator. I am the terminator. Yeah.

I tried my best as governor of California. I made several missteps, but my heart seemed like it was in the right place. I'm married to Maria Shriver. I thought I could reach across the political divide. That's pretty good. The Arnold documentary about his political career is actually pretty fascinating. He really seemed like he tried. He did try. The governor tried. The governor tried. It hit on a miss. It hit on a miss. Isn't his son in...

White Lotus? Yeah, Patrick Schwarzenegger. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. We need to be... Listen, look at me. We are getting way too off topic and it hasn't even been funny. I was just about to talk about how much I loved him. Small role in Gen V. The spinoff from The Boys, but it's about the college. Anyways, Lao Gan Ma. Lao Gan Ma is the progenitor?

Progenitor. Laoganma basically is the progenitor of... It's the OG. It's the OG. 100%. Laoganma is the OG. People will call it just like Grandma Chili Crisp because the person on there, Tao Hua Bi, who I am so sorry for my Chinese pronunciation, but she kind of started this company from scratch. Yeah, and it translates into Old Godmother.

Yeah, Old Godmother. So that's who is actually on there. And like she was born, you know, just before like the Maoist revolution and she was super poor. She was like never learned to read and she eventually opened up a noodle shop as she got older and she made her chili crisp. Chili crisp is something that goes back to like the 1700s in cookbooks that you can find in China and, you know, the OG recipes are just like fried chilies and sesame oil and serve. Right. But she would make this with like crispy soybeans and sesame seeds and all this stuff in it. Right, right. And she would serve that at

her noodle shop. One day she runs out of sauce and people are like, I'm not even eating the noodles without this delicious chili sauce on it. So she starts marketing it and then now the family, the Tao family is worth over a billion dollars. Honestly, that's cool. That's a cool billionaire. I'd say the American dream is the Chinese dream, I suppose. I'm getting paid to say that.

No, I'm not John Cena. I recognize Taiwanese sovereignty. I am not getting paid to say that. But no, but this to me is still like the standard bearer. And then now as this condiment got more popular, we're kind of seeing the same thing that we saw with sriracha, right? Exactly. Yeah, I'd say so.

And now this is sort of calling it the new Sriracha is super, super reductive. But also in terms of like cult fandom, even down to the brain. In terms of the way Americans digest spicy things, I think calling it the next Sriracha is applicable in this space. I would also say the way that America digests culture in a way, right? Fair, yeah. The way that America, like we will see something. And when I say we, I mean just like the collective population. Yeah, the collective unconscious here sees something with culture.

A unique branding. And both Sriracha, thinking of the rooster on the bottle. With the green top. With the green top. Big, just bright red bottle. You see it at Chinese restaurants. Similar, like, very iconic branding with Lao Gan Ma and the old godmother on there. The granny with the apron on it. Yeah, there was an analysis of their branding where somebody talked about how it kind of harkens back to, like,

socialist China branding. I know, I saw that too. I was doing the research, I saw that too. Yeah, so I think that's really funny, but now we have all of these competitive brands, including places like Trader Joe's have come out with their own Chili Crisp. People are putting on ice cream, and today we are going to try these different products. This is very exciting for me. This is very exciting for me. I'm a big Chili Crisp fan. What's your favorite thing to put it on? Pizza. Pizza! Chili Crisp on pizza! Chili Crisp on pizza is probably my favorite application. Interesting. Or a bowl of white rice. Either or. I have a question about Chili Crisp on pizza. So...

The American view of hot sauce is really, really unique. Okay, explain. All of our hot sauces, if you think about it, follow a similar format of chili pepper, vinegar, salt. Those are the only three ingredients in Tabasco. But then even all of our...

Other hot sauces past Tabasco, past like the Louisiana style hot sauces, they still have like a similar profile in terms of like acid, salt, and heat. There is a large amount of acid in – And viscosity. Oh, sure. That's fair. I'll say this about Chili Crisp or Chili Crunch. There is no acid in it. And if it is, it is so faint and so minute that it doesn't even register to me when I'm eating it. A lot more countries have things like chili oils. Yeah.

which is great because the oil actually like blooms all the aromas and the chili and stuff. And a lot more countries have things like chili paste. You look at like Indonesian sambals. Sure. You look at harissa. You look at, I was going to say, schug. Yeah. Also, it's called like zachawig. I only know it as schug. The Yemeni zachawig. But like, you know, the like thick pastes. And so it's kind of crazy that this like really took off.

In America the way that it has. When do you think that it started gaining an insane amount of traction? I would say like 2018 maybe. Was that the first time you saw it? Like...

The first time that I saw it, I mean, dude, I've been shopping at like 99 ranches for forever. So we're on a different plane. That's true. Me and you have been around this for like years and years and years. But I think when people started like putting it on ice cream. And avocado toast. And avocado toast. And there were the eater.com articles. Like the new trend of putting chili crisp on this. And there's a lot of different products out there on the market. I remember there's one that we don't have here. But it was just called Japanese. Oh, my gosh.

I literally have it right here. Yes, yes, yes. S&B chili oil with crunchy garlic. The umami topping. The umami topping. There's so much MSG in that, and it's delightful. But you're getting a lot of different notes here. On the pizza front, sometimes you'll go to like especially new fancy pizza places. They don't give you crushed red pepper. They give you Calabrian chili oil. Yes, they do. You would prefer a Sichuan chili crisp over Calabrian chili oil. So what I actually prefer is this one right here. So this is called Mishima. This is Chef Tony's recipe. Dang.

