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Nov. 14, 2018 - The Joe Rogan Experience
02:40:53
Joe Rogan Experience #1202 - Fred Morin & David McMillan
Participants
Main voices
d
david mcmillan
01:00:19
f
fred morin
47:37
j
joe rogan
49:15
Appearances
Clips
j
jamie vernon
00:03
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Speaker Time Text
unidentified
I don't know.
No, here we go.
joe rogan
Good?
unidentified
Good?
joe rogan
Here we go.
Three, two, live?
Boom.
We're live.
Gentlemen.
David.
Fred.
fred morin
Hey.
Good to be here.
joe rogan
Good to see you guys.
What's happening?
david mcmillan
Not much.
We're in sunny California.
joe rogan
Yeah, it's too close to the sun.
A little bit.
Been barbecued over the last week and a half.
I've been hiding in a hotel for six days.
fred morin
How proper that we're here to talk about surviving the apocalypse.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
Your book is Joe Beef Surviving the Apocalypse.
A cookbook for Surviving the Apocalypse?
What's the purpose of the title?
Just a goof?
david mcmillan
We haven't written a book in years.
I don't think we really wanted to write a second book.
When we started getting a bit of pressure to write a second one, we kind of...
You know, laid down the gauntlet to the editors and said, we're going to write what we want.
Are you in or are you out?
And they said, well, you know, show us a little bit of the framework of what this is going to be.
I said, I want to talk, you know, cooking doesn't define me or Fred.
It's not all that we do.
Like, you know, you see some people, they seem to, like, eat, live, and breathe cooking.
I said, no, I'm into the outdoors.
I'm into mushroom picking.
I'm into fermentation of berries.
I'm into canoeing.
I know all about canoes.
I love swimming in lakes.
I want to talk about multiple subjects.
I want to talk about the native Mohawks of Quebec.
So I said, let us write a book.
About the multiple subjects of which we're into, you know?
fred morin
Hey Joe, if we're not cooking, we're building first aid kits and like survival kits for real.
david mcmillan
Really?
fred morin
Yeah, David goes to like LL Bean.
He has a lifetime membership there.
david mcmillan
I have an off-grid cabin up north, like north of Montreal, about an hour and a half.
You can only get there by boat.
It's eight kilometers from the landing.
You know, 2,000 watts of solar power.
Completely off-grid.
You can barely walk in because of the jagged cliffs all around it.
Behind me is an old-growth forest that's protected federally.
fred morin
And I have a suture kit and saline in my car.
joe rogan
Always?
david mcmillan
Oh, dude, his car's outfitted.
Like, he's got shovels on the roof and propane tanks on the roof.
fred morin
Two years ago, I drove to Alaska, down south, Arizona, back home.
unidentified
Wow.
fred morin
20,000 miles.
joe rogan
I grew up in Boston, and I did stand-up in Montreal for the first time, I think, in like 1991 or something like that.
And I remember thinking Boston was cold until I went to Montreal, and I went, oh, this is a different thing.
david mcmillan
We had it last year, too.
We had a polar vortex last year come roaring through.
I think all the pipes blew in all the restaurants.
joe rogan
I'm sure.
fred morin
Like, January 2nd, you know?
joe rogan
But what I was going to say is, do you think that living in such an extreme environment, a beautiful city, amazing city, but it's an incredibly harsh environment in the winter, do you think that makes you more cognizant about the need for survival?
david mcmillan
It's always in the back of my head.
unidentified
It's always.
david mcmillan
I have three daughters.
It's always in the back of my head.
They say, this is incredibly cold.
If the power goes out for 48 hours, I have to start a plan B.
Where am I bringing my babies?
What are we going to eat?
Where are we going?
In our city, over the last couple of years, I've been talking about a complete ban of fireplaces and wood-burning stoves inside of homes, condominiums, and houses.
The laws governing wood-burning in the city of Montreal are stricter than the ones in California.
fred morin
And we die, man.
If it's cold, we die.
david mcmillan
I go, this is irresponsible, you know, by the government to do this.
I said, okay, make sure we don't use them, but let's all have them just in case.
fred morin
Same goes for...
david mcmillan
Because if the grid goes down...
joe rogan
What are they worried about it for?
Are they worried about the...
fred morin
Particle emission.
joe rogan
Particulates?
Yeah.
david mcmillan
That's correct.
joe rogan
Man, but it smells good.
Like a nice wood-burning stove smells amazing.
Who doesn't like bagels?
david mcmillan
Yeah, this affects everybody.
This affects restaurants and grilling food.
This affects barbecue.
This affects traditional bagel stores.
joe rogan
Traditional bagel stores cooked with wood?
