Live: Why Is Massachusetts So Obsessed With Dunkin’?

Sirius XM podcasts. [MUSIC]

“>> Chocolate chip cookies were invented in Massachusetts.”

>> They were, yes. >> [APPLAUSE] >> At the told house in. >> You're right, at the told house in Ruth Graves Wakefield is her name one day. She didn't have the ingredients she needed for the cookies she wanted to make.

So she said, I'm going to try this thing. And it worked, and now it's like the greatest cookie in the world. And now that location is a Wendy's. [MUSIC] >> This is the sport full.

It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. And we're coming to you live from WBU, our city space in Boston. [APPLAUSE]

>> So tonight we're welcoming three very special guests to the stage. I'm going to talk with each of them individually. And then all four of us should attack with some hot takes. So get ready for that.

My first guest is a social media sensation.

He's a reporter for WBZ News Radio here in Boston. You may have seen his viral videos that cover all things. Massachusetts from the tragic closing of both dunkins and sto mass. To awaiting a Chuck E. Cheese and Everett to the grumpy donut man who operates out of a laundromat in Brockton.

You know him as a reporter, Matt, please welcome the pride of actin. Matt Shirer. [APPLAUSE] >> Thank you. >> Matt, it's great to have you here.

>> Right of actin. >> That's you.

“>> Stiff competition, by the way, is acting in the house tonight?”

>> Yep. >> You are, this rules. Did you know actin has Big Bird, Steve Carell? >> What do you have, Big Bird? >> Big Bird is Carol Spiny, the guy in the Big Bird costume is from actin.

>> Oh, that's too impressive, yeah.

>> For folks who aren't familiar with your work, I want to set you up a little bit, Matt. >> Yeah. >> And we're going to play one of your stories that you've done at the state of your work. This one is going to be about the 99 restaurant.

Before we play this clip, for folks who may be around the country don't know, just briefly set up the 99 restaurant. >> The 99 is like a classy night out for me. And hearing people's laughs should tell you what every reason you don't know about the quality of the 99.

It's great. But it's just one of those hometown chains, you know, go in for good burgers and steak tips. And it's really good. Yeah.

We love the 99 here. >> All right, so let's go ahead and hear this clip. >> This story has a happy ending, rather this story is the happy ending.

I recently reported on the 99 being without potato skins for nearly a year and the outrage

that ensued. >> I've been going to the 99, 40 years, I don't go anymore, and I have gift cards. >> As a server, Pino was tired of hearing about it. Over and over and over and over again, 20 times a day at least. >> But today's visit was different.

>> Yes. >> We made our voices heard in corporate America, listen. >> I miss that smell. >> They're back, right? >> Yes, dude.

>> Finally. >> I wish I could have guessed that. >> I wish we could've met, but I used to buy them every single time I went there. >> Yeah. >> I love you potato skins.

>> We've had a miracle.

“>> Remember Kevin, he's the one that originally brought this to my attention.”

>> Somebody needs to dig into this and get some answers. >> Not only did we get answers, but we got action. >> People need to know about the skins, people need to buy the skins, and we can't risk letting them go away again. >> But the change is a lesson.

>> From the 9's, I'm Matt Sheer. >> Here we go. >> We celebrate. >> All right, you're welcome. >> What makes the 99's potato skins so good?

>> Because they look really good. >> They are good. They get a really nice charred perimeter. >> I bet there's some crisp on that edge. >> There is.

Yeah, for sure. And it's just the right cheese to bacon ratio. Sometimes we go to a restaurant, it's like all cheese on one and all bacon on the other. >> Yeah. >> No, they balance it out really well.

>> Also, it's a huge bacon which is far superior. You don't want strips because you bite in and you pull the whole piece of bacon off. >> Yeah. >> So they do look like good potatoes. >> They're good potato skins and clearly people were very upset.

Not just the fact that they were taken off the menu, but they hadn't come back in months. As you saw in that guy's DM, he said to me, "Why is the mainstream media not talking about?" And I'm like, "Well, I'm the mainstream media, I should do something about something else going on for the cover." >> No, no, I knocked on the door at 99 corporate headquarters, which was their explanation.

They said that their potato farmer that they had a sign contract with, the farm burned down. And because of that, the fact that they were under contract, they couldn't buy potatoes from another vendor. And everyone at the 99s was just like, "I will literally go to market basket right now. You get you some potatoes and you can make me some skins," and they're like, "We're not

>> This smells funny to me.

Matt. Welcome to Massachusetts.

“I want to say one more short clip, not a whole story, but this will sort of further illustrate”

the types of characters that you highlight in your work. This is the beginning of a feature you did on Anthony the politically incorrect food tour guide. >> Yes. >> I smoke. I come late.