I was raised on this because I think Smart and Final used to have Chef Troy's Mishima Garlic Chili Crunch. You know these people?

I mean, I was raised on this. Like, this was in my house. My brother would always get this. This was the one thing he would always have. And the ingredient breakdown is soybean oil, garlic, sesame oil, onion, sugar, salt, chili, soy sauce. There's yeast extract, but there's no Sichuan in here. But let me tell you, this was my first, like, foyer into chili crunch, chili crisp, and it

It's so damn good. I don't think there's Sichuan peppercorn in... Which one? Sichuan chili crisp. In the one that we have? Which one? In Lao Gan Ma. Is there Sichuan peppercorn in Lao Gan Ma? Let's see. Let's see what we got. So the Sichuan peppercorn that Nicole's talking about, when you... There's a phrase, ma la, and like I can't remember if it's ma or la, but one of them is like the spicy heat you get from capsaicin and chili pepper. The other one is from this kind of electric tingle you get...

from very few plants on earth like the jambu flower in Brazil buzz buzz ball is that what it's called buzz ball not buzz balls buzz buttons buzz buttons sorry buzz balls are kind of vibrating in another way it's like a drink before a concert in a parking lot but that and Sichuan peppercorn and like

prickly ash in Japan. Right. Give you this electric tingle, but I don't think there's Sichuan peppercorn in that. I think there's just chili. In this one, in this hot chili sauce version, I think there's about 30 versions of Lao Gan Ma, by the way. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But this one, it only has soybean oil, chili, fermented kohlrabi, which I've never ever tasted before, knowingly. Yeah, peanut...

Monosodium glutamate, salt, sugar, pepper powder, sulfur dioxide, sodium sulfide. Go ahead and give that. Crazy. I've never seen the ingredient breakdown on Lao Gan Ma, so that's exciting for me. Fermented kohlrabi. That is a trip. That's going to give it a nice little funk. Should we start breaking into these and trying them? Yeah, I got little cute spoons. Oh, God, that smells so good. Doesn't it? Let me smell. Grab yourself a good spoonful first. OG Lao Gan Ma. So this isn't like the ultra crispy one. This is just Lao Gan Ma.

I don't think this is the crisp though. It's not? Nope. Is that a problem? No, I don't know. Josh, is that a problem? What? Is that a problem? You know. Is there an actual Lao Gong Ma chili crunch? Yeah. Well, it is crunchy. Dude, it's the MSG. And this one, the fermented kohlrabi, that's really, really fun. It's kind of iconic. Damn.

There's no Sichuan peppercorn in that, though. Nope, but it's really good. God, that is good. It does offer such a unique flavor profile compared to anything else.

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which is really nice. So now I have like my own little scheduled learning time. I'm really amazed at how quickly I've picked up useful phrases. Es muy facil, Nicole, whether I have five minutes or an hour. It's cool because I can learn on my own time at my own pace. That's so wonderful. I'm glad that you kind of like quelled the scary Sundays, you know, that we all have by learning a new language. Gracias. Rosetta Stone is a trusted language expert with 30 years of experience

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Dude, I'm on an empty stomach. I haven't eaten any lunch. You didn't eat lunch? Where's the time, Nicole? Where do I have time? I ate my Mendocino Farm sandwich, no problem. I'm going to be burning up by the end of this, and I'm pretty excited about it. Do you want a piece of toast? Absolutely not. I'll get Colby to make you a piece of toast, man. Do you think anything there is going to beat that? Because we have some interesting products here. Yes, I do. Let's crack open the next one. Let's compare these. Okay, so this is Fly Beijing. I would say this one is probably the second most iconic.

Fly by Jing and Momofuku. Because I want to talk about these two for a second. Drama! There is a lot of drama. So, David Chang, who opened Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York. An iconic restaurateur. Iconic restaurant. I've eaten there. He really popularized, one, paying more money for a bowl of ramen, especially in relation to how much money people would pay for a bowl of spaghetti. I think really did a lot, especially for East Asian food. He started...

The company Momofuku making prepared food products. CPG products. Like Chili Crunch and also like barrel-aged soy sauce, stuff like that. There was a lot of drama when his company, I believe in 2023—

filed a trademark and not only that, they were sending cease and desist letters for the use of the phrase chili crunch. It kind of exploded in the food media. It exploded in food media like crazy and David Chang got so much flack from it. A lot. What was your first reaction when you heard that? Because he was sending cease and desist to like family-owned brands. When I say he was sending, that's an asterisk over he. His legal team. Yeah. So...

My initial thought was, he's not a businessman. He's a business man. And, you know, sometimes people in business do shady things. They do. But I don't think he did anything necessarily shady. I think he went through all of the legal parameters that he was given. And he did things that were a little bit, I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. But again, I'm not a business-minded person.

I don't, when you say I wouldn't do that, I've just never been in that situation. Josh, me and you, love you to death. Me and you are business, it's not like business people like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, oh, that was so spicy. So I don't know if the opportunity presented itself to me to trademark Chili Chris, to write cease and desist letters. Would I do it? I really don't know because I don't think that way. I don't operate that way. Sure.