Is that why you said that?
unidentified
Yeah, of course.
fred morin
Really?
unidentified
Of course.
fred morin
You go into my land, St. Vieter bagel, Fairmount bagel, all the other ones, you smell it.
david mcmillan
It's a massive part of our culture as well.
You have to understand that food-wise, the province of Quebec, the city of Quebec City and Montreal, This is the first place that's populated in North America.
The Europeans, to get to anywhere in North America, came through Quebec first, New York afterwards.
The food culture in Quebec is over 400 years old.
You can't say that about...
fred morin
Over 1,000 years old.
david mcmillan
Yeah, absolutely.
fred morin
And wood is detrimental to that.
If it wasn't for burning wood...
I'm not saying we should do it for historical purpose, but man, if we run out of gas, there's still wood.
unidentified
For safety's sake.
fred morin
And then they're going to come and give you a ticket, you know, two grand, because you're having a fire?
david mcmillan
A few years ago, like about a decade ago, we had this crazy ice storm in Quebec.
You know, the perfect storm of rain and then cold and then rain and then cold.
All the power lines went out.
fred morin
All the pylons crashed.
joe rogan
Yeah, everything got thick with ice, right?
fred morin
Yeah, for two weeks.
david mcmillan
Yeah, two weeks.
There's a baby boom right after that because people stayed home, no television and no heat and procreated.
Then there was a true baby boom nine months later.
There was a ton of new kids born.
joe rogan
That's hilarious.
fred morin
But you know the deep freeze, it also like cleans the city in the winter.
So from your perspective, if the shit hits the fan, they come and see us.
Because it's a pretty good city to survive anything, you know?
It's a pretty neat place because the winter just like sanitizes everything.
You start again every year, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah, as opposed to LA where you never really get that.
david mcmillan
You can't get the full clean down.
joe rogan
Never.
fred morin
It's the long haul.
joe rogan
Yeah, you do like a whore's bath.
You know, you just get it like you're in a restroom somewhere with paper towels that you wet down and sort of get your underarms or whatever.
That's what LA is.
fred morin
The wet towelettes.
joe rogan
Yes, yes.
So you just wanted to write a book that kind of covers all of your interests, not just with food, but...
One of the things that I really enjoyed about, there was an episode that you guys did of Anthony Bourdain's show where you were ice fishing and you had one of those ice fishing huts and you guys cooked.
fred morin
Tony told you it's notorious in the show that they never caught fish and whenever he had a gun he never hit anything.
So we knew that and we knew that there was not a pike and there was not a walleye that was going to bite.
So we're like, okay, option A, we sit there and we like take some fake fish and we fry it up in cornflakes and shortening in a hollow cabin.
Or we just went like Joe Beef crazy and we brought all the old cookbooks we had, all the spirits, like Cuban cigars, all the copperware, all the stuff.
And we made the menu from an old Leonet restaurant, Paul Bucuz, that he did a show at after.
And he knew nothing about that day.
And we just went from fishing after he asked us about like strippers in Quebec and like just a few funny banter.
And we just went in.
It was like magical.
It was seriously a tenth of the size of this room here.
joe rogan
Yeah, it was a tiny, tiny little shack.
david mcmillan
And he tapped out that day.
joe rogan
Yeah?
david mcmillan
Yeah, he was having a good time.
And we brought some fine wines and fine spirits and some really rare oddities, some old chartreuse and stuff like that that Fred had lying around.
And Tony was funny.
There you guys are.
joe rogan
It's up on the screen right there.
david mcmillan
He let it go a bit.
He calmed down and enjoyed us and let us do our thing.
I'm a bit fatter, eh?
Oh, God.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
That was in the wine drinking days too, right?
david mcmillan
Yeah, correct.
joe rogan
Look at that.
unidentified
God, that looks good.
joe rogan
Is that foie gras and some sort of mashed potatoes or something?
fred morin
Yeah, that's a wild rabbit.
It's a French recipe.
It's called hair a la royale, where you cook the hair for a long time.
And hair?
And you serve it with truffles and you keep the blood.
This hair is snared, so it's still full of blood.
And you keep the blood and at the end, you thicken the sauce with the blood.
It's very good.
And I bet you, you know, it's funny.
I bet you it fits all the principles of nutrition now, you know?
It's like blood and all the organ meats and all that.
Same with cheese.
Look, this is like pure probiotics right there.
joe rogan
Isn't that interesting, right?
That no one thought of that until recently, that that was what it was.
People just thought of it as cheese.
And now people think of it as there's live cultures on it and organ meat is much healthier for you.
And people are so much more aware of that.
fred morin
And look at the cheese thing, too.
It's like Now, a lot of the probiotic makers are doing lipo deliveries.
They coat it in fat so it resists the stomach acid, right?
But that's fat.
Probiotic from cheese is covered in fat.
