Patton Oswalt Was Anti-Slop Bowl Way Before It Was a Movement

0:00So every now and then I got to have a Jack in the Box taco. I don't apologize for it. No. And if someone told me Jack in the Box tacos, they take like four years off your life, my reaction would be like, yeah, okay. That's fine. That's fine. Hi, I'm Joe Salts, the editorial director of Delish, and welcome to Snacks, the show where we talk about the craziest food obsessions of your favorite stars. Today, we have food royalty in the house because not only was he the voice of Ratatouille, but he's also a food obsessive. Please welcome the star of the upcoming tea and scotch, Patton Oswalt.

0:35I wanted to jump right in because I have a confession to make. What do you have to say to somebody who's never seen Ratatouille? I'm envious of you because it's a great movie. This is irregardless of, is irregardless the right word? No, it's not. It's regardless of me being in it. It's just such a well-made, beautiful movie. It's a great, and it's a great food movie. It's one of those food movies like Big Night and Jon Favreau's Chef. Yes. Where I warn people, like, have a dinner ready to go to afterward or eat something really good beforehand. You're just going to get really, really hungry. Anthony Bourdain said one of the best food movies of all time.

1:16Yeah. There's a scene in Favreau's Chef. There's clearly a food porn scene with him and Scarlett Johansson that's good. But then there's a scene that I didn't think they realized was going to have the impact it does where he makes his son a grilled cheese sandwich. Oh, yes. And it's so beautifully filmed and so instantly craveable that when I screened it, I watched it at home with my wife and daughter and we had to pause it and go make grilled cheese sandwiches. Stop. Because my wife was like, you know we're pausing this right now. We're pausing this right now. I'm having a grilled cheese sandwich.

1:54I'm going to say grilled cheese is, I think, one of those underrated things that I don't eat enough. But every time I do, I'm like, why am I not eating all these? No, we only have this every day. Every day. But the way it's photographed and edited and cut and the sound design on that scene, it's ridiculous. And it comes out of nowhere. Because you're in the middle of this. Oh, that's good. Father-son bonding goes, here, I'll make you a grilled cheese sandwich. And then you're like, okay, we need to pause this movie right now because this is the greatest thing I've ever seen. It's kind of amazing.

2:26Okay, but I haven't seen. And by the way, that's coming from the rat in Ratatouille. The rat in Ratatouille. I think that that's amazing. It's pretty incredible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also have to say, I haven't seen Ratatouille, but I have ridden the Ratatouille ride. You work at Delish and you haven't seen Ratatouille? I know, I know. But I have been on the Ratatouille ride in Epcot. Does that count? Have you been on the Ratatouille ride? I have not. I have not gotten a – I record – that's my voice on it. Yes, I heard it. But I haven't done it yet. And when I was in Paris two winters ago, and we just couldn't – we just really wanted to see Paris.

3:01We couldn't bring ourselves to take a day to go to Euro Disney. Yeah, Euro Disney. And do it. We just were like, let's just stay in Paris. Yeah. I just want to walk through Père Lachaise and get drunk. Of course. So, you know, but eventually I will do it. But I don't need to ride the ride because I lived it. You lived it. I lived it, baby. You were the rat. You were. Have you seen a lot of food movies? Yes, and I've seen a lot of food movies, and I sort of feel like part of how I got this job of running Delish was my obsession with food media in general. Right. But I do have to say, I know this is the unpopular opinion because I need you to know I have three children, and all of them love Ratatouille.

3:38Really? So it's embarrassing that I haven't. And my oldest son, who's 20 now, who grew up with this movie, is like, how have you not seen it? You would love Ratatouille because it's also a movie that adults can totally— Like all Pixar movies. Pixar movies. There's stuff for adults. Yes. But especially running the Food Network, how they get the dynamics of a kitchen down correctly. Yes. And they really—I have friends who—I have a friend who came up through Charlie Trotters in Chicago. Oh, my gosh, yeah. And she was like, wow, did you get everything right? The fact that there's always a big pot of potatoes soaking in the background, which is just you have them ready.

4:16Yeah. They got to be ready. The fact that the tiles are all uneven because of the years of hot, cold, getting mopped, hot. The floors are always warped. But everyone seems to know where all the warps are. So they're also working around that. They just got every little tiny detail right. And so let me say again, this does not count as seeing the movie, but the ride at Disney, for those of you watching, is incredibly well done. And like take that movie, what I assume that movie is, and now multiply it by the sensor, like the sensory experience. You feel the heat of the flame. I hear it's really immersive.