But, you know, someone who's, you know, trying to make a conglomerate, trying to, you know, make incredible CPG products and to, you know, influence people. Yeah. They might do stuff like that. No, that makes sense. My initial read on it, and I think now that I think about it, I'm like less charitable now towards David Chang in that camp. My initial read on it was like,

This is just business as usual. And also, he's not running the day-to-day operations, right? No, he has a huge team. He certainly has a team, and lawyers are probably just like,

Oh, we're creating a product called Chili Crunch. Chili Crunch? Chili Crunch. We're creating a product called Chili Crunch. They actually bought the trademark from another company. It was actually a Mexican foods company. Yeah, spelled C-H-I-L-E. Yeah, that had already had it. And so they're like, okay, we have the opportunity to buy this trademark. We should do it. That makes a ton of sense. I know like a lot of people just kind of trademark a lot of different things. Just to do it. I don't know the laws behind that. It's the sending of cease and desist letters. That rubbed you the wrong way. Because you could choose to not do that, right? Sure. You could choose to, hey, we have this trademark in case –

Kraft Foods comes in with a chili crunch and tries to like... Maybe they were trying to get over the sriracha of it all.

Well, so Sriracha is the interesting thing because they never trademarked nothing. Well, that's what I'm saying. Maybe he didn't want what happened to Sriracha to happen to Chili Crunch. But that being said, the date that Lao Gan Ma came out versus the date that Momofuku Chili Crisp came out are two very different dates. 100%. So like Lao Gan Ma already like a very established product. Whereas Sriracha, I mean, Sriracha was an established product in Thailand. Sriracha Panich, the original sauce. Right. But it wasn't really in America where Lao Gan Ma...

Obviously is. But it really is the sending of cease and desist letters because a lot of what their team said that was like, well, we're trying to protect from larger brands, which does make sense. That's what I'm saying. If you're trying to protect family-owned businesses from larger brands, then why are you sending them cease and desist letters? But why are you sending cease and desist letters to the small families? Could have just been a kind of mistake, whatever. I think there were other things that David Chang did that people sort of got rubbed the wrong way. And so it was kind of a right for it in a certain sense. David Chang, come on the podcast.

David Chang, come on the podcast, man. Let's talk about it. I'd love to have you on. Absolutely, man. We had our Coke Quick Release party at Major Domo. Hell yeah. Love his food. Awesome, successful, interesting guy. The interesting thing... Go ahead. The interesting thing... Yes? Fly by Jing. So this isn't Fly by Jing. This is Momofuku. I just ate Fly by Jing. Really great. Deep dusky. Super, super... Yeah, Jing Gao, I believe is her name. She started this company making kind of smaller batch chili crisps, and she was like,

And actually tried to trademark the phrase Sichuan chili crisp in 2019. Oh. Yes. So this is just how – it doesn't make her a bad person. But they were not successful. They were not successful because it's like trying to trademark like jalapeno hot sauce. You can't trademark that because it's a commonly understood phrase.

So you can't trademark ketchup? You cannot trademark ketchup. At this point in time, you cannot trademark ketchup. No, you can probably trademark terms like extra fancy ketchup, which I'm sure somebody has, you know. Okay. Or like, I don't know, homestyle creamy ranch. Something stupid like that. Right. But when it's like just a name of a product, you can't.

You can't trademark that. So it's like anybody in this situation might just trademark that basic term. But I think because David Chang is already very rich and very successful, whereas Jing is a really awesome startup. Also, Flyby Jing makes ridiculously awesome products. Yes, I use a lot of them myself. And also, we're not experts on this situation, but it was a ridiculous level of drama. We are not lawyers.

in the food community at the time. I remember when it happened, me and you like sat down and like really tried to dissect it. Do you remember that? Yeah, we did. We were in your office. I was sitting on the couch. You were sitting at your desk and we're like, what are we going to do about this David Chang thing? Like he's our brother or something. A second David Chang has said, all right, let me try Momofuku next to Fly by Jing because these are the two like direct competitors. I'll say this about the Fly by Jing. I'll say that there's a depth and a duskiness and a smoothness

savory note that is unique to Fly by Jing. Yeah. And the spice level is much higher. Please don't double dip with the Momofuku. Oh my god. Not with the Momofuku. I want you to have an honest to god original experience with it. The Momofuku is really spicy. It's really sweet and nutty. So sweet. Which is cool but also I don't know if that's what I want from you see a deeper toast on the chilies in Fly by Jing. Right. A deep toast. The oil color is different.

A big technique I've learned from like cooking a lot of different international dishes. Burn the shit out of your foods, man. Like sometimes like you toast a lot of Mexican cooking. A lot of steps that I've seen a lot of like white American cooks not take. Burn it. Frying the hell out of the chilies. Frizzle it. Getting that super, super burnt. Get it frizzled. Should I read the ingredients on the fly-by-chain? Yeah.

Non-gmo Sichuan rapeseed oil. Oh, they still use that term instead of canola. Uh-huh. That's crazy. Soybean oil, dried chili pepper, preserved black bean. I think that might be the deep dark dusky that we're tasting. Garlic sesame oil. It is the black bean, hey? Shallot, garlic, ginger, mushroom powder. There's that savory note. A lot of umami in there. Seaweed powder, spices, Sichuan pepper. Is there MSG in there? No.