You eat it after your dinner, it lives through you.
In a perfect world, it comes from right around your house, right?
So you eat a cheese and the probiotics are the same one that you're going to encounter later, so you kind of get immunized in a way.
joe rogan
Yeah.
fred morin
That's the benefit.
That's what true local is.
joe rogan
Right, right, yeah.
There's a benefit to eating cheese after a meal?
david mcmillan
Yeah, sure.
When it's a very pungent, advanced, alive, raw cheese, it'll be seen ultimately as a non-alcoholic digestif.
joe rogan
What is a digestif?
david mcmillan
To help stimulate digestion.
joe rogan
Ah, no kidding.
unidentified
Correct.
joe rogan
So it's almost like an enzyme.
david mcmillan
Yeah, like a probiotic.
unidentified
Wow.
fred morin
But mostly, now they're figuring this out, that The problem of the low-fat diet and the, you know, like brown rice and chicken breast, you know, the bodybuilder diet, nothing triggers your fullness.
Because they realize that fat actually makes you full quite fast, right?
So if you eat a bit of cheese, you're done.
You tap out after.
You don't eat like a full plate of cheese or layer it on a hamburger, but just a little bit of cheese after just cuts you off and then you have spirits and cigars are not that healthy, but...
joe rogan
Yeah, I've been talking about that with a lot of nutrition experts where they say that your body, when it eats a lot of carbohydrates, you can consume carbohydrates far past what you actually need, whereas if you're just eating a lot of fat and protein, your body tends to regulate itself much better.
fred morin
Satiate, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah.
Now, you guys, how long have you been in Montreal?
And I have to tell you, and I've said it before...
If I had to say my all-time favorite restaurant, I think Joe Beef's my all-time favorite restaurant.
I don't like to say my all-time number, because there's a lot of great restaurants in this world, but damn, if I had to choose one, I think I might choose you guys.
david mcmillan
No, you're very kind, but we have to take you out to other places to change your mind.
joe rogan
No, I don't think you're gonna, man.
You guys are the first.
If you're a horse lover, turn your head.
Plug your ears.
You guys are the first people that ever served me horse.
And I was like, what?
You brought over a horse tenderloin.
And I was like, what the fuck?
You guys are eating horse up here?
And horse tartare.
david mcmillan
But it's a stigma.
It's a cow, an elk, a bison, a deer, a horse.
It's a four-legged animal.
And what if I put...
If I put a bison tenderloin and serve you a beef tenderloin and a cow tenderloin and a deer tenderloin, at the end of the day, it just has a couple of degrees of separation from the other.
It's all flesh, really.
fred morin
And it's very subjective that we base our nutritional choices on how pretty or how cute an animal is.
You know, it doesn't make sense, you know.
And we're lucky now we're able to choose what we eat.
unidentified
Right.
fred morin
You know, like it wasn't like that 100 years ago.
You know, the purpose of the food guide until like 40 years ago was to make sure you had enough calories.
Now we're in an age of restriction.
So we say like, I don't want horse, I prefer deer or I prefer veal or I had chicken yesterday, can't have twice in a row.
Like all this is a bit of fluff what we do in a way because we're so fortunate to have enough food to decide.
joe rogan
My friend Remy Warren was on a backpacking horseback elk hunt, and one of the horses fell down and broke its leg.
And they had to make a decision.
They were deep in the backcountry, and they had to shoot it.
And it just wasn't going to get out of there.
And after they shot it, he decided that really...
This animal's going to go to waste.
So they took the back straps off, and they cooked it and ate it.
But he said it was a really weird moment where, like, this is an animal that was like everybody's petting it, and you're riding it, and it was a working animal, but it was an animal that you loved.
And then all of a sudden it's down, and you have to kill it, and he's like, well, it's going to go to waste.
He said it just felt wrong to let it go to waste, so they cut the back straps off of it.
david mcmillan
You know, the reason I think we don't eat horse culturally is really based ultimately on the Battle of Wolfe between Montcalm on the plains of Quebec City.
You know, that was a decisive battle in North American history, whereas if the French had won that battle, everybody in North America ultimately would be speaking French.
You know, they didn't win that battle.
So British rule imposed.
So in England, you didn't eat horse by royal decree.
But the French ate horse.
The Belgians eat horse.
The Germans eat horse.
You see?
Oh, so that's what it is.
Yeah, it's very old history.
fred morin
You know, it was mining...
david mcmillan
It's just verboten an anglophone world to eat horse.
fred morin
And all the mining countries, half my family is from Belgium, and it's traditional there because they bring the horse in the mine.
The horse, you know, it's sad for a horse to live in the mine in the dark, but they wouldn't bring it out when he was old, you know?
They would just eat the horse.
david mcmillan
Most cultures, Turkish eat horse, you know?
joe rogan
Well, it was a necessity.
I mean, you couldn't pick and choose back when all this was instituted.
david mcmillan
We're very limited in the proteins that we eat, especially in North America.
Quebec less so.
You know, Quebec is a very open-minded dining public, very advanced dining public, very old dining public, and of course Latin, French dining public.
The amount of proteins that are served in a Montreal restaurant are numerous compared to, let's say, even when I go to Manhattan.
If me and you and Fred are in Manhattan tomorrow night, say, let's go have rabbit with mustard sauce, it's going to be a tough sell.
We're going to really struggle to find rabbit mustard sauce.
We're going to struggle even to find, you know, let's go have a couple slices of liver tonight with onions.
It's going to be very difficult.
Or sweetbreads, really.
Lamb neck, you know, lamb liver.
Deer is a hard, tall order, you know.
Ultimately, Manhattan or America eats a limited scope of proteins, beef, chicken, so forth.
Whereas, you know, French culture, Quebec...
You know, we have all the proteins.
I have young dining clientele that have no problem eating kidneys medium rare, liver, lamb liver, deer neck, deer heart tartare.
It's not a thing.
Like, it's not what other restaurant people are eating.
fred morin
It's just part of the registry, you know.
david mcmillan
Little girls, like your daughters, raised eating, you know, the food that their dad hunts and the food that their parents buy.
Some people of lesser means eat pork liver and are raised on it.
So when they see liver on the restaurant, cute little, you know, 19-year-old girls that are about to go out to the club later will have a slice of liver.
You won't see that in New York City.
fred morin
Are you allowed to sell venison here that you hunt?
joe rogan
No, not that you hunt.
You have to buy farm-raised stuff, and oddly enough, most of it's from New Zealand.
Most of the stuff that we're getting here in the United States is from New Zealand, and if they call it venison, it's most likely some sort of stag, and the elk that we get, if we buy elk at a restaurant, it's all from New Zealand.
fred morin
So you can't harvest that.
david mcmillan
When you do a kill, you can put it in your freezer?
joe rogan
Yes.
david mcmillan
Okay, perfect.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, I have two freezers back here.
All of the elk that I get, I get from myself, and I give it to a lot of my friends, and I make sausages for my friends.
But that's the only way they're going to get it, unless they go out and get it themselves.
It's not a place in Los Angeles where you can go buy elk meat.
david mcmillan
In Newfoundland, they're...
They're allowed to...
Hunters are allowed to sell moose back to the restaurants.
joe rogan
Really?
david mcmillan
Yeah, moose were introduced onto the island of Newfoundland from Maine.
And there was no natural predators on Newfoundland.
And it's a perfect environment for them, so they just propagated.
fred morin
And that's why they drive slow there, man.
When we shot with Tony, they drove slow.
Like, we drove for hours, like, full days to go, like...
300 miles because you can't drive fast because of the mooses.
So you can have a restaurant, like in the hotel we stayed, the restaurant had a permit to buy moose.
So they would make like moose curry and moose sausages.
david mcmillan
Like a days in kind of vibe.
Not a great restaurant, like a hotel restaurant serving wild moose burgers.
fred morin
But it's pretty cool that they do that.
joe rogan
That is cool.
fred morin
But if they did that everywhere else, then we're just reinventing the wheel, you know?
joe rogan
We're going back to market hunting, which is what almost wiped out almost all of the animals in this country anyway.
david mcmillan
Some chefs in Quebec would like to bring that back, and I said, listen, we can barely manage our roads, our infrastructure, we can barely manage our...
fred morin
And that's the risk of foraging, too.
Like, eventually, you know, like, people go for mushrooms.
It's like, you heard about the fights between the mushroom pickers in Oregon and stuff like that?
joe rogan
No.
unidentified
Ah, fuck.
fred morin
Like, the people who harvest clams, too, eh?
Like, between the communities, there's huge fights for territories, and they'd hijack, like, trucks of abalone at night.
david mcmillan
Yeah, geoduck, the giant king clam?
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
david mcmillan
Yeah, I've heard stories of a guy in his Econoline van with 500 pounds of geoduck going to the Victoria airport to send them to Japan, get hijacked on the highway at night, and they steal the clams because they're worth a fortune in Japan.
fred morin
And same for mushroom patches.
david mcmillan
Matsutake mushrooms as well, another famous white, it's called a pine mushroom, and in Japan, a Matsutake mushroom.
fred morin
The closer the shape of the mushroom to a penis, the more expensive it is, you know?
So they'd actually hijack people on their way to the patch and undress them and make them turn around so they can never find a place again.
joe rogan
Wow.
david mcmillan
Yeah, it's competitive.
Morel mushