Why is Cold Pizza So Good?
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Why the heck is cold pizza so good? Well, Nicole, as a man of science, my hypothesis would be... molecules. This is a hot dog is a sandwich. Ketchup is a smoothie. Yeah, I put ice in my cereal, so what? That makes no sense. A hot dog is a sandwich. A hot dog is a sandwich. What?

Welcome to our podcast, A Hot Dog is a Sandwich, the show where we break down the world's biggest food debates. I'm your host, Josh Scherer. And I'm your host, Nicole Inaydi. I heard you gulp really loud and it like shook me. I felt a little shooketh. Why did you gulp so loud? Shook you all night long. Why did you gulp? Well, because I was in the middle of a sip of Diet Dr. Pepper when you said, you ready to go? And then you launched into the intro. So I had a lot of Diet Dr. Pepper halfway down my throat hole.

And then I had to gulp the rest of it down. I have an iced latte with almond milk in my glass. I saw you making that, and I thought that was a really bold choice for a podcast, but I will say you can hear the Diet Dr. Pepper fizzing into the microphone. No, you can't. Or else spitting it.

Ew, Josh. Now you can hear it. Okay, anyways. What does that have to do with anything? Nothing. Right now we're talking about how much did Josh and Nicole know about molecules. Can I tell you something? I'm in the insane clown posse world of how magnets work is how molecules work. How do they work? Wait, can you explain that reference? I can't.

In St. Cloud Posse has a song where they're like, hey, magnets, how did those work? Is that from an ICP song? I didn't even know that. That's incredible. And I feel the same way about molecules, man. How did those work? Well, it actually does really come into play in our debate today. We are I don't believe the thesis that we started out with, though. That's my problem. You don't think cold pizza is good?

I think cold pizza is about as good as any food cold straight out of the fridge, but there is zero times out of 100 would I prefer my pizza cold than hot. Okay, interesting. I think I'm in like a 25-75 world because sometimes cold pizza hits so good, especially in the morning after dinner.

Morning after rrrr? Rrrr. Is that like S-E-K-S? No. Like throwing back a few brewskis. Oh, a couple brewskis with the boys. We know how Nicole does. You go to the B-dubs, you know, you watch some baseball. I get a Guinness. You get a Guinness. I've never had a Guinness before, actually, funny enough. What? Yeah. You've never had a Guinness? Oh, I've never had a Guinness.

She's never had a Guinness, a proper pint. But I've had lots of pints before. That's really exciting. When's the last time you had cold pizza? Can you pinpoint it? Maybe like three weeks ago. What was the situation? Paint me a picture. So I decided, because I'm kind of like in lazy bum territory, like I don't like cooking as much as I used to. So I got the stuffed Parmesan crust pizza.

I drove to like Domino's Domino's whole business model is based off of delivering the pizza to you you drove to it but I drove to it for some reason I'm like huh let me get out of the house a little bit it was 9pm or something and I drove to the standalone Domino's in West Hollywood and I picked this up also the most pungent pizza I've ever smelled in my life I've never smelled a more pungent pizza ever and I've had like a lot of pizzas

So I drove and I had it and then I had it, you know, nice and hot the day of. And then the morning of, I had a bite of it cold and I'm like, this is delicious.

And it was. And I really enjoyed it. I think if any pizza does succeed as being good cold, it is fast food pizza. Because it's like a little bit thicker, a little bit breadier. The worst pizza cold possible is like a thin crust Neapolitan personal pizza. It just desiccates into nothingness. Well, I have a lot of experience with Neapolitan style pizzas just sloughing off.

When they're hot, which is actually really annoying as a person that loves to go out and eat and dine. Whenever I pick up the slice and it just falls on my plate all over, the whole experience is kind of pointless. That does happen. I will say that is because Neapolitan pizza is meant to be eaten with a fork.

Which people think is sacrilege. Shoot, no. Dude, shoot, no. Don't ever ask me that disrespectful question again. Am I eating it with a fork? No way, man. But it's literally supposed to be served uncut, eaten with a knife and fork. I'm sure people from Naples could be like, no, that's not how we do it anymore. But that is the original design, and it makes sense when you think about that style of pizza. Yeah, I get that. They're not even using a reduced...

And when we talk about cold pizza versus hot pizza, literally the molecules of it all come into play. I know everything's made of molecules, but... We are molecules. There's a couple things we're talking about here. We're talking about kinetic energy, which is to say, if you took that Neapolitan pizza...

fresh hot out of the oven. Right. And you cut it into a slice and you try to pick it up and things slough off. That's literally because the molecules inside of the sauce have an increased amount of kinetic energy. When things are hot, Sure, I get that. they move fast. I understand that, but... And when it's cold, it kind of

seizes up which is good I mean like whenever I think about a pizza like I don't always want it to like to like be but it's not always Neapolitan pizza that does that too sometimes whenever you go to like a crappy like bowling alley or like whenever you're out with your friends and you get like a pizza that's not like grandma style with that thick crust a lot of the times the toppings and the cheese and the sauce is falling off because they're serving it so damn hot

Is this an intellectually honest debate, Nicole? What? Are you arguing in good faith right here? How much of a problem is it to you in your life and your pizza eating experience to have all of the toppings and cheese just fall off? Listen, does it happen occasionally? It grinds my gears. It honestly, it grinds my gears. It gets me in a bet. You know me. I can get...