I don't fumbled crap with lights. I got a couple of little comments that kind of controversial. And he has a food tour. >> You want to come all you buy your own damn canoly. This is Anthony Jeswald, he runs Boston's politically incorrect food tours with a strict

set of rules. >> But great. Don't be a know-it-all. That's just for New York is New York is suck when they come on a tour. You show them a bakery, and they can't wait to tell you about a big green long island,

like I'd give it to you about a big green long island. >> That's the Boston experience. >> Yeah. >> You know, be the come here thinking like, "Oh, I'm going to take a tour." They go to fan your haul, and they see shirts that say things like wicked pissa, but like

that is what they should be. >> Yeah. >> And you know what? Anthony just walking around and talking crap. >> So where do you find these people mad?

>> I want Anthony's pretty hard to miss. >> I was a prep.

“>> I mean a lot of these, are you just like wandering the streets chatting people up all day?”

>> You know what it is? I think a microphone is a magnet for people who have something to say. You know, I'll be out there on the street and they'll come up to me like just recently I was out there and I was talking to some guy. I was literally mid-interview and a guy pulled up from the car and he's like, "Oh, I got

something to say. I'm like, the subway sandwiches. They're not 12 inches. The foot long, I measured them. They were 11 inches."

>> Oh my, this guy has been waiting his whole life to see a reporter on the street, to break this news to me. >> But are you like naturally sort of a chatty person? >> Oh, yeah. 100%.

I'm the guy that's making friends with everyone in the grocery store in my wife's like, "We leave, please." >> For sure. >> But I think that's good. I mean, I hope more people will feel encouraged to talk to strangers.

Everyone's in a while. Like we're all taught. We're brought up to not talk to strangers, not getting strangers' vans, but I've made a career out of doing both those things. So just, you know, no, be aware of your surroundings and of course, but talk to people.

I think that's going to help bridge the divide in this nation. >> What's the craziest tip for a potential story that you ever got? Someone hit me up recently and was like, "Oh, there's a guy who collects the fake IDs." He runs a liquor shop and he collects fake IDs from students that come in and try to

buy booze and he calls them his Pokemon cards and like he has hundreds and thousands of them and like, I was like, "I'm going to meet this guy." I'm sure enough. He's like, "Check it out, man. I got the same chick twice in one night."

Like, "Here's what you want."

I just, I love that. These people that just, you know, other news outlets might just overlook. >> You do seem to have a high percentage of stories about food and I'm counting dunking this being food related. Why do you think that is what is it about food that sort of like hits a sweet spot for

you and the types of stories you want to tell?

“>> I think it's just a universal experience, eating, right?”

And everywhere we go and especially in New England, I mean, we got places, we got market basket here. Do you know? There are parts of this country where you can't get a room full of people cheering for a grocery store, right?

People that go on strike because the CEO of the grocery store got ousted by the board and when that strike clapp it up for yourself, I don't know if you know about this. >> I miss this one. >> I'll give you the background. So the CEO of Market Basket, it was run by this family, the Demulus family for a long

time. RDT and RDS, where the two guys in charge, RDT, was the man of the people.

He always wanted to keep prices low and customers happy.

RDS was the guy who wanted to keep shareholders happy and raise prices. They pushed out RDT, customers lost their minds, boy-cotted market basket for months, and then they eventually brought RDT back. It was just an amazing sort of people were taping their receipts from like antifurds to the window of Market Basket to be like, "I shop elsewhere now, bring back RDT."

When has that ever happened for a CEO of a business, like it's a cult, and I love it. What's the familiar relationship between the two artists, their cousins, and what's their relationship now that RDT is back? >> Cousins who don't talk. But actually RDT recently got pushed out again, and nobody broke that.

They were like, "Yeah, we had enough protests." >> I feel like because of social media and technology connecting everyone everywhere all the time, regional cultures are slowly disappearing, because everything is the same. Like my kids, who are teenagers outside New York City, speak the same slang as kids their age, everywhere else in America.

When I was a kid, you'd meet someone from California, and they'd have all these words you didn't know. >> Yeah. >> But I do feel like Massachusetts, New England, is still a little bit apart. >> Oh, for sure.

I learned recently that calling something a room is a regional thing, like it's room in

>> Yeah.

>> But room here in Massachusetts.

>> Yeah.

“>> I learned that you don't call them Rotaries in the rest of the country.”

>> No. >> You call them roundabouts? >> No. The roundabouts is an England. Rest of the country is a traffic circle.

>> Traffic circle? >> Yeah. >> That's too many words. >> Rotary. >> So as we said, Matt, a lot of your most memorable stories involve a beloved place or

menu item go away. We talked about the potato skins at the 99. And then there was the whole dunkens, two dunkens in Sto-Mass, they lost both of their dunkens. Now, on a surface level, the idea that both dunkens in a small town closed, and people

got upset, it's sort of like, oh, that's funny, silly local.