4:55Like you are in that world, right? It's absolutely wild. So when you go, you'll have to give us a call back and tell us and to go try it. It's so good. But I also have to talk to you about – I have a couple things I need to talk to you about. I want to talk to you about you win the Emmy and then you end up sitting outside in Arby's. Why Arby's? I did that as a goof. I was just – because there were all these crazy after parties going on and I was between after parties. And I was like, what if this was the after party I went to, which was sitting in an Arby's with my Emmy and a bottle of booze? But now apparently it's a tradition.

5:30after you win a Grammy or Oscar or Emmy, you go to an In-N-Out or Arby's or any of these places. Are you an Arby's fan? I'm not as much of an Arby's fan as, I don't really know their menu as well as I know the Jack in the Box menu, the Burger King menu, especially the In-N-Out menu. Sorry, you went straight to Jack in the Box before all of the other ones. Is Jack in the Box your brand? Jack in the Box is one of my, there are certain craveable foods that you will get even though you know they are horrible and horrible for you, but you don't care. And the basic tacos at Jack in the Box that I know come out of a caulking gun and are then deep fried.

6:11It's the most it's the the unhealthiest concoction on the planet. And it's they're so good. And every now and then I got to have a Jack in the Box. I've never been to Jack in the Box. We don't have it on the East Coast. I grew up in New Jersey. You don't need to go to Jack. I'm just saying. But are they known for tacos or are they known for burgers? They're known for, like, whatever they decided to put out. But for some reason, their basic tacos land with me. There's a spice profile, a flavor, makeup in whatever evil chemicals are putting into that thing. They hit my brain. It is Requiem for a Dream.

6:50The pupils get big. The blood cells go. And I'm like, I got to have those. So every now and then I got to have a Jack in the Box taco. I don't apologize for it. No. And if someone told me, you know, Jack in the Box tacos, they take like four years off your life. My reaction would be like, yeah, OK. That's fine. That's fine. Remember, by the way, remember when I forget when this happened, but some health organization announced that like eating bacon takes seven years off your life. And everyone's collective reaction was, yeah. All right. That's worth the payoff. This is what just happened recently.

7:26There was some news about how, this is crazy, but there's some news about how nerds have like 200 % of your yearly intake of arsenic. Yes, this is a legitimate news story. In nerds candy. Wow. And I told my kids, to your point, I told my kids and they were like, all right. They're like, what about nerds rope? I was like, I'm pretty sure the same. It's all it's all coming from the same arsenic. By the way, nerds, nerds, ropes. And I have no evidence to back this up. And I know I'm 100 percent right. Nerds, ropes came from they were done making a batch of nerds. There was a bunch of goo left over.

8:08And just like crazy bread, they're like, well, how do we just resell this? Crazy bread was the stuff they cut off of the pizzas. And they just went, what if we just throw it in a box with some sauce and call it crazy bread? We can make more money off it. Genius. Nerd Robes was the goo that was, it was like in Breaking Bad when there was that little condensation on the top of the thing. And they're like, why don't we just scrape it off and make it into the ropes? Yep. Well, you know what else is like that? Did you know that Dum Dums, you know, Dum Dums, the lollipops, those little stupid. Yes. There's like mystery flavor, which is like literally wrapped in a purple wrapper with question marks on it.

8:43That is the end sludge of all the other flavors that they just mix together. And they just call it mystery. Mystery. And it could be a little bit more orange than red. It could be a little bit more red. We're going to throw this out. We just sell it. Let's make it mystery. Purple wrap mystery. People love a mystery. They do. And honestly, my kids were always like, ooh, mystery flavor. I'm like, you know that this is just, this is the crazy bread. You know the decision-making process at Dumbbells Lollipops was, are we throwing this stuff out? Can we put that on a stick? Yeah, I guess. Well, what do we do?

9:16Put it out back. No, just put it on a stick. Well, shouldn't we call it like funberry? Just mystery. Guys, it's 4 o 'clock. I just want to go home. A hundred percent. Mystery. Purple wrapper. Who cares? But I want to come back to, I love the idea of this. I just now learned that and that makes absolute sense. But also someone would spin that as being like, we are very eco-conscious. We don't throw, we're not throwing lollipop goo out. Oh, are we supposed to throw that into the water supply? Yeah. Would you be happier that way? No, obviously not. It's disgusting. We're taking care of the planet.