it pretty wishy-washy and emotionally flip. I don't like it when my pizzas don't cooperate with me. Well, you're arguing that you would then take that, throw it in the fridge fully until it is ice cold and eat it just to increase the structural integrity of that pizza. Opposing counsel, you are sitting here telling me. But what I am is a person that loves pizza and I can appreciate... The best pizza is a pizza that you ate hot

But then you took home and you eat cold out of the fridge because you know what it tastes like. That's interesting. So you're sort of relying on your memory of the hot pizza. But then I will say, and I think this is smart, you're effectively getting two dishes in one price tag there. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say.

to say I'm very resourceful so what I do is every time I order an ice cream sundae I save half of it and I microwave it to just taste it as a creme anglaise just to remember what the sundae tasted like yeah I love creme anglaise you and I both love melted ice cream so I don't think we're the best arbiters for this conversation I really do I microwave my ice cream no with pizza I do agree that some pizzas are better suited than others to being eaten cold right like if we're talking about scientific what happens here we talked about the idea of kinetic energy um

The sauce is going to congeal, right? Which I like. I like my sauce congealed. But we're talking about fast food pizza. I think for the sake of this conversation, we need to talk about fast food pizza. Are you temp checking the pizzas? I touched all the pizzas with my bare hands. I did wash them after I did bathroom. Josh, because I care about you so much, I decided to get you a pepperoni and mushroom because I feel like if you were to be any pizza, you'd be...

And because I can't really eat like pepperoni right now, I got a pineapple jalapeno for myself. One, thank you. Two, literally the last time I had pepperoni and mushroom pizza, it would have been a pizza at pizza at like a kid's birthday party when I was eight years old. And I ate it and I like violently vomited it up. And I literally have not had this combination of things since then. Do you just want a bite of my...

No, no, no. I'm happy to eat the pepperoni and mushroom. The reason why I wanted you to have the pepperoni is because I want you to taste cold meat on pizza and see how the fat exists in your mouth once it's cold. That's interesting because you know what they say, fat is flavor.

We'll get to that later. The funny thing about a lot of the meats on pizzas, like pepperoni, salami, I suppose that's kind of it. But they are also good cold. Bacon is good cold. Yeah, I'd eat cold bacon. I don't eat cold bacon. I don't really eat cold bacon either. But it does exist in the can. Chicken.

Yeah. You love cold chicken out of a rotisserie chicken fresh out the fridge? I don't love cold chicken. I thought you love cold chicken. I eat a lot of cold rotisserie chicken. It doesn't mean I love it. I take a lot of Advil. It doesn't mean I love Advil. I'm eating the cold chicken for the medicine in it. Yeah.

You know, the chicken has a medicine. The chicken has medicine called protein? Correct. Is that what you're trying to say? You understand, yes. What are you on about? Some meals are medicine meals. And that is when I eat protein and fibrous vegetables to help move the protein through my system. And then some meals is fun time meals, and that's pizzas. Let thy food be thy medicine. Who said that? 100%. Plato. Apophis. Apophis.

Apophis. Apophis. No, let food be thy medicine. It was probably like Hippocrates. I'm going to say Hippocrates. Hippocrates? Yes. Boom. Josh wins the trivia. No. No.

Ask me more questions. No! Quick aside. I know I normally stay on topic. Do you want another quick aside to the recent quick aside? So I was on the island of Samos in Greece, right? Yeah, you were. And we're just like walking by. It's like in between a liquor store and a travel agency. And there's just a vacant lot. But there's a sign. And it's like, hey, that's the rock that... What's it called? The Pythagoras. Like that's the rock that Pythagoras sat on when he thought about the triangles.

And I was like, that's pretty neat, I guess. That's so neat. Anyways, let's go grab a tall boy of Greek swill. Could you also sit on it? Nope, fenced off. Didn't let me sit on the Pythagoras rock. A protected landmark, if you will. It really was. It really was. Should we try these pizzas? And then we can talk about what exactly the advantages, disadvantages, what scientifically is happening. I think that would be really nice. Start with cold or hot? Start with hot because most people eat hot pizza.

As you can see. I'm sorry that your pizza is vomit pizza. This pizza wiggles. This has a nice wiggle like when you do the optical illusion with a pen. This is Domino's pizza, yeah? Yeah. You can tell because of the pockmarked holes on the bottom. What are those, dude? The holes at the bottom? No. It's the grate. Oh, why come they're there? It's the grate. I guess so. It's weird. Most pizzas don't just have like thousands of little holes in the bottom. Do you want me to call corporate? A little bit.

How does that pizza make you feel? Good. Fine. I like it mostly because it's warm. Yeah. No, but like the meltiness of the cheese to me might be the most violent difference between a cold pizza and a hot pizza. I don't want to have to bite through the solidness of cheese. To me, the cheese on a pizza should be melty. Okay. Should be soft. Okay. Okay.

You know, since my toppings are a little bit polarizing, I would say. Pineapple and jalapeno, what's polarizing about that? The jalapenos are pickled. So you definitely get that waft of vinegar, which I taste. And it's probably the first thing I taste. And then it ends on that sweet pineapple-y note. And the cheese and tomato are kind of like carrier flavors.

Yeah, interesting. You have some pretty strong toppings. Yeah. I will say there's the element of aroma equating to flavor that's big with hot pizza versus cold pizza. I agree. So aromas, if anybody has ever farted in a sauna, you will know that aromas – you have, don't I –

Aromas carry much stronger in the heat. The literally kinetic energy of those scent molecules travel faster and they also rise up. So when you're eating a warm pizza, like you're smelling the roast on the spices and the pepperoni. You're smelling the vinegar off the jalapenos because literally it's evaporating at a higher clip. Then there's the structural point of it. Nicole, what do you like better, warm bread or cold bread? Cold bread.

Don't lie. Don't you dare lie. Don't lie to suit your agenda. I like room temperature bread.

Okay, fine. I like warm bread. Everyone likes warm bread. That's why the Olive Garden gives it to you straight out of the oven. What does that have to do with this? Because what, well, if I may ask a follow-up, Nicole, what is the outside rim of pizza mostly made from? Dough. Bread. Dough. Pizza's a bread, dude. You eat bread warm. Bread tastes better warm. When the bread goes into the fridge. But this bread has stuff on it. Can't you see? Yeah, but the under... Can't you see? Yeah.

I also do like a packed deli sandwich, so I do get it. Like, I get that appeal of the cold pizza, but to me, there's something about the crunch of that bread that gets super waxy when you put it in the fridge. Let's try it. Let's try it. Let's try the cold pizza. No flop. Cold to the touch. Also, it's so small and petite. That is good. Oh, that's nice. I need you to eat my pizza. Okay. That is...

Somehow so much more flavorful and better than I remember. I know. Oh, wow. I think it's because of the flavor. Well, the thing is I bought this pizza at the same time. They are from the same pizza round, right? How delicious is that pizza? Oh, that's so good. It's so good. Oh, my God. I think it has to do with the flavors relaxing with each other and chilling down with each other and kind of compacting with each other.

Do we think that applies here? I don't know, but our whole lives we've been told like heating it up makes the flavor more intense, right? You mean reheating like the next day? No, I mean like warm foods. Oh, correct. Yeah, yeah. Whenever you eat warm foods, the flavors are more pronounced. Like a ceviche, you season it. You season the ceviche to be eaten cold, so you season it as you would a cold food. But this pizza is seasoned as a warm food, but it tastes better cold. It tastes better cold.

You can't tell me that that pizza doesn't taste better than the other pizza. Yeah, why does it taste... Not only does it taste better, it tastes more. It tastes more. But I thought the molecules. We've been learning. Josh, this is why I literally wanted to sit here and have this conversation with you. Because all signs point to warm pizza being better, right? But not whenever you put them side by freaking side. The cold pizza tastes infinitely better, more flavorful. You want more bites of it.

And listen, it goes against, it's contradictory to everything we've known about food, which is why I really wanted to test this to seek to get down to the bottom of it.

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I have a new hypothesis. Yes, Pythagoras? Well, this is my government name. My old hypothesis. Yes, Pythie? Just call me Gore. My old hypothesis was about the molecules, you see. Whereas now, I believe it is because of Ricky Raindrop.

Oh! Tell the people about Ricky Raindrop. You love Ricky Raindrop. We all grew up in California. We all know Ricky Raindrop. For those of you who don't know... Wait, you grew up with Ricky Raindrop, correct? I just grew up with the water cycle. Did I hallucinate this? Maggie, can you Google Ricky Raindrop? Ricky Raindrop... Do you think you made Ricky Raindrop to get away from the Troubles Outlaw? Do you think...

Ricky Raindrop was my only friend. Ricky Raindrop was nice to me when my parents was mean. Ricky the Rambunctious Raindrop? I didn't realize he was rambunctious. It's Orange County.

It's only Orange County? Get the hell out of here. Exactly. See, I was a Beverly Hills Unified School District girl. We did not have Ricky Raindrop. We didn't need Ricky Raindrop. Please, any listeners in Orange County, tell me about your stories with Ricky Raindrop. He was an anthropomorphic, rambunctious teenage raindrop who taught us all about the water cycle. From condensation to precipitation to percolation to evaporation. Uh-huh.

But no, this is evaporation at work, I believe. Oh, so what you think is the hot pizza, the water molecules have lifted and gone into the ether, and what we have left with the cold pizza is concentrated flavor. Well, I think when you let pizza sit overnight to become cold, water evaporates out of it. It gets drier. Right, right, right. Yeah, sure. You saw that by the lack of flop, right? 100%. And so I think...

Even if it is a 10% evaporation rate per day here, I think you're left with a 10% more flavorful pizza because there are fewer water molecules. Think about tomato sauce, right? I was just about to say the tomato sauce. Yeah, yeah. You reduce it down by 10%. Right. That's going to make a 10% more flavorful sauce because the water is evaporating out of it. You need to think about also the way that they're making sauce here. They're not warming sauce over like a flame. They're probably taking canned tomato slop.

I'm putting spices in it, right? They're not heating up any sort of tomato sauce. They're not making a sauce from scratch. It's literally tomato paste, water, sugar, and then like a packet of dust. That's what I'm saying. And it tastes good the way that it is because it's seasoned cold.

Huh. Oh. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah. Is what I'm making make sense? You're telling me that, like, the sauce they are making is not, say, a Sunday Italian-American gravy with bones cooking in the tomatoes. No, you're saying the sauce that they are making is meant to be eaten cold. It's like a ceviche. They have flavored the pizza sauce like a person would make a ceviche. Interesting. In order to be eaten cold.

Sometimes I can't believe the words that come out of my mouth. I'm like, you're stupid. I'm going to, I don't know if I buy the evaporation necessarily. Explain to me why, because Josh, me and you, our taste buds, listen, we're like professional eaters at this point, right? So tell me why this pizza is better because it is, like it is so much better. Like it's like 30% better, isn't it?

It's 30% better. I'll say 30% better. Okay. I'm 23 at least. New hypothesis. This is what I call sandwich theory. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. I mentioned that I think fast food pizza does very well with being cold and that temperature change, especially versus a, I'd say, a thin crust or an extra thick crust. I certainly don't want Chicago deep dish cold. Detroit style, I don't think I want cold either. I don't want those pizzas cold. It's kind of only fast food pizza. Yeah, sure. And I would say...

Because of sandwich theory. So we recently had a real-life Italian on an episode of Last Meal. It's called Damiano David. That's right, you did. He was a former... Well, he's still a current lead singer of Måneskin, but coming out with his own solo album. A really nice guy. Rock star. And I asked him...

In classic bait to get a good social clip out of it, would he rather only eat fettuccine Alfredo for the rest of his life or Pizza Hut pizza? Does he like pizza? And he said Pizza Hut pizza 100%. He goes, here's the thing. It's not pizza. It's a delicious sandwich. He said this? He said it's a delicious, yeah. He said Pizza Hut pizza is a sandwich? Yeah, he's like, it's just a thick thing of bread covered in melted cheese and deli meats. What's not a sandwich about that?

Because for him, pizza is, you know, Roman pizza al taglio or like Neapolitan margarita. Fair, fair. But you're stacking. You can literally get a Pizza Hut pizza with five different kinds of meat on it. Yeah. Stacked onto thick, fluffy bread with cheese. And then even the sauce is not a sauce. It's like you said, it's a paste. Right. This is a sandwich out of the deli case, which I love because I think sandwiches, when they sit...

They tend to taste better. I would always, if I'm making a deli sandwich, I wrap that, I compress it, I let it sit in the fridge for as long as I can wait. Right, right, right. You know, kind of like a sandwich edging situation. And then finally, when it's all kind of compressed and everything gets to know each other, then I eat it. I think that's just what's happening with the pizza at Pizza Hut. It eats more like a sandwich. I think you're right.

I'm not going to call this a sandwich because I'm not an edgelord, but I do think the flavors have compacted together and hung out together and gotten so cold that

And now they're coming up to room temp together as one. I also think the sauce cooked into the bread a little bit and like stayed there. And it kept sinking in and sinking in. So all of that delicious spice bag mix that's in the sauce has probably gone into the bread. The cheese has kind of sunk. The cheese has kind of melted with the sauce as well and kind of made like this plasma non-Newtonian fluid. Yeah, it's a goo. I call it a goo. It's a man of science.

Yeah, I got a little pizza bread cheese sauce goo in there. And then the toppings. Like, how does the pepper... There's no more separation. Nicole, if you look at the intersection, I believe that's the mantle, the core, and the crust. Yeah, the mantle. Why didn't we have like an anthropomorphic little thing of magma teaching us about the, you know? We didn't need that, Josh. Morty the magma. We didn't need it. You guys needed to be tricked into learning. We were just down to learn.

Wait, can you look up World Industries Wet Willie? Oh my god. This is also a big part of my childhood. I'll explain in a second. There is a lot of science behind the fact that when you let, say, a stew or a soup or any sort of casserole dish sit overnight. See, Wet Willie now from World Industries, it was Wet Willie and Flame Boy. Oh my god.

Also an anthropomorphic raindrop. Why did you need cartoons to push you to do stuff? This wasn't... Every kid, you could sell them on cartoons. But this was my favorite skateboard brand. And Wet Willie and Flame Boy would fight each other. They had guns. There was a devil. How old were you? It was good. My peak skating years were from like 8 to 12.

I suppose. And I started, like, playing sports. And then I also got quite large, and I was too big for my skateboards. Aw. Did you have to use a scooter, like, the handheld ones? I thought you meant, like, a rascal scooter, like, to walk around, like, Disneyland, you know? No, but I did, like, break a skateboard deck for me and a 260-pound teen trying to ollie a four-star. Oh, I had a razor. I had a Barbie razor scooter. Nice. You should have seen the way I would go. I would, like, I would crouch and put my arms up like this. Marvin. And I would just...

And I was good at it, too. Nicole Mobbin was it. I was really good at scooting with my Barbie razor scooter. Yeah.

So a stew or a soup sitting overnight. What is that to do with me? A stew or a soup sitting overnight, right? Okay, okay. When you reheat that the next day, it's going to taste better than when you freshly made it. Yes. Or at least it's going to taste different. Yes. I would say better. I would say better, too. There's a couple theories why. One, I believe we heard Ariel Johnson talk about this. Sorry, I touched your hand. Don't get your pregnancy hormones on me. I don't know how it works. Am I going to get pregnant now? Because when you let something sit overnight, all of...