Fly by Jing coming to a gunfight with a knife and maybe winning? This is really good. That's really good. And, like, there's, again, there's nothing wrong with MSG, but the fact that they're able to...

get that level of depth with black bean paste and mushroom powder. Let me say. That's really cool. The Momofuku though, I love the sesame notes. The sweet and the sesame. They're different products, right? How on earth could anyone put these two products, the Fly by Jing and the Momofuku next to each other and say that they are the same product? Blows my mind. It's like Tapatio versus Tabasco.

You know? That is a very fair observation. They can be in the same aisle, but they shouldn't be next to each other. No, and I want to put one of those on eggs and hash browns in a diner with ketchup. That's Tabasco. Then I want to put the other one on a breakfast burrito. That's Tapatio. Josh, you know, typically you don't make a lot of sense to me, but right now you just did. Thank you. I'm incredibly smart. And I eat so much hot sauce. Oh, you do. What do you think about that compared to the Lao Gan Ma, though? The Lao Gan Ma?

The fly-by-jing. Fly-by-jing and mamofuku compared to Lao Gan Ma. Because once we get past this, I mean, we can... The chunk of the Lao Gan Ma is really enjoyable to eat. I love the chunk factor. I think it creates a really fun taste sensation in your mouth. Also, think about it. People aren't eating these spoonful by spoonful like us nutjobs are. They're eating it with food. The thought of eating the Lao Gan Ma in a beautiful bowl of fresh white rice...

With those toasty kohlrabi notes and those flaky chili notes and that delicious oil is really, really enjoyable for me. Dude. But I am leaning towards like that addictiveness, that addictive like I want to go back for more. The Momofuku is doing it for me. Oh, interesting. Because of the sugar content. That's funny. So I might agree with that, but there's –

If these three are on my table, I'm reaching for Lao Gan Ma every time. There's something so unique. I think it's the same thing with freaking Hoi Fong food sriracha. Maybe. Where like I have had srirachas that are close to Hoi Fong. I've had srirachas that are like almost objectively better than Hoi Fong, the rooster brand.

But when it comes to like me making, you know, air fried orange chicken at home or something dumb, you know, like I do, I'm trying to be a little healthy. And I need to squirt hot sauce all over it to make it taste better because it's too healthy. I'm going for hoi fong sriracha because it's that familiarity to me. And so this, you know what I do at Chili Crisp I just realized? What do you do? I make Emily Marico bowls at home.

I will like broil salmon with some mayonnaise-y miso-y thing on top. Whole side of it, not fillets. And it gets medium rare. And I flake it off. I put it on a bowl with white rice, furikake, some sort of

steamed green, maybe some like lightly dressed cucumbers, avocado, whatever. More people need to eat mid-rare salmon. 100%. I'll sploop that onto a bowl and then Julia eats it like a normal human and I mash it into a paste and I shove it into seaweed snacks. But then I just mash a ton of chili oil into it or chili crisp. Can you please eat Chef Tony's, whatever his name is. Chef Troy. Who is Chef Troy? I don't know. Do we know this man? You have to eat it. This is 90% garlic, right?

Hell yeah, dude. Josh, it's so good. This is the taste of my childhood, if you must know. Oh, baby. Josh, isn't that ridiculous? Dude, smart and final chili oil. It is mind-alteringly delicious. It is. We're talking about different products. This is like the garlic. It is 90% garlic. Yes. And it has caramelized so much.

It tastes like you're eating candy. I could eat that spoonful by spoonful, no problem. I can't stress this enough. When Chili Crisp really hit the American market hard, we as an American people, again, big collective, broad, too broad of an umbrella here.

We're not used to eating chili oils like that, especially with Chunky's in it. No, but it's good. But it's a good thing that we're doing it now. 100%. Chunky's Spicy Condiments, all over the world, right? And we need to eat more of them. And I'm so glad we have these options. Do you love that? I love it. I just, it's a different product. It is absolutely not. I don't know what I would use this on as opposed to that. It's a good thing.

Pizza. Now do you understand why I want to put it on pizza? It's all the garlic in there. You know what we need to eat way more of? My best friend Deep's mom, shout out Malini Nayak, sent me home with a ton last time I went. Freaking mango pickle. We don't eat enough mango pickle. Dude, I was... You're so right, Kate. I think it's like mustard oil, chili. I love... Mango with the skin on and the skin gets all like... Is it green mango? Yeah. Oh my god, mango, dude...

I love green mango, green papaya, green plantain. I love it. So Josh is now trying what I have in my house 24-7. Do you really? Which is a Trader Joe's, what is it called? Oh, God. Crunchy chili onion. This is the ultimate example. And again, I don't feel any type of way about it except for the fact that like it's a harbinger of cultural change. Of Trader Joe's.

For real, like once a product like this hits Trader Joe's, it's like, oh, things are different now. It's whitewashing it. It's whitewashing it, yeah. Yeah, it's whitewashing. But it tastes good, and it's constant in my home. Dude, that tastes white. I'd say this is a white man. That tastes white. This tastes like my people made it. Does it taste whiter than Chef Troy's? Dude, try it. Eat it. There's no chili. Oh, this is olive oil. This is literally meant to be a white person chili crisp. They made white chili crisp. Hold on. Intentionally.

It's not like they're hiding. It's not like they tried to make a Sichuan chili crisp for white people. Olive oil, dried onions, dried garlic, dried red bell pepper, dried chili peppers, toasted dried onions, sea salt, paprika. Wow. This is literally Italian chili crisp. But like not even quite Italian because there's some more Italianification you could have done to that. The olive oil and the bell peppers, it's pretty Italian tasting to me. Yeah.