9:50Mystery flavor is our level of conservation. By the way, couldn't your kids argue when you told them, like, you're getting this amount of arsenic and your nerds are like, so we're building up a tolerance to arsenic? They could have. You won't be able to. If your kids find themselves in an Agatha Christie murder mystery, they won't be able to be poisoned. Or Princess Bride. Or Princess Bride. They're building up a tolerance to Iocane powder. That's what it is. That's what they're doing. Thank you, nerds. Thank you, nerds. Thank you for making our kids poisoned. They're going to be poison-free, poison-proof.

10:20If you don't get a sponsorship out of this, then they don't know what they're doing. I'm really sorry. I'm rehashing this news. So wait, so you grew up in Virginia. Tell me, what's the snack that sends you straight back to your childhood? There's two. I just put myself back in my childhood. One of them, and it's discontinued, was called Doodads, and it was the precursor to Chex Mix. Doodads. Doodads. And they were very famous because the lettering, it was all lowercase letters, doodads. And if you turned it upside down, it said spap oop. Thank you, Rich Hall. Comedian Rich Hall pointed that out.

10:55It literally says spap oop. And it's little Czech cereal, little like Cheez-Its, but like in almost like log form, pretzels, and peanuts. There were peanuts in that. There's not peanuts in Czech's mix. And the peanuts, there was a certain way. and they stopped making it right around the mid-90s. It's gone now. And it came in a big blue and white box with the lettering doodads or spap-boop. Spap-boop. And there was, again, there was a flavoring to it and I'm sure it was all 70s chemicals. Very savory. But then you'd have the kind of mealiness of the peanut. They didn't do the sweet and savory combo.

11:39Right. It was all savory, but boy, it was good. It's either that or the other one. And I always get these when I come back to the East Coast. I don't have them on the West Coast. Utz hard pretzels. Utz hard pretzels. And you have a bowl of them. And you have a cup of black coffee. And you dunk the hard pretzels in the coffee. And then as you drink the coffee, the coffee becomes slightly saltier and even better. Salt in the coffee, I agree with. Dunking pretzel in coffee, I don't know that I can get behind that. I can't. And by the way, that was a teenage thing for me. Little kid, doodads, teenage was when I discovered coffee when I was 17.

12:16It was that combo. It's so good. The doodads, did you have a favorite shape? What was the thing you would pick out? Everybody in a Chex Mix has the favorite thing. My favorite thing in doodads was the darker Chex squares. Those, for some reason, maybe because they were darker, they seemed to absorb more spice. Yeah. That's kind of the way Chex Mix are. Do you like a Chex Mix now? I can eat a Chex mix, but it does it is not. It doesn't serve. It doesn't land the way that doodads did. They and I feel like doodads going off the market has something to do with the Chex company. They wanted to wipe that out of the collective memory so that they could then have market dominance.

12:59Actually, I could see that, although I wish I knew who made doodads. Do we know who made doodads? I did try to find some. And I looked on like eBay. They sell old cereals on eBay. They do. You can also get Dunkaroos on eBay. Dudeads have literally, they were like, goodbye, dudeads. They're gone. Yeah, they're absolutely gone. They're really gone. Yeah. I have never, by the way, you are the first guest to ever name Dudeads, which is shocking because we've had a lot of repetition. It was a whole East Coast thing. I mean. Nabisco. Oh. Nabisco. Nabisco, come on. Nabisco, you're at. You've got the perfect.

13:33You have paid assassins on the payroll. You can, can't you wipe out the Czech people and bring Dudeads back? 100%. You know they do. Let's do it. I mean, I feel like you have the perfect, although I do have some treats for you here. What do you got? I have some Snyder pretzels for us to try. Okay, Snyder's. Can you get behind Snyder's? Because, I mean, I know it's - Snyder's, by the way, Snyder's is good, too. The big box of Snyder's. But Snyder's I can get anywhere. I can get them on the West Coast. Yeah. Uts, I can't. Uts, you can't. But, hang on. Are these all flavored? They're all flavored.

14:05So here's another example of using the end product. Right. Right. Because these. Oh, my God. You're right. These must be the broken piece. They take the broken pieces of pretzel. And they. And they coat them with something new. Coat them with something new. We ate a lot of Snyder's. I went to school in South Jersey. And we ate a lot of Snyder's and like hard pretzels. Aren't they from like Hanover or something? Yeah, they're from Pennsylvania. So like, you know, they're. But I used. We used to eat. Thank you, Amish. Drunk nights. We used to eat the honey mustard and onion flavor. Those were the first pieces.