Say there's onions and beef in a stew, right? The onions are going to be flavored more like beef, and the beef is going to be flavored more like onions simply because they've been interacting. The cell walls. The cell walls. The cell walls. Science. Have broken down. They're transferring aromatic properties, or they're physically transferring the glutamates in the beef. Right. There's also the theory that when, say, especially if there's meat in there, if that has sat with salt on it over a while, the protein breaks down to glutamates, increasing the umami factor in it. Okay. Yeah.

Does any of that transfer into pizza? Like, are these ingredients, is the pepperoni really transferring more of its pepperoni essence into the cheese? I mean, I would assume so, yeah, because it's not just sitting on there anymore. It's now interacting with the other layers, right? Yeah, it's like you've made a field journal print of a leaf inside of a book.

It's like muffaletta. It's exactly muffaletta. It's like self-immolation, but self-muffaletta. Self-muffalation, I think, is an incredible way to protest. We've seen it throughout history. You know, Vietnam War from Buddhist monks. It's truly... Arab Spring. A lot of self-muffalation. No, I...

I think that sometimes you can live in the mystery of why something is better than another thing, right? It could be scientific. It could be purely cultural. It could be for the fact that I haven't had a piece of cold pizza in like probably a decade. You've never had...

You're kidding me. I mean, probably not since it's, I'm sure it's been sooner than that, but really I will always, even if it's just microwaving it for like 45 seconds to get it past room temperature. That's typically what I do. But again, since I've become a lazy pregnant bum, I'm not going to do the 45 seconds of warm of warmth really like define me. No, I,

No, I don't think it should. I've truly gained a new appreciation for cold pizza here. I know. Isn't that exciting? And part of it could be because of the novelty. But I think there is value in that idea of like you already had the warm pizza. What are you going to do? Are you going to get it to 80% as good when you reheat it? You know, no matter what you do, if you put it in the air fryer. Reheating pizza is kind of a bore and a trudge in itself.

And sometimes ruins the integrity of the pizza. You can also turn that into a new dish. You can put a little bit of Parmesan on it. You can air fry it and get it nice and crispy, and that's something new. Nacho. But so is just the cold pizza. This is fantastic. Embrace cold pizza. I've started to do that. You need to embrace it. What other foods do you believe are better cold straight out of the fridge? Bestie, I have a list. Are you ready for my list of which foods are better hot or cold? Yes. Okay. Curry. Hot. Sushi. Sushi.

I microwave sushi to room temperature. That's true. If there's leftover sushi, I am putting it in the microwave for about seven seconds until it gets not to room temperature, but cellar temperature. Lasagna. Oh, I do like taking bites of cold lasagna out of the fridge. I know you do. I put ranch on it. I know you do. Yum. Okay, fruit. Now, some people have said they hate hot fruit. I love warm fruit more than cold fruit. Mmm.

Me and Julia have to buy double the amount of fruit because she will only eat it if it's out of the fridge and I will only eat it if it's room temp. I have sensitive teeth, but also it doesn't ripen. The fruit doesn't ripen. And sometimes she, well-meaning, will take an unripe peach and put it in the fridge and I won't notice it there. It's been there for a week and then it's all messed up because the ripening process is being interrupted. Hard-boiled eggs.

That's cold. That's dead cold. That's an ice cold hard boiled egg. Hot, fresh, cracked, literally my hands burning from cracking it open. No, I love a cold egg. An ice cold egg is so good. Cheddar cheese, age two years. Gotta be room temp. I love a cold. Really? Love it cold. I can taste the crystals better. Oh, yeah. The texture does get kind of fun and firm. The two years. You gotta think about the two years. Oh, only two years? I just said two years. Only two years. Yeah, but when you said years, I thought it was gonna be more. Okay.

I would rather eat a cold two-year cheddar than an older cheddar. A brownie. Brownie. Room temp is the perfect temperature for brownie. Coffee. Oh, so I order hot coffee with two ice.

You're such a dweeb. I'm like, yo, if you guys just like two ice cubes, put it in there because that way I can drink it really fast. Right, right, right. Because I love cold coffee on a hot day. I love hot coffee, but here's the thing. I'm trying to drink it quick because I got to poop and I'm staying in a hotel. And so I want to be able to drink that hot coffee because the steam in the hot coffee, it fills up your digestive system and pushes the poop out. Do I know if there's signs behind that? No. Do I feel it? Yes. And so that's why I order my coffee two ice.

I have two more for you. Bread pudding. Bread pudding, gently warm, about like 89 degrees. Made the day before. Correct. Made the day before and steamed in a steamer basket like a bow. And finally, shrimp. Ice cold, baby. Give me that ice cold shrimp cocktail sitting on ice. I want it to snap.

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All right, now it's time for a segment where Nicole and I put our food trivia knowledge to the test. It's time for our very own trivia segment called... Yummy in my tummy got some trivia for you. Robot Meg has three questions prepared. Nicole, you and I will wait until the question is complete, and then we will answer. If wrong, the other person will get a chance to guess and earn the point. Let's hear that first question. Which singer-songwriter of the hit song Thinking Out Loud is known for topping his pizza with ketchup and fries? Here, present, who is Ed Sheeran?