But your style is different, like you go in there, you're not making fun of them. I sympathize, I would be heartbroken. >> But why is that story important? It's an individual thing that might not sound important to everybody, but the people there and Sto, like, dunking when you live here, it's like an extension of your kitchen, right?

You go downstairs every day and then you put on clothes or whatever you walk out, you go to

“dunking and you don't even look at the menu when you walk in, that's how you can tell”

if someone's local. If someone's looking up when they walk into a dunk in, they're not from here. You just walk in, you know what you're getting, and then imagine somebody just took your kitchen away. That's what it's like to lose both your dunkens.

It's just a part of your routine, a part of your everyday, a little something that brought you comfort. >> When they close those two dunkens in Sto, you did a story about it, and we're going to play one more clip here. There was a grand reopening, when they opened the new one, no more dunking desert in Sto.

And I just want to show this clip of two women who are just to describe who are going to hear this, they are decked out, head to toe, and dunk in paraphernalia. They have glasses that the rims and the glasses are donuts. They have a hat with donuts sticking out of it, and this is these two women that Matt talked to.

>> Please have a song to want to hear it? >> Yes. >> Okay, no, we got it. Ready? >> No, we couldn't be any power.

>> That's Ronnie and Kim. >> Today is Dunkin' Day, we shout out a little louder. >> Have you been inside yet? >> No. >> Oh my goodness.

>> It's so beautiful. >> I don't think famous people here. >> So, that campaigns to bring back that dunking was so successful that your pictures on the wall there. >> My picture is on the wall there.

I didn't tell my kids about it when we walked in and they were just like, "Daddy!" >> That was cool, but no, they went all out. On the wall, it has references to the video where you mentioned Dunkin' Desert. That was a line from my video. They have now Desert no more on the wall, and they have a specialty donut that's only

available there called the Sto Nut, which has little sprinkle cactuses on it. Because it's Desert, yeah, I mean, it was the most exciting thing to happen in StoCense Revolutionary Week.

“Is there like an overarching theme or like goal to your work?”

How do you think about it collectively? Everyone out here is human with a story, and we walk by these people and sometimes we judge people. But once you actually talk to them, you find out they're a human, they've got lives, things they care about, things they love, people who love them, people that they love,

and I just want to bring that to the world. >> Can I pitch you a story, Matt? Please. So I went to school at Tufts, just outside Boston.

That's where I first started Dritton Coffee at the Dunkin' on Boston Ave in Medford.

>> Amazing. >> And my order was initially an average at Black Coffee, but back then it was a medium ice hazelnut coffee with milk and six sugars. [ Laughter ] >> Yeah.

>> That's the gay way drug. So, and for a long time, there was a guy who worked there whose name tag read Mr. Fresh. >> Okay. >> And you would walk in and he would greet you by saying, "What fresh, delicious product,

my serve you today." And you would get whatever you're getting, you would pay, and as you left, he would say, "Have a fresh one." >> I'm sold. >> So of course my friends and I who go to this Dunkin' we all know Mr. Fresh, we all talk

about Mr. Fresh. At a certain point, and we're gonna stress in order to be haven't seen Mr. Fresh in a while. >> Oh no. >> Months go by, and we're really like, where's Mr. Fresh, we're getting upset. I go in there one day, months after he'd been gone, and he's there.

But there was no, hello, what fresh, delicious product, my eyes serve you. >> No. >> I get up to the counter, and now his name tag just says, "Damon." >> No, he's got micromanaged. >> He seemed a little sad.

>> And he didn't say, "Have a fresh one." It felt a little bit like a piece of him had been taken away. >> Wow. >> So my initial assignment to you was, "Find Mr. Fresh." >> I think I can.

>> I want to know where he is, I want to know if he's okay.

>> No. >> No. >> I have a lead.

“I think I know the GM of that Dunkin' your talk.”

>> Really? >> I know. >> This is why he's good, but this was the late '90s. >> This GM I'm talking has been there for 40 years. >> Oh my God.

>> This is the phenomenon. >> I think I may have a connection. >> Awesome. >> Awesome. >> All right.

>> Well, will you take on this project? >> Yeah. >> I'm so old. >> No, this is fantastic. >> Okay.

>> And you are all going to be the first ones to know about Mr. Fresh.

>> All right. [ Applause ] >> We're searching for Mr. Fresh. >> Yeah. >> Well, Matt, we're going to stick around

as we bring on our next guest. Big hand for Matt Scherer. [ Applause ] >> Coming up, only Hopper joins me to talk about going from a career as a make-up artist to the author of a forthcoming book about Puerto Rican food.

Then, reporter Ian Cost joins us to share a surprising story about Munkfish. Stick around. [ Music ] >> Ooh, advertising. Yeah, man.