14:37Yes. And lately, and I don't know if you've addressed this on Delish. Oh, please. All of the snack companies, and especially Doritos and Tostitos, have gone insane with their flavor. There are too many flavors. You don't need them. You know why they do this, and I'm going to teach you right now. Tell me. And I've told this on the podcast before, but thankfully no one listens to more than one episode. So this is fine. Get this here. Make sure you get it. There's honey, mustard, and onion. Here's why. When you release a new flavor, it increases the sales of the original. Oreo started it. And when Oreos came out with a new crazy flavor, people would be drawn to the Oreo section and would end up buying a bag or a box of the originals.

15:23And so it's not about selling the new flavor. It's about selling the old one. You bring them in because of the new flavor. Then they get to the aisle and they go, I don't know if I want to roll the dice in the new flavor. But you know what's never let me down? What's that? Good old Oreo. Like they see the original and they buy the original. That's it. That's it. And so, but I think it's just the hearing about, because basically what happens, and we do it at Delish, when anyone comes out with a new flavor or something, we write about it. And so then it gets the brand name into the cultural collective again.

15:50You're right. And so people are like, oh, right. So, all right, let's try a honey mustard and onion. Although this is not going to leave your breath good for the rest of the day. I'm horribly sorry. No, and my wife is flying into that. Do you have something? You know what? Can we do the Buffalo hot wing? Let's do the Buffalo hot wing. The onion thing is. We're going to be. We're going to be. Your wife is flying in. I'm so sorry, honey. No amount of toothpaste is going to get rid of that. So hang on. This is a little better. All right. Were you. OK. So were you a cereal kid? I feel like we're roughly the same age.

16:19And like cereals, I felt growing up were like, what was your cereal when you were a kid? How is that good? Do I have to try one of these? I'm not spicy. It's. It's not good hot sauce. It's like the flavor they picked wasn't good. And there's good hot sauces, but this isn't a good sauce. No, I'm sorry. I don't know why they picked this flavor. We'll just put it down. We'll take care of it. All right, tea. I'm so sorry. Help me out. Yeah, also drinking a hot tea on a 90-degree day is a bold choice. I know. British to the end. All right. Cereal. Cereal. When I was a little kid, and I don't know if you remember this.

16:55There was a very specific thing that I remember. Loved Raisin Bran. Loved. Loved sugar corn pops. Yep. And it had the term sugar corn pops in it. And sugar puffs. Sugar puffs like the rice. The rice puff thing. Yeah. With Sugar Bear. Hey, remember we got a little sugar bear. Oh, my God. We have not heard. I have not heard Sugar Bear's name. Well, because now he's Honey Bear. Oh, that's right. He's not Sugar Bear anymore. He's Honey Bear. But it was still, there was an attempt to go, you're still eating cereal. And then a cereal called Cookie Crisp. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Which was like, you know what?

17:35We're done with all the pretense. Let's not pretend. It's just a bowl of cookies. Yep. And that is what led to all of the crazy. There was Dunkin' Donuts cereals. There was Oreo cereals. And then there was the weird. Reese's Peanut Butter. Reese's Pieces Puffs. Puffs. Multiple people have told me on this show that that is their favorite cereal. I'm like, how is that a cereal? It's a bowl of candy and you're just dumping milk on it. Yep. It's just like, that's like someone going through a really bad depression. Although Cookie Crisp does not have the same experience as a cookie, right? It's a little like.

18:09Yeah. But. Listen, all those cereals, by the way, they'll never say this out loud. They're just variations on Captain Crunch. It's the same formula as what Captain Crunch is. Remember when E.T. cereals and Mr. T. It's just, it's just Captain Crunch in a different shape. That's all they did. But and then the closest we had to the the the brash, dark honesty of Cookie Crisp was Crunch Berries. Oh, yeah. And then once Cookie Crisp came out, I think that's what led them to go. Oops, all Crunch Berries. Remember, they were just like, you know what? Screw it. Crunch Berries. Yeah, that's fine. Are they doing Cookie Crisp?

18:47We're going to do all Crunch Berries. Well, now they serve. you can find Lucky Charms that's just the marshmallows. Just the marshmallows. Which they also sell as snacks. Which actually, that's kind of smart. I mean, also, like, I would eat that. I would happily eat that. I did not grow up in a good cereal house. Where'd you grow up? What? I grew up in a Jersey and my parents... Oh, no, were they health conscious? Well, they weren't health conscious. They just, like, thought... They thought they were better than sugar cereals. So what did you have? Well, what's the funny part is that we had Honey Nut Cheerios, which, by the way, is just as sugary as any of the other stuff.