The correct answer is Ed Sheeran. Get the heck out of here. How does that song go? When your legs don't work like they used to, my dear. That's what that song's called, eh? I saw him sing that live at Coachella. I think that might have been my first dance song. Really? Yeah. I think it was, too. I was there. There was a lot of Drake at your wedding. There was a lot of techno at your wedding. It was hard style. Oh. Dutch hardcore. Oh.

Ding-a-ling! I'm gonna say Pizza Hut! I'm gonna say Domino's. Roll. F! F in the B. I'm doing it. I know it! Garnett John, eh? Pfft.

The correct answer is corn-a-cy-one. Corn-a-cy-one. Corn-a-cy-one. It's pronounced corn-a-cy-one. Well, pleasure winning against you. Thank you so much. Well, I'm sad to have lost that, but you know what I'm happy to do, Nicole? What's that, John? I'm happy to hear a little segment we got called Opinions I Like Casserole. Let's hear that first opinion.

Hey, Josh. Hey, Nicole. Long-time caller. First-time listener. I've got a question here. So I was thinking about two of my favorite foods, breakfast items, shakshuka and chilaquiles. And got me wondering, there's not really many tomato-y breakfast items in America. In fact, people actually like to frown upon putting ketchup on your eggs.

Yes. Why is that? That is interesting. Why do we do that? I don't know. This is interesting. It doesn't make much sense. I think it's a little hypocritical. Yeah. I agree. Whatever. Food is delicious. Don't yuck someone's yum. Have a good day. You too, man. Thanks for listening for the first time, but calling often. I wonder how they got the number. I love that idea of like, I've never heard this, but I have a lot of opinions. I love it. About things. Yeah.

I think what you said rings very true. I feel like a lot of other cultures, specifically like European, Mediterranean cultures,

eat tomatoes during breakfast. And somehow we don't. Even on a full English, there's roasted tomato. Right. Why are Americans pretty opposed to tomatoes and eggs? Or why do none of our national breakfast dishes have them? Americans are weird. We're so weird. Americans are weirdos. I thought you were going to say I want to combine shakshuka and chilaquiles, and I said, have fun, honey. I thought about it for a second, and then I decided there's no good way to combine shakshuka and chilaquiles. Yeah, there is. How? Combine them. But I'm saying, what do you...

No, because the eggs cook boiling in the shakshuka. A lot of people think you bake it. You don't. You don't bake shakshuka. Well, you could bake shakshuka. You could bake shakshuka. A lot of people do bake shakshuka. But if you were to cook those eggs perfectly in the shakshuka, how do you then incorporate the...

Tortilla chips in the sauce. You would add the tortilla chips before you add the eggs. But then you have them sitting too long in the sauce and they get soggy. Then they turn into migas. They turn into migas. Well, migas is scrambled with the eggs. Yeah, yeah. It would work. You can make a shakshuka migas. It would work. You just have to have a little bit of faith.

That's true. But yeah, I think that's very astute. Even you look at like an Italian, it might be more Italian-American, but eggs in purgatory is big. You look at Balkan breakfast, you've seen that trend? Oh, where they just eat like whole foods. Yeah, they're eating whole foods. Go to a lot of places in the Middle East, you're eating cucumber and tomato for breakfast. That makes a lot of sense to me, and I'm a little bit mad about it. What are our breakfast dishes even? In America? Yeah, what do we have? Cereal, pancakes, it's all...

What about savory? Eggs, bacon, hash browns. But that's it? Like we don't condiment at all? You put hot sauce on it? Some people put ketchup? You should put ketchup on your eggs. I think they're delicious. I agree with that. But also like salsa on eggs, I think it's significantly better. I love salsa on my eggs. Even getting like a

Huevos revueltos or huevos a la mexicana, they'll call it, with tomato, onion, jalapeno in it. You get eggs burgee from India. It's going to be a curry-based scrambled egg. There's so many delicious tomato-y spiced egg dishes in America. People need to eat them more. We don't want any of them. We want them, but they're just not in the zeitgeist.

We got to invent one and put a marketing campaign behind it. It is finally the thing that will heal the divide in America. If you want to go into business with me, man, I'm open. Yeah, well, great opinion. Great astute observation. Thanks for... Don't listen again, though. Just keep it at the one listen. And also, don't yuck yums. Don't yuck my yum. De gustibus non est disputandum. I think I summoned a demon. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that the 20% gratuity should be slowly phased out. I would love to know the history of why that became a thing. Especially at fancy restaurants.

If you pay $200, you have to tip $40 for someone that came and asked how your food was and brought it to you. If we're going off that, shouldn't the guy at Foot Locker that showed me my pair of shoes and asked how my day was get tipped also? Yeah. Yep. That's a good point. Let's get canceled. Let's get canceled here. No, no. I think, listen, other than California, please tell me if I'm wrong.

Everywhere else, servers make like $2 to $3 an hour. It's not everywhere else, but there's something called the tipped minimum wage credit where I believe the lowest state, I don't know if this has been changed in the last couple of years since I've checked, was like Delaware, the tip minimum was like $2.13 an hour. However, with tips, your wage had to be higher than the federal minimum.

So it's very complicated. The origins of tipping, I haven't done a full dive into this. The last time I read about it was a while ago. It, I believe, had something to do with Jim Crow. There's a kind of strange, very racialized history with why tipping exists in America. You'll have to kind of do your own research on that. I don't know anything about that. But it's one of those things where the system is here and what restaurants...

could do is say your steak normally costs $40 on the menu, but you would be expected to tip 20% on that. Right. Well, they could do, and I think what all businesses should do is have tip-inclusive pricing. So say the economics of a $40 steak work for your restaurant in the margins, but not enough to pay your employees, that steak should cost $50. Right.

However, if the steak costs $50, people will order it, say, 15% less. But if they already have this hidden 20% cost on top of that $40 steak, people know they're going to tip. But when you see $40 versus $50 on a menu, you're less likely to order it. However, businesses should not be run on weird trickery. And I agree. People should get paid a living wage.

I also agree with you that the dude at Foot Locker should get paid a living wage. And it's very weird when people take up tipping in restaurants as like a heavy social justice issue and then ignore the fact that a massive amount of workers who are even in the hospitality business, like a Foot Locker, aren't getting tipped. And I know the heart is in the right place of pay people a living wage, but it's very, very silly. And I will never forget the moment when I realized it was all ridiculous when my Italian roommates asked me,

Who do you tip in America? And I was like, oh, restaurants, barbers, tattoo artists. And they go, you get the massage? Yeah, I think you tip a massage therapist. Yeah, you do that. And then one goes, what about clowns?

And I go, I've never hired a clown. I don't know. And he goes, we have a clown. He said, clown. What about the clown? At a birthday party, do you tip them? And I was like, I... You tip entertainers. And then I was like, no, surely the clown... If you hire... I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, go ahead. If you hire an entertainer to come to a party, of course you tip them. How the f*** am I...

am I supposed to know that a clown is expecting a tip? What? How am I supposed to know that the clown They made the kids laugh! has not priced their rate? It doesn't matter how they price their rate. It's called respect. What do you mean respect? They take time. I don't respect this. No, I respect the clown. I respect the clown, but I'm saying He doesn't respect the clown. I assume that the clown's pricing would

be what they need to make their clown business work. I don't know. Well, if you can tip and if you can give them an extra, you know, few bucks for making the kids giggle and make balloon animals, you should. I know. You should pay everyone what you would be willing to pay them. Nobody would be sad to get more money. Shut up. You... Okay, I think tipping...

I like tipping and I think it's important to tip and I think it's valuable. I'm in a privileged place where I grew up financially secure, thank God. And I would love to reciprocate it to people, places and things when and where I can. Because that's the way I was raised and I think that's proper. And 20... I don't go to restaurants all the time that have a 20% included gratuity. Sometimes I do. And, you know, I pay it happily because...

I don't know. But how much do you tip when it's not included? 20%, right? 18 to 20. 18 to 20. So I'm saying whether it's included or not, you're still doing that. But if I get a coffee for $7, am I going to tip an extra dollar? Depends on the vibe.

Wow, you're a real piece of crap. You're out here spending all your money on clowns while not tipping your baristas? I've never bought a clown. What about a phlebotomist? I've never rented... No, they make... Nurses are underpaid. Phlebotomists make approximately $38,000 a year, I believe. Teachers, you're tipping your damn teachers. Wait, phlebotomists make how much? $38,000. Dollars a year? I think so. That's like basically minimum wage in California now.

No. How much does a phlebotomist make? Last time I checked. You should be tipping your phlebotomist then. No, the rules on who to tip and how much to tip are very silly and antiquated. And again, they all come from the good place of giving the right answer.

Give people a living wage. I said $38, it's $41. Also, though, the server who has sold me a $300 bottle of wine that expects a 20% tip on that. You're getting that kind of wine? The only time it's been when I went with my brother and I got tricked, but then I ended up on the group Venmo, and I just don't want to bring it up because it's fine. He's given me a lot in my life. But anyways, I was driving that night, too. But anyways, I'm saying if...

If you bought a $300 bottle of wine versus a $30 bottle of wine, the server didn't do 10 times more work. No. They weren't 10 times more affable. They're not deserving of 10 times the wage because they brought a different wine bottle, right? And I hope that restaurant has tip sharing. Well, I don't know. I don't know. I'm just telling you the psychology of it. If someone is spending $300 on a bottle of wine, I might touch their table a few more times.

Sure. But even then, then we end up in a strange social stratification of which servers get paid more. And if you look at, and there's data on this, servers who get hired at expensive restaurants tend to be more conventionally attractive. They tend to be more educated. They tend to be lighter skinned than people who are not. Therefore, we're just like,

ending up back in the same place of all of the things that have always caused social injustice in America just being reflected in our tipping culture. It's very stupid. So what's your consensus? Don't tip? Tip? No, you should tip because we live in a society, but also we should be working towards a society in which places can...

afford to pay their employees without tip without tip yeah tipping should not be a thing but tipping culture is such a big deal in America I feel like if you don't tip it would actually be really rude and people would take that very lightly again you have to tip I like tipping there's a social order I like tipping my friends make fun of me because I tip well did you know that about me no you're very brave hit me I dare you to hit me at work I'm gonna give you

Hit me, I'm going to sue and then I'm going to tip my lawyer. They used to be like, why do you tip? Give some to your paralegal. And I'm like, because people work hard in this country and you should give money if you have it. They're like, okay. Yeah, 100%. Rude. I do agree with that. Those people were mean to me. Yeah. Sorry to make it about me. I hope we answered your question.