[ Music ] >> Welcome back to the sport full, I'm Dan Pashman. Last week on the show, I talked with writer Katie Weaver about her quest to find the best free restaurant bread in America. She traveled 13,000 miles in search of an answer to her question.

She started off with a bang and a fancy place in Vegas for dinner costs more than $500 a person. >> They bring out a beautiful, overflowing bread cart that has 16 varieties of bread. It was absolutely humiliating to have to say to these people but like one of each because some of the bread's are really quite similar.

But they didn't blink at that, they said no problem at all. >> But it's not all fancy, Katie also visits several chains. She goes to a restaurant deep in the woods of Appalachia. She even just qualifies a strong contender because of its diet coke policy. So, in the end, what restaurant is the winner?

Well, of course she didn't have to listen to find out. I'm not giving away answers for free here. That one's up now. Check it out. >> All right, we're back at WBUR City Space in Boston.

[ Applause ] Our next guest comes to us from the great state of Rhode Island.

In fact, she might be our first ever guest from Rhode Island.

I mean, it's hard for me to believe. Well, fact, check it. She was able to run her up on Gordon Ramsay's cooking competition show next-level chef. She's got a cookbook coming out this August called Cooking Con.

Oh, me, it's oh, me, hopper! [ Applause ] >> Welcome, oh, me. It's great to have you here. >> It's great to be here.

>> So, you're born in Puerto Rico. Mootora Island when you're 11.

“What are some misconceptions that people have about Rhode Island?”

[ Laughter ] >> You know, we are very small. We're obviously the smallest state, but we have a very big heart. We've got great food. Obviously we've got all the universities between Johnson Whales,

Riz the Brown, URI. We've got it all. And a lot of the students from Johnson Whales end up staying. >> It's open. >> There's a country school there.

>> Yeah. >> One of the best in the country. >> Absolutely. >> But also, I think the people from Rhode Island think of like Newport, you know,

think of like old money, rich white people. >> So they go to Broadway Street and Providence. [ Laughter ] >> But Rhode Island is more diverse, and there's a lot more variety to the food

than I think people understand. >> Yes, we have food from all over the world. I mean, you can get anything you want. >> So like growing up in Rhode Island, like what were some of the things you were eating.

>> At home, it's all Puerto Rican food. [ Laughter ] >> [ Speaking Spanish ]

“>> How's favorites? >> And what about other stuff you're eating outside the house?”

>> I absolutely love the fact that in Rhode Island, you can travel all of Latin America, Dominican food, Guatemala, and Mexican, Peruvian, we've got amazing flavors. >> When was the first time you had coffee milk?

[ Laughter ] >> Dan, I've had coffee since I was five years old, so -- >> But coffee milk is a Rhode Island thing, right? It's like chocolate milk, but instead of it being chocolate syrup,

it's coffee syrup. >> Yeah, no, I can't do that. [ Laughter ] >> I can't do it. I'm all for clam cakes and chowder and all the things.

I love that, but I stop at coffee milk. [ Laughter ] >> I've got limits. >> Reporter Matt, have you ever had coffee milk?

>> I've honestly never heard of it.

That's terrifying. I don't like coffee. I'm not a coffee guy. >> What's terrifying about it? >> Everyone loves chocolate milk.

Chocolate syrup with milk. Coffee flavor. It's like -- I mean, I haven't had it. But it sounds good to me. >> Like you combo the coffee syrup and the chocolate syrup,

you'd have a mocha milk. >> That's true. >> Yeah. >> What's -- I've ever had a Manhattan special? >> No, what's a Manhattan special?

>> It's like a New York thing. It's like a very sweet coffee flavored soda.

[ Laughter ]

>> Stay away from any of them.

>> Do you cross state lines? Are you allowed to leave the state? >> Why would I leave Massachusetts? We don't need Florida. We have Cape Cod.

We don't need Europe. We have province town. [ Laughter ] >> I've got -- I've got it all here. [ Laughter ]

>> So, only back to you. How much -- I mean, I know that you said that a lot of the food growing up in your house was Puerto Rican classics. How much did you feel like Puerto Rico came with you?

>> I came here at the age of 11, not wanting to move out of Puerto Rico. I remember being so homesick that my mom knew she needed to send me back to Puerto Rico every summer. And so every summer, religiously, I would go back to Puerto Rico

and stay the entire three months with my grandmother who was the biggest influence for me for cooking and wanting to learn all things in the kitchen. She grew a lot of her own stuff. So, I would go down, you know, to the farm with her

and pick out ingredients and come back to the kitchen and cook it with her. So, it was that which kept me so enthusiastic about food.

“>> Is there a specific dish that you remember cooking with her?”

>> I'm her so frito. Me so frito frescasito, which I call it now. It's a blend of peppers and garlic, onions, cilantro, cilantro, and it's the base of Puerto Rican food. All of our flavor revolves around so frito.

>> You grew up in Rhode Island. You went out of the world and you started creating makeup. >> And then COVID happened. >> So, no one need any makeup during COVID. So, you start posting videos of your cooking.

>> Like a true extrovert. I love people and I just wanted to connect with the outside world. So, I wanted to record myself doing what I was actually doing, just cooking. >> And one of the things that you did pretty early on in your videos,

you really kind of incorporated music into your cooking videos in a much more intentional way. >> Yeah. >> Tell me about that. >> It was like a calling card.

The music that my grandmother would listen to, well, she was cooking in the kitchen. To me was like the inspiration. And I knew that if I was feeling so homesick, which I was feeling so homesick,

“I knew other people probably felt the same way.”

So, I started listening to the music that I knew was going to get people to listen in and started cooking the foods that I also knew. People were missing at home. >> And what happened?

Let's start posting these videos. >> Oh my gosh.

>> I first started posting the videos on my Instagram

that was makeup related. And then very quickly the page started to turn from makeup to food and I'm like, wait a minute. The food was just for fun until COVID was done and over with. But then it turned out that once COVID restrictions were lifted

when people were making appointments for makeup, they were coming from here from Boston. They were coming from New York from Connecticut. And I'm like, are there any makeup artists? >> Yeah.

>> And you went to the top. No, they were booking with me because they wanted to meet cooking going on me. >> Oh. >> The videos started going viral.

The numbers were insane. I would wake up, notifications back then, where ridiculous. Like, in one week, I would grow 10,000 followers. >> And then, you get our next level chef.

We have a clip of a moment that one of the secret ingredients you would have to cook with was revealed. Let's take a look at this. >> Plantains. >> [LAUGH]

>> [INAUDIBLE] >> It felt so good to just be able to grab and taste. I'm from Puerto Rico. And I felt like I was home. [LAUGH]

>> So you were excited about the plantains.

“>> You want to know what's funny about that episode?”

>> When you get called to the show, they tell you prepare yourself to be there a week, or you could be there for weeks, right? By that point, it was like two and a half weeks. And I was homesick.

>> And I'm in London. >> We were recording this in London. >> Oh, geez. >> So I had no, none of my familiar foods. So I see plantains coming down the platform.

And I grabbed way more than what I was supposed to. And I kid you not. I cooked. What I knew I was going to plate. And then I cooked extra from you to have on the side.

[LAUGH] >> I made up with this challenge. I'm going to eat some plantains. >> I'm going to eat some plantains. That's for sure.

[LAUGH] >> So in August, you're releasing your first ever cookbook. Cooking con, omie, a love letter to Puerto Rican, home cooking. What can we expect from the book? >> I really want to take people on a journey.

One of the things that I really pride myself in is that I'm not a chef. I am a home cook just like everyone else. And anyone watching me at home, I want to encourage them to be playful in their kitchen to explore, experiment. There's a phrase I say, look at that.

You got to call that song. Whatever your heart tells you. And Tuko Sina Tumadas, which is in your kitchen, your own boss. And so I really want to take people on a journey.

If you've never tried Puerto Rican food, this is going to be your gateway to

trying it in a very easy and approachable way.

aunt or uncle's never got to teach you this recipe, you're going to learn.

“And if you are in Puerto Rico, you're just going to be proud to be home.”

>> Omie, you're going to stick around. >> That's true. >> All right, big head for Omie Hopper. [APPLAUSE] >> Now, it's time to welcome our third guest.

He's an audio producer, host and musician. He's the host and creator of the Big Dig Podcast from GPH News. The latest season is called Catch in the cod father. It's a sweeping story about the downfall of a Massachusetts fishing tycoon.

We played part of it on the sport full. So I'll bet you're familiar. Please welcome to the stage Ian Costs. [APPLAUSE] So Ian, you've been doing a series of sort of deep dive long-form stories.

It started with the Big Dig.

The first one was on the Big Dig.

Now, I was obsessed with the Big Dig.

“I lived here when it was happening for our listeners who may not know”

is this gigantic construction project in Boston that went on for decades and cost, I think, $84 trillion. But it was well worth it. There was an elevated highway that tore the right through the center of the city. And half, it was outdated the second that had opened.

And this project was to tear that down. Put it, make it a tunnel and replace it with a park. Great. What do you need in the nine episode of podcast? There's so much drama to it.

I mean, I had multiple coffee table books about the Big Dig.

Did you have the history of channel VHS?

Yes, I did. I learned four copies. I used to give them out as gifts. I say that all this is say that I could easily take up the rest of this podcast taping chatting with you about slurry wall construction.

So tell me one thing that you learned about the Big Dig working on that series that most surprised you. That it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. What specifically wasn't as bad? So I grew up in Massachusetts.

I grew up in Western Massachusetts, sort of the the Hill country far west. And out in Western mass, people hated the Big Dig. Not because we didn't deal with the construction. We didn't deal with the cones or the traffic or anything. But we were paying for it and getting nothing for it.

And I don't think I even really understood what the project was until I moved to Boston as an adult and I started walking around and seeing oh that bridge. That is the Big Dig and oh that tunnel on this park. And realizing that it did actually deliver something real for this city. That it was a little more complicated than just the boondoggle.

I love it. Anyway, to the matter at hand. Yeah. Catching the cod father, your latest series, which is so excellent. Give us the outline of that story.

So Carlos Rafael, aka the cod father, once owned this massive fishing fleet of about 40 boats in New Bedford, Massachusetts. For folks who are not here in the room and don't know, New Bedford is the number one commercial fishing port in the United States by value. The port that inspired the bookmobile dick, it is a storied legendary port.

And Carlos dominated this port for years until one day in 2016 federal agents showed up and arrested him and it turned out that they had been monitoring him in an undercover sting operation for about a year at that point. And that turns out his whole operation was built on an elaborate fishing fraud.

“First of all, when you say he ran this port, like what does that mean exactly?”

The secret of his business was vertical integration. All right. So some people, they might own some boats or they might own a plant or they might own a wholesale business. Carlos owned the entire supply chain.

But I also say he's just ubiquitous. Like you walk it to this day. You walk around and you see Carlos Rafael. Well, what do you mean literally you see him? Yeah, yeah. I would run it. I was sitting in the Dunkin Donuts parking lot.

Here's here's the Massachusetts location for there's this bridge called the Fairhaven Bridge. There's a Dunkin on the Fairhaven Bridge. And so I was interviewing somebody in the parking lot like I was sitting in this guy's truck. And like blue pickup truck goes by and the guy I'm talking to is like, no, there goes Carlos right there. I think one of the things that is interesting about the series is that you can't help but love him.

Yeah, for me going into there were a number of pieces that have been done about Carlos after he was arrested. And they kind of I felt like took on this sort of cartoonish villain narrative around him, which to be fair he does to himself. I mean, if you listen to him talk he swears constantly. He's constantly bad melting other people. He refers to himself as an asshole.

What was interesting is you talked to people around town about Carlos and you'd find that a lot of people loved him.

“It's even some people in government loved him.”

So I got interested in that. And yes, he is a crook. Yes, he exploited the oceans. Yes, he broke the rules caught fish. He was not supposed to catch. But I also found him very interesting. He's complicated. So one of the stories that you had worked on as part of this, but I got cut. Am I right? Oh, yeah.

Was all about monkfish. Yeah. So now we're going to hear the story of monkfish. Sure. So the story starts with Roger Berkowitz.

Yeah. His father found a legal seat for the Roger. Really was the one who took it over and threw it into the, he sold it a few years back. But he grew it into the enterprise that we owe today in every terminal of Logan Airport. Right.

But way back when is a young man he was working his father's fish shop.

Yeah. And what happened?

“So this is the story as told to me by Roger Berkowitz.”

Also have to shut out Roger's fish company as a sponsor of our podcast. Also I used to wait tables at legal sea foods full disclosure. Okay. Glad we got all of the sculptures out there. Yeah.

So Roger was working at legal seafood, which is in Cambridge right across the river from here. The original one, the original one. So he would go out to the docks to buy fish. Okay. And one day he's down to the docks and he sees this great that just says monkey tails.

And so he sees this. He's no idea what is he asked the person at the fish market. And the guys, oh, you don't want this shit. We send this to France apparently that he did over there. [ Laughter ]

It was at that time considered in his words a trash fish. It was by catch. It's, you know, it was a bottom fish that would come up in the nets with the cod and the haddock. But there was no market for it here so they would just freeze it and send it over to France. So he says, give me 10 pounds of it.

And I'll take it back to the market and see what we can do with it. He takes it back to the market in Minskware in Cambridge where the original legal seafood was. Was also the neighborhood of one Julia child. So this was like her local fish market. This was her local fish market.

So she comes in that day and she sees the monkey tails. That's the monkey tails as they were calling them. And she immediately breaks out and goes, "Look, look!" [ Laughter ] >> Which is my impersonation of Roger Berkowitz's impersonation, Julia child.

A lot, I don't speak French, is apparently the French word for monkfish. So she's all excited. She says, "I love it. I want to do this on the show. Can you get me a whole one?"

“So what do Roger Berkowitz have to do to get the monkfish?”

She went back to the market and said, "He thought it would be easy." You know, he figured that they'd just bring the whole fish, a shore and then they'd carve it up. And they're like, "What do you mean? We can't get to a monkfish."

And I've seen this two this day when the fishing boats come in and new bedford. They just have the tails. They just cut the tail off and they throw the rest of the fish back in the water. Because truly, it's all mouth. [ Laughter ]

So he had to put in like a special request. Wait, is that it took two weeks for a boat to go out, get a monkfish, hold on to the whole monkfish, bring it in. And that is the monkfish that you see in that clip on Julia Child. Filmed at WGBH in Boston, right?

[ Laughter ] So we have a clip. Okay, great. We have a clip here. This is Julia Child on her show with a monkfish.

Under this Kovia 2, this is one of the great fish of all time. Woo! Look at that. [ Laughter ] This is a monkfish or anglerfish. And it's -- look at that. Look at that. Great big mouth.

Look at those teeth. They're teeth. And the lower part, very sharp teeth up here. If you're way down in here, they're teeth down in the middle bottom. And he's even got some teeth under the eyes, if you can believe that. And somebody described this fish is a great big mouth in a small tail,

surrounding a stomach. And this is a North Atlantic fish, and it also has various other names. Goosefish, bellowsfish, all mouth. That's a good name. Fishing frog, devilfish, mulli gut, and anglerfish. But what's interesting about it is that it looks so big.

This weighs about 20 pounds. But all you eat is the tail. [ Laughter ] See, it was a big deal to get the whole monkfish.

Because people never see the whole monkfish.

All you ever see is that tail.

I was meeting up with an old friend, and he gave me a couple choices of where we should eat, and I was looking on the menus. And I picked Row 34, which is a few of those around. I had lunch there on Monday. Okay, because the menu had monkfish on it, and I knew I was going to be talking

with you, but I said, let me do some research. Chef Jeremy Sewell, a friend of the show. Well, tell Jeremy they were out of monkfish that night. [ Laughter ] Wow, I really set him up, and then he just burned.

[ Laughter ]

“So what's the deal? Like, why does anyone want monkfish?”

And what's the great about it?

Let me tell you the first great thing about monkfish.

It's about $10 a pound, okay? Which, yeah, that's so compared to, you know, if you're buying cod or salmon, you're going to pay, like, maybe double that. All right, so it is so much cheaper. And it's really good.

It's sometimes called poorman's lobster, because it sounds like a stretch. Give me a chance. All right, all right. It has, you know, the cod and the hadic of this sort of,

like, flaky kind of fall apart texture. Right. monkfish has a very firm, almost chewy texture. Like a lobster tail. You can grill it, whole, you can broil it, you can pan fry it.

I'll tell you where, in my mind, it really shines, which is in a chowder. And if you know, even tide oyster, they're from Portland or, wow, Portland Maine.

Wow. Wow, I'm going to get hate for that. Yeah, really. There have been Portland Maine.

“Even tide is a great fish-chowder recipe.”

It's for cod, but if you substitute monkfish for cod, it'll cost you half as much, and it'll be twice as good in the even tide fish-chowder recipe. It just holds together. It's chewy.

It like carries the flavor. It's really, really good. Well, it sounds very good. And in my right, there's also a good environmental reason to eat monkfish.

Well, like I said, I mean, to the state, there's not a huge market for it, and it is caught alongside these other, bottom-dwelling fish. And that was back to Julia Child.

I mean, that was the reason, part of the reason she would champion a lot of different seafood. She would champion things like skate and macro. Things that they weren't developed commercial markets for, because these things all come up in the net.

So yeah, there really is, like as eaters, it is a great choice to try different species. Here's my fun fact for you is that Americans, if you look at all the seafood we eat, 86% of all the seafood is 10 species.

Out of thousands and thousands and thousands of species in the ocean,

we basically eat 10 things.

It's like tuna shrimp, etc. So we got to mix it up. Mix it up, get munk fish and the rotation. All right, big hand for munk fish and for Ian. We're going to take one more quick break and we come back Matt, Ome and Ian are going to share hot takes. We're going to have some hot debates. It's going to be great stick around. [Applause]

[Music] It's time to open up the can of advertisements. [Music] All right, we're back and out live at WBUR City Space in Boston. [Applause]

And I'm joined once again by Matt Sheer, aka reporter Matt at WBZ. Ome Hopper, who's worth them in Cookbook, is Cookin' Con Ome. And reporter Ian POS, host of the Big Dick podcast at GPH. All right, we've had some time to meet each of you, which has been lovely. Now it's time for the free for all.

I asked each of you to bring a hot take, Ome and let me start with you. What do you got? I love fancy plating. I'm all about fancy plating, not really. But can we leave street food, be street food? Can we stop trying to make a fancy? It bothers me. It also bothers me while we're at it.

Deconstructed everything. Why are we deconstructing lasagna? I get it. It's a lot of work. The whole point of it is that it's constructed.

“Exactly. That's what makes it fun is what makes it look pretty.”

If you want the flavor, it makes spaghetti. It makes something else. It bothers me. Matt thoughts on this? Yeah, I agree. I like deconstructed cereal, which is just dry cereal. I don't put the milk in.

That's pretty good. That's just cereal without milk. Right. It would be deconstructed cereal if you ate the cereal dry and then drank a glass of milk. Well, sometimes I just eat marshmallows, which is deconstructed lucky charms. That's pretty good. Again, I take issue with the use of the term deconstructed. We'll have to keep moving.

Okay. Ian, hot take. My hot take is that any ice cream flavor would be better if it had chocolate chips in it.

I always, always order a flavor that has chips in it. Matt response?

Sure. Or purple cow, which is black raspberry ice cream with chocolate chips.

Yeah. Yeah. And white chocolate chips. Oh. Did you say orange or chocolate chips? Yes. Orange or chocolate chips is fantastic. Come on, try me. I don't know why they don't have strawberry chip.

I wish they were strawberry chip. But like, man, this is like peanut butter chip. They have chocolate chips as a topping. Would you get that on some other flavor? It's not the same. It's got to be mixed in.

I don't know about that. No, I am trying me. What the? Are you just not as big into chocolate on me? No, I love chocolate. I'm all about the chocolate. It's just not on everything. For every ice cream flavor.

“What's the ice cream flavor that you would, would not want chocolate chips?”

I'm sure before one is definitely not one.

Not one. I mean, I mean, for that, I'll try the coffee milk.

[laughter] But this is, I think there's a deeper question here that I have Ian. I don't know if you all encountered Ian's type. No, fancy Ian, but... [laughter]

Am I a type or other type? I feel like I hear a lot of booze. I feel like people, people who like chocolate are very aggressive about chocolate. They're like, oh, where's the dessert? Is there any chocolate here?

There's not chocolate here. It's not dessert. I want chocolate chips and everything. I am a lover, not a fighter, and I want to be caramel. I'm not a big caramel. I'm not a big spice. I'm not a big... I don't get any spice in my desserts, but I want, I'm fine with chocolate.

But why are chocolate people so aggressive about it? I covered a chocolate convention once, and I... Perfect. I mean, I'm a chocolate guy, so I was among my people. But the first guy I talked to was, you could put chocolate on rocks.

[laughter] So, we've established that Ian wants chocolate chips in every single ice cream. But Matt, you have a related take. I do.

“I think that sprinkles ruin everything that they are in.”

It's 100% true. They had nothing except like a waxy flavor that ruins the texture. Like literally they taste like wax. Whenever you ever put rainbow sprinkles in thought or like, oh, this tastes like rainbow. You never.

You are not tasting the rainbow with rainbow sprinkles. I'm sorry, and like, yeah, you put people put them on cookies.

Life always buys the chocolate chip cookies from market baskets that have the sprinkles on them.

And like, we are very close to divorce. Like, it's bad. It's bad, like on chocolate chip cookies, like they do not belong there. Oh, me, you're nodding. No, because it's true.

They add no value whatsoever. Yeah, nothing. My thanks to my guest tonight. Matt Shearer is a reporter for WBC News Radio in Boston. You can find him on Instagram at reporter Matt.

Keep it going for Omni Hopper, her new book cooking condom. He is coming at her August. You can hear her now by her at cooking underscore con underscore omni at Instagram. And then, of course, Ian Coss is the host and creator of the Big Big podcast. The GPH News.

Find him on Instagram at Ian Coss. We'll link to all my guest work in the show description. Why don't you follow people on his skin follow me? I am at the sport for my thanks to Steven Davian. Everyone at WBU are city space.

Big hand for WBU are city space. And for yourselves. Thank you all for coming out. Good night. [applause]

Next week on the show, the annual Taco Bell 50K race. Yes, people run 50 kilometers. That's about 30 miles. That's more than a marathon while stopping to eat at nine different Taco Bells along the way.

“Who in their right mind would take on such a challenge?”

Well, my guest in this episode for one. That one's coming up next week. While you wait for that one, check out the last week's show. Where writer Katie Weaver goes in search of the best free restaurant bread in America. And hey, did you know you can listen to the sport full on the serious XM app?

Yes, the serious XM app it has all your favorite podcasts. Plus over 200 ad free music channels curated by genre and era. Plus live sports coverage is your podcasting app have that. And there's interviews with a list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one.

And right now, sport full listeners can get three months free of the serious XM app by going to SiriusXM.com/Sportful. This episode was produced by me along with Managed and Producer. I'm a Morgan Stern. And senior producer, Andreas O'Hara. It was edited by Camille Stanley.

Our engineer is Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The sport full is a production of SiriusXM podcast. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

And I'm Lisa Kenby from Stonham, Massachusetts, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.