I don't know, though. There's still something so sweet about the... To get garlic to that level... Yeah, right? To get garlic to that level, you have to fry the hell out of it to the point where it desiccates and it caramelizes in a way. That gives it a sweet palate, and a sweet palate of garlic that I've never really had in Italian food. That's bitter. It's not good. I had... There is a note of bitterness that makes me want to eat more Chef Troy's. Please. Same. I'm having such a good time. Do my adrenaline rising. Yeah, there's just... There's simply...

I don't know, finish a pasta with it, but even then I'd probably rather just put olive oil and garlic in a pan with some chili flake. I'll cook my sunny side up egg in that. Yeah? Have fun. You can take that home. But it's my least favorite out of all the ones we've tried. This. Oh my god. One more. Uno mas. Solamente. So Josh and I believe that salsa matcha needs its time in the sun. Yeah. Salsa matcha is the best condiment in the world. We love salsa matcha. It is basically Sichuan chili crisps just with more...

What would you say? Latin American? I mean, yeah, but it's Sichuan. It's Mexican chili crisp is what it is. Or Sichuan chili crisp. La Gran Ma is Chinese salsa matcha. Sure. You know what I mean? Yes. But it's seeds, it's nuts, it's chilies, it's spices, all toasted and preserved in oil until they're crunchy. It is incredible. If you have like salsa matcha on, I love it.

I don't like getting it on greasy meats. I like it on fish tacos. You like it on fish tacos? Yeah. Interesting. I'm loving it on just a pollo asado taco, like proper. Not like a crappy chicken taco. One where they're like really taking the time. Just like the leanness of the chicken, the fattiness of this oil. What kind of nuts are in here? But like this has like whole pepitas. Ooh! Whole almonds. Sesame seeds. This honestly, this is a brand called Somos that brands this as Mexican chili crisps, which is why they got it.

But there is a Taco Maria, which is a Michelin-starred taqueria from Orange County. I really want to go. That made a series of salsa machas, one with Chikatana ants. One with Chikatana ants? The Chikatana ant salsa matcha from Taco Maria. That's good. One of the greatest things I've ever put in my mouth. I remember that. That was a good time. We're going to try this. Go ahead, try it. I'm just playing with it right now. It looks like one of those kids' toys, you know, those sensory toys. It's kind of a bummer to you?

Yo, what kind of oil are they using? This is a bummer to me. What kind of oil is it? I don't know. This just tastes like nuts and oil. Damn. Avocado oil. We had no reason to know that this was going to taste like this. Oh, they do call it salsa macha next to Mexican chili crisp. Dude, where's the chili? Maybe it's at the bottom. Let me... See if you can like... What do they call it? Like the Yoplait fruit at the bottom? But the thing that I love about... I just think chili... If I can wax poetic about chili peppers before, like...

Before... You can do some digging. Cortez gets...

to Mexico, right? Like, only South America, Mexico, the Mesoamerican empires had chilies in the entire world, right? By 1500, nobody else in the entire world outside the Mesoamerican empires had tasted a chili pepper before. Nobody, which is to say capsaicin, that spice only resides in chili peppers. Not even in China? It was used, not even in China. No way. They had other, they had peppers, they had ginger, they had things that induce heat, but they didn't have capsaicin, which to me is crazy. So even Thai food wasn't,

in the way that we think of it, capsaicin, until the peppers migrated their way over there via trade expansion. But like heat and capsaicin was used in religious rituals, right? By like the Aztecs, the Olmecs, the Toltecs. And it's like, it is...

Almost a way in which we've conquered God because it's a defense mechanism in plants, right? Yes. Spicy, don't eat it. Ah, hurt, pain, back away. But the fact that we like the spice so much and we used it for medicine because this raises your endorphins so it makes you feel less pain, right? The fact that we used it to work ourselves up into trances for religious rituals made us then naturally propagate or progenate as progenitors of the plant. And I just think it's incredible. Yeah.

And I wish this had more chilies in it. I know. What I'm learning is that there's nothing better than homemade chili oil. I don't know if I've ever made it. You never made it before? I've made it a few times. I think I've only made it for the show. Do you think chili oil is, like, overrated? Absolutely not. You don't? Absolutely not. I think chili oil, specifically Sichuan chili, Chris, is...

One of the world's truly great condiments. And I think there are a lot of other condiments out there. I am waiting. I am waiting for people to wake up to the sambal revolution. I'm there with you, man. Indonesian sambal. Indonesian sambal needs its time in the sun. And there are so many of them. But I think like...

Americans waking up to the fact that a spicy condiment doesn't just have to be a hot sauce out of a bottle. Right? I think that's a really awesome thing, and I think it's really opening people's palates up to the entire world. So no, I don't think Sichuan Chili Crisp is overrated whatsoever. Me too. I can't wait to see what more comes out of this space. Hell, I'll even say it's underrated. Just stop screwing it up. Just make it good. If you're going to make it, please make it good. And if you're going to make a packaged product, make it a good packaged product.

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LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. All right, Nicole. I've heard what you and I have to say. Now it's time to find out what other wacky opinions are rattling out there in the universe. It's time for a little segment we call Opinions Are Like Casseroles. No, did it sound like fart or smell like fart? It smells like farts. No, Maggie, did you fart? No.