Hi, guys. My name is Cal. I'm from Michigan. I love you guys so much. I just have a few words for you guys. I love you, too. Pickle dog. So I encountered this on the menu at a bowling alley in Michigan. Bowling alley. And we obviously had to order it. Love it. So it's exactly what it sounds like. It's a...

hot dog except the bun is a sliced open pickle. Yum. It's a hot dog in a pickle. Yum. The sodium levels are a bit ridiculous. Whatever. The balance of the salty dog and the acidic pickle

was actually pretty awesome. It was kind of better than I expected. I actually got some pickles and hot dogs so we can make them at home. But let me know what you guys think. I kind of blew my mind that I'd never seen this before. Sorry. It's interesting. It just sounds like something I would find in a keto cookbook. I mean, I love pickles so much. I eat a pickle a day. It keeps the...

Not doctor. Who does it keep away? Who does the pickle a day keep away? The goyim. Pickle a day keeps the goyim away. You know? Use a nice big old deli pickle. That's all I got for you. If I don't get cancelled for my take on tipping, it's going to be a weird mob with upsetting politics coming about that one. What were you saying? It's really not relevant anymore. You can continue what you were going to say. Well, I guess my question is, would you rather have...

A hot dog shoved inside of a pickle. Or a pickle shoved inside of a hot dog. Clearly, the first thing you said... You think you'd rather have that? Well, because I feel like...

In this, we're presupposing the notion of the hot dog being secondary to the pickle. The hot dog is now a flavoring agent to the pickle. I'm used to having a pickle as a flavoring agent of a hot dog. Not to say that we can't completely change paradigms. Here, I'm all for that. I'm no stickler. Oh, so you're okay with changing the paradigm of that? But what about tipping culture, John? Oh, just completely upend it. Like, why are we doing... Why is there a tip minimum wage nationally and not...

federally, and then you have these companies that do interstate commerce, and there's just wage theft lawsuits everywhere, and part of that is just people stealing wages, and then part of that is like, well, the laws are so weird and arcane and regional, and who could tell? So there's like a tip minimum wage for delivery drivers. What if you live on the border of two states? You're driving from New York to New Jersey, are you entitled to one wage or not? So all I'm saying is I would rather hollow out a hot dog. Uh-huh.

Cornichons. Shove that inside there. Like Tic Tacs. Like Tic Tacs. But then maybe put that back inside of a big pickle. Ew. It's like pickle-ception. Oh, this sounds terrible to me. This sounds really bad. Oh my God. That sounds so good. I don't want just cold hot dogs and pickles. I don't know. Am I crazy? It's not cold. Who said it was cold? She didn't say it was cold. You're saying it's hot? The hot dog is probably hot. You're saying, oh my God. Okay, this is a hot hot dog shoved inside of a what? A cold pickle? It's not shoved. It's not shoved.

It's sliced open. The hot dog is sliced open. I can't with you. A filleted hot dog. I can't with you. Instead of the bread, one, two, three, eyes on me. I'm looking. The hot dog is inside of a pickle that's been sliced open like a bun.

Got it. Then what do you do with the hot dog? You shove it inside that sliced open pickle. What are you talking about shoved inside? You shove it. No, you... That's the verb you do with hot dogs. You gently place. Yeah, you gently... What do you mean? Yeah. You curate the hot dog into the pickle. Whenever you say shove, I think, you know, you just... It's like a suppository. Well, yeah, but I'm saying that's better. You should suppository that hot dog into the pickle.

That's the best way to get a hot dog inside of a pickle. We've done that before. Put a whole pickle inside of a pork loin. That was so jarring. It was like the eye of Sauron looking back at me. Yeah, you won that one.

You won that competition. Where do we go from here? Can we stop? We should stop. We should stop. We should drink water. We should sign off. We should let all you get back to your busy lives, not listening but calling very, very often, shoving hot dogs into pickles, complaining about hundreds-year-old institutions because you don't want to tip at the Sizzler buffet. And I get it. The Sizzler doesn't have 20% gratuity. No, it doesn't.

You don't know about the fight that I got in with my ex about the question of how much to tip at a buffet. Oh, my God. I would love to hear about that. Did I ever tell you about this? Yeah. You want to say it on the horn here? Should I say it? Okay. Wait, wait, wait. You want to wait for the next episode? Okay. Wait for the next episode. Stay tuned. Stay tuned. You're going to want to hear all my other stories. To be clear, my ex is really great, but I just had some fun. It was...

Relationships are like pizza. And on that note, thank you for listening to Hot Dog is a Sandwich. We've got new audio-only episodes every Wednesday and a video version here every Sunday on YouTube. Yay, YouTube! Happy 20th anniversary! Sometimes they're just cold for years. You mean like

If you want to be featured in the podcast, call 1-833-DOGPOD1. That's 1-833-DOGPOD1 so we can hear your opinions. For more Mythical Kitchen, check out our other videos. We launch new episodes every week. You should watch Lost Meals. It's pretty damn fabulous. And we will see you next time. Bye.