19:21First ingredient, sugar. Yes. Yeah. And so my parents were like, no, no, no, you can't have the sugar. Just honey nut Cheerios. And so we thought, I remember my mom would go on business trips and my dad would instill what he would call jungle rules, which is we were allowed to buy sugary stuff. And that was, we were allowed to get cinnamon toast crunch. Oh, I remember that. And Hawaiian punch. Those were the two things we were allowed to get at the supermarket. Oh, you mean Hawaiian punch as a drink? Oh, it's a drink. Yeah. Those Those were our two purchases when my mom was away. Because for a second, I would not put it past Hawaiian Punch to put out a cereal.

19:52To make a cereal? Not at all. Did we just invent a great idea? How would that be different from Fruity Pebbles? Did we invent a good idea? I'm just telling you. Hawaiian Punch cereal. Yeah. Why not? Oh, no. Pat and I need a piece of that Hawaiian Punch. We do need a piece of that. Oh, yeah. We do need a piece of that Hawaiian. And remember how their ad campaign was a guy that just sucker punched people? Oh, yeah. But just punched. How'd you like a nice Hawaiian punch? Okay, and then you'd punch him in the face. Well, and then he'd bust through the, well, no, the Kool-Aid. No, that's Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid.

20:21But it was all about destruction and pain. That's what all of our drinks were. It was all destruction and pain. Oh, my God. That's so funny. Yeah. Did you grow up in a good snack house, though? Yes. I mean, my mom very much enjoys snacks. And now when I go home, she's discovered the joy of the Costco bulk buy, where you get the big thing, but it's all these little separate boxes. So she can fool herself. like, well, I'm not really eating a whole lot, but then she'd eat four boxes. Five of them. Yeah. And we would always hop on whatever the new snack trend was. Let's try this out. That's cool. So she'd bring it in.

20:55That is a cool amount. Remember the little tiny pretzel fins, little rods in those little boxes? In the little boxes. Yes. Well, that salt would get everywhere. And when you would finish, there'd be a layer of salt in the bottom. Yeah, you'd lick it with your finger. Oh, my God. I haven't laid eyes on those skinny pretzels in forever. What happened to those? What happened to those? Well, those and then I remember cool kids at school had the member of the little cheese and crackers with a little red knife, the little red like spreader came out. Come on, man. You had a crazy. You were you were doing assembly stuff.

21:26You had different pieces. You had the thing. Well, and then that was the precursor. I felt like to Lunchables, which was the assembly of. Yeah, you're right. That was the right. You should put together. I should have a podcast about snacks or an evolutionary table where you show like we just kind of show that with. But once Cookie Crisp came out, then the other series was like, okay, we got to go bold now. We got to go big like they did. Okay, whoops all Crunch Bear. How did we get here? Yeah. We slowly got to. We needed to do a show. Pat and I are going to do a show called How Did We Get Here?

21:55And it's going to be the evolutions of Crazy Snacks. The other thing, too, that I remember people were super into, which I have never to this day gotten into, but I feel like is probably a sophisticated flavor profile to your earlier point about doodads, is the cheese crackers with the peanut butter inside. Remember those sandwiches? I remember all the variations. Cheese crackers with peanut butter inside. Then there was white cheese on wheat. Oh, yes. Then there was just plain peanut butter crackers without the cheese on them. There would be variations on them all in that little area, and you would decide which one you wanted.

22:28But I'm like, peanut butter and cheese to me does not go well together, but you just said doodads with the cheese crackers and the peanuts, and I don't even know. Now I don't know what is real. Doodads work so wonderfully. And I, again, wiped off the market. I'm just somebody didn't want them. You can go on eBay and find Yummy Mummy or Fruit Brute, which depending on where you lived, if you lived on, because, you know, Count Chocula, Boo Berry and Frankenberry. Are all made basically the same way, right? But then they had a cereal. If you lived on, if I'm not mistaken, if you lived on the East Coast, it was Fruit Brute.

23:04And if you lived on the West Coast, it was Yummy Mummy. And it was a multi-fruit flavored monster cereal. Why did they have to set, why did they need two different kinds? I don't know. Somebody somewhere was like, the West Coast market's just not going to understand brute. Yeah, or West Coast, they don't get werewolves. East Coast gets mummies. East Coast, they don't know from mummies. They don't know mummies. It's too moist out here. They don't have mummies. 100%. So they got to have it. It's a desert environment. It's a British. It's a mommy. We don't know. So then tell me about. But now, by the way, now they introduce a new monster.