Someone farted. I would cop if I farted. I didn't fart. Dude, it is disgusting how much I fart at the gym. Because I don't know. I eat a lot for dinner. I go home for dinner and that's when I like eat all my nutrition. I eat all my vegetables. I eat all my meats, my proteins. I'll have like fruit for dessert. And so all that fiber in the morning before I've evacuated, it just starts coming out on the treadmill. Someone or something farted. I don't smell it. I swear to God it wasn't me. And I don't smell that.

Bless you. Maybe you farted and forgot. I would feel it. All right. Okay. Start, bench, cut. Sambal, sriracha, chili crisp. Oh, no. I am unfortunately going to have to cut.

Cut Sriracha. I love Sriracha. This is crazy. I probably use Sriracha the most on an everyday, but if I'm thinking about future me, I'm going to want to bend Chili Crisp. Sichuan Chili Crisp, especially La Gan Ma, is absolutely fantastic. I'm keeping it on the side. I'm having access to it for when I want it.

I think the greatest hot sauce in the world is sambal from Indonesia. And not just sambal olek from Hoi Fong Foods, the same company that makes sriracha. Right, right, right. But I'm talking about like ketchup sambal, sambal terasi. What are the other ones that we love?

There's the lemongrass one. There's the shrimp paste one. Sambal is the greatest condiment in the entire world. The entire panoply of sambals. I hope it takes over the earth. I hope I can get more varieties in my mainstream grocery store in America. Sambal Mata. Sambal Mata. Sambal Mata. My favorite. Sambal, man. Come into a store near you. That was beautiful, Josh. Okay, Maggie, let's get that first opinion. Let's go. Josh and Nicole.

I freaking love you guys. Y'all are awesome. Thank you for being a part of my life. You're welcome. If you could design a meal based on the intensity of the smell of the fart that it will create from your own body, what would the meal be?

Was that a coherent thought? It was a prescient thought. That's crazy. Did you know that? Did I know what? That he was going to talk about farts and you just said somebody farted. You actually smelled fart. I didn't pick these. Nicole's just talking about smelling a fart in here and there's no fart. So my family has like deep roots in like fortune telling. Go ahead.

I thought you were going to say farting. Well, yeah, that too. But like, let me tell you, like not like my grandma used to like know who was calling her on the phone before like caller ID. So it's clearly passed down through me and I can know when people are going to talk about farts because I can smell it in the air. That's incredible. I know, talent, right? That is a lot of talent. Raw, unadulterated, talent passed down from generation to generation. Why are you laughing? It's real.

But it just works for farts. Unfortunately, the one I got just for farting. Well, at least you got something. When my dad died, he didn't leave me a will. He left me a bill. I think it's an old Chris Rock. Anyways. Sorry about that. Try and design a meal for the perfect farts. What are perfect farts? For the craziest stink bomb farts. Oh, like the worst farts. If you design. And I have actually asked this exact question to the head of gastroenterology of Kaiser Permanente.

Because this is the life that I've lived. When I was a journalist, I wrote a piece. It was actually for First We Feast when it was a food blog. You can still look this up. Look up, if you search First We Feast fart sommelier, it should come up.

Okay, I'm on it. And I use so many pseudonyms for fart in this. And I think the doctor, the doctor is like, I'm just trying to help patients with digestive issues. That's my goal. And I just kept trying to get him to say funny things about farts. Yeah. But I did ask him, like, what makes Taco Bell so farty? And he was like, it is truly a perfect storm. So there's something called like olio...

God, oleosaccharides, oleogosaccharides, something or other. But anyways, things that tend to upset people's stomachs, give them farts, and in like oils and fats, you'll find in that. So red meat produces a lot of methane inside the body. That's good. But then you need something to propel the methane out. You need fiber. So you need beans. Okay. Right? And then also spicy foods. Yes. Can actually, these spices can come out in your farts.

So you eat a lot of cumin, coriander, cinnamon, whatever, your farts will literally smell like that. Spices, colon, nature's anus perfume. This is what Josh wrote. This is what Josh wrote how many moons ago? 2017. It's funny because sometimes I like to portray myself as a serious journalist, and I certainly wrote serious pieces. You are serious. Yeah, and then I wrote about, I use the phrase butt burps a lot. Disgusting. That I don't like. I got the butt burps.

So our perfect meal would be a, what, steak with a side of beans? Yeah, but I mean, honestly, like, even like a fattier thing than a steak, like Chuck's. So like chili is... I was going to say chili. Chili is one of like the perfect farty foods. And if you're lactose intolerant, a nice swap of sour cream, a handful of some sharp cheddar. We could talk about like, oh, eat a bunch of sauerkraut and then eat, but no, like...

Chili's kind of the perfect fart food already. All right. Here's your answer. I hope you're happy. I really hope you are. I've thought more about that than most people. All right. Hi, Nicole and Josh. Hi. So my opinion is that beef microwaved is disgusting. I can always taste it and it just grosses me out. Why is that?

And why is it that salmon can be microwaved perfectly and is delicious when done so? Love the podcast. Bye. My dude, you're telling me microwaved fish is better than microwaved meat?

Is this a real thing, this person? Why do you look so perplexed? Why is your brow so furrowed? I did a... You're furring your brow. I did a quick Google. I did a quick Google about it. What'd you Google? This is just from Wikipedia because I've never thought about this whatsoever, and I don't feel like I've ever noticed it. I've microwaved a fair amount of salmon, especially for my delicious Emily Mariko bowls. But there is a whole Wikipedia entry on something called warmed over flavor. Mmm.

The occurrence of warmed-over flavor begins as lipids, primarily lipids from the cell membrane of cells in the meat, are attacked by oxygen. This process is aided by the release of iron from iron-containing proteins in the meat, including myoglobin and hemoglobin. Huh. What the F, dude? I've never heard of this before. It explains why my husband doesn't like food microwaved. He likes it warmed up in a pan. I also don't like microwaving my foods, especially like a stew or a soup. Yes, microwaves.

My husband's the same way. I've always insisted that I could taste it, but I assumed it was just a neurosis. I think it's a little... You and my husband are both Jewish, so... That makes sense. You guys are both very neurotic. Also, though, I'm very careful about saying that I can tell something is microwaved because my dad tricked me once and I was so embarrassed. When I was like 12 years old, we used to just freeze loaves of bread and then he'd microwave them and then maybe toast them or something, serve them with dinner. Okay. And I remember once being like, why do we always got to eat frozen microwave bread? I don't like it. We don't want fresh bread like all the...

People with two parents. Oh, you're killing yourselves. And then one day my dad was like, well, this bread was microwaved. Can you tell? And I ate it and I said, yeah, obviously. And then he goes, that was fresh from the store. You can't tell. And I went, I'm just sad that mom's gone. It's not about the bread. Oh, that's above your overweight jaw. So cute. But anyways, so now I'm like...

I'm always skittish about saying that I can tell something's in the microwave or something like this. It might be coming from an emotional place. When you were 12, do you still think about it till now? You're 32. We are all the products of all that we have ever done and all that we will do, Nicole. No, it sucks. Yeah. Why can't we just be like robots? They have it so easy. I don't know. I think, you know, those collections of traumas are part of the things that make life beautiful later. It makes us human, you know?

You ever meet someone without challenges in life and then they just suck? A couple of them. I've met a couple of those people. I know some. Their challenge is that they don't have challenges. We like to make up problems. You know what? You're so smart. That was very profound and I'm going to think about that later tonight. Okay. Hey, Meggie. Josh Nicole. Meggie. I have kind of a...

Weird one, I guess. I think my salad's warm. Let's go! Before lunchtime, let it get up to temp. Yes! Yeah, I just, I think they're better like that. Love you guys. Bye. I hate warm salads. Do you know what I have waiting for me immediately after I leave this?

I have a salad that has been sitting at room temperature for two hours on my desk. Thai mango chicken salad from Mendocino Farms. No, no, no. And Mindy asked me, do you want me to put this in the fridge? And I said, no, Mindy. I like it when the aromas are at room temperature, but thank you for the offer. Ice cold salads are my favorite kind of salad. I want it to be so cold. Not frozen, but cold. Ice cold salad. Ice cold dressing salad.

That's how I like to live my life. Lettuce grows in the sun, Nicole. Let it be in its natural environment. The ingredients in ice cream are also, you know, the milk is made from a warm teat, Josh. It was called ice salad. I wouldn't want that warm. I want my ice salad. What are you talking about? Normal salad milk, I drink from tiptoe. No, you don't. You're a liar. You're lying to lie. I put ice in my milk. Exactly. Liar. But no, I do agree. I do agree with this. I'm trying to think of salads that I want ice cold. Caesar. Caesar.

No, that's a room tempi salad because the cheese, honestly. It's really not. No, cheese. It's really not a room temp salad. French people, and this isn't all about the French, but I think they're right about this, is they hate the temperature that Americans will serve cheese. You take cheese fresh out of a fridge. Well, that's a pasteurization thing. No. Well, I don't think so. Okay. No, you can take cheese out and let it come to room temp before you serve it. Like, you should eat cheese at room temp because that's when the aromas are strongest. You're eating cheese for the aroma.

Caesar salad, the main star of the show. You're not eating Caesar salad. It's anchovies. It's not anchovies. It wasn't even anchovies in the original Caesar salad. Well, that doesn't matter. I do agree that anchovies are the star, but like Parmesan cheese is so much better when it's warm than when it's ice cold. I don't like this conversation. I want to go to a new one. If I have a salad that's in the fridge, check this out. Check this out. I'll put it in the microwave on defrost for 20 seconds. So stupid. And people say that's disgusting. All you're doing is getting it back up to room temp.

I'm not crazy. You're the one who's crazy. Why? Shout out Psycho Mike from Suicidal Tendencies. Because I like my salads cold? Institution. What? I like my salads cold. No, you're not crazy. It's a preference. I get it. Like, bright, acidic things taste good cold. Yeah. I love, like, an ice-cold Shirazi salad, you know? Okay, so, like, yeah. Choriatiki. I want that ice cold. I want my choriatiki. Choriatiki. I would say that I want my choriatiki warmed by the Mediterranean sun. Oh, my God. I...

I was eating a Greek for Greek salad, for those who don't know, with keferes by the pool in Samos. Oh, my God. I was thinking about that the other day. Is it also called, I'm going to butcher this and not say the right word. Is it Nimrod salad? What is Nimrod salad? No, no. What is it? It's not. It's like a term, Cretan salad. Oh, yeah, Cretan. Oh, my God. You mix up Nimrod and Cretan?

Cretan meaning from the Isle of Crete. Not like you're a Cretan, a bad person. And I don't think they have...

Check out, though, if you want this internal regional Greek drama. Look, cretin salad. I know. I'm right. It wasn't Nimrod salad. No. Well, let's see if Nimrod salad comes up with anything. I feel so stupid. I'm sorry. No, there's a place called Nimrod Inn Bar and Supper Club that does have a salad bar. So check it out. They also have amazing gizzards and hot bread. Because calling someone a cretin is a slur, right?

I don't know that slur, but yeah, like that's like an old Western. It's derogatory. And calling someone a Nimrod is also derogatory. So I was thinking of two different derogatory words. You really were. That was actually bizarre. Cretan. It's like when I say dysphagia and aphasia. Interesting. Oh man, I'm falling apart at the seams. The etymology of Cretan seems fascinating. Anyways, Crete, the Isle of Crete has the best fetha.

I was at a market in Samos and I was like, I want the best feta for my joriatiki. So is the joriatiki and the Crete and salad the same thing? It's probably like a special style. It's like a Southwest Caesar, you know? You know, it's like different. Like, ooh, there's little chilies in it. Sorry, you went to the grocery store. Yeah, and I was like, you know, I want like a nice local feta. And the person was like, well, here are two fetas from Samos. And I was like, yeah, my favorite. And they were like, listen, the best feta is from Crete.

This is all brokered in Greek with me and my buddy's stepdad who kind of speaks Greek. Anyway, so that was my whole story. And now we can move on. All right. Hi, I'm Nicole and Josh. Big fan of the show. I'm Sinjin from South Louisiana. Love the name Sinjin. And my opinion casserole is that ranch dressing is pretty good in gumbo.

Whenever I was in elementary school, they would give us little bowls of gumbo and little packets of ranch dressing, and I would always mix it together, and everyone around me thought it was disgusting, but I thought it was pretty good. Love the show. Sinjin, we love you, and a person... I did not expect at all. A person cannot be defined by one action in their life.

But this is really all we know about you. And I will say, I don't know the most empathetic way to say this. And, you know, we try and not crap on anybody. De gustibus non est disputandum. But this is bleak. This is the worst. Josh, me and you, we give each other looks sometimes. Like if the shoot's going a little bit wrong, sometimes we give each other the eye. If something's going wrong, we...

The eye me and you just gave each other was one of the most intense, like, this should be redacted from human history kind of look. Yeah, it was almost a look of alarm and danger. Danger, danger. Your cortisol levels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My spidey senses were tingling in the wrong direction. I didn't feel safe in that moment. As cooks, we must try and see the redeeming quality here. Let me explain. So, bouillabaisse.

Another, you know, it's not French. Gumbo is not really French. Bouillabaisse is a soup that exists that has seafood in it, just like gumbo, depending on what kind of gumbo you're eating. Bouillabaisse is often served with a condiment called rouille, which is like sometimes just saffron. It might be saffron all the time, like a saffron aioli. So it's like a thick mayonnaise that is served with a seafood-based soup, typically with bread. Gumbo, instead of bread, you got the rice.

It's a thick seafood-based soup sometimes. I can't justify it. I'm sorry. I know Josh is trying to make Sinjin... You put the ranch in there like a rouille. Sinjin, love your name. Hate this practice. Yeah, stop it. Sorry. This is the first time... People have been like, I eat bugs. And we're like, well, it's great. Bugs are commonly eaten throughout a lot of cultures. Great protein. No, this is the first time that I think we've had to... Yeah? Yeah, really sit someone down and say...

Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do it. Don't do it anymore. Yeah, grow up. Yeah, you might have done it when you were younger, but now just don't tell people you do it. Josh, is this too mean? Are we being mean? I think Sinjin knows that we are kidding. And honestly, I would try it. Like creamy soups. I put ranch on my... I would try it. I would try it. I put ranch on my lasagna and my spaghetti. I am no one to talk. Sinjin, you're wonderful. And thank you for giving us this wonderful gift. Yeah, yeah. You made us laugh.

And question everything. And it's hard to make us question things. So thanks for your candor. It's hard to show us something we've never seen before. Right. You know what I mean? And I think that's ultimately what I want out of food experiences. Crete and salad, by the way. Goat's cheese instead of feta. Oh. Isn't feta? Well, didn't you say the best feta is in Crete? Yeah, but isn't feta made from goat? Or is it sheep? It's sheep. Feta is sheep.

It's a goat feta. Okay, I don't know. This is according literally to one food blog called MyPinkRambles.com. So shout out to Joanna. Thank you. Oh my goodness. They're going to freak out when they get that Google notification. Everyone check out MyPinkRambles.com. Tell Joanna thank you for your service. MyPinkRambles? MyPinkRambles. Well, on that note.

Thank you so much for listening to Hot Dog and Sandwich. We've got new episodes out every Wednesday, new episodes on the YouTube on Sunday. The last post from mypinkrambles.com was on December 2nd, 2021. If you want to be featured on Opinions or at Cast Rules, hit us up at 833-DOG-POD-1. We'd love to hear your opinions.

Joanne is a 40-year-old gal who loves beauty shopping, reading, planning, traveling. Oh, she's colorblind. Spells color with a U. Anyways, if you like seeing our faces, go over to Mythical Kitchen, check out our other videos. You know where to find us. See y'all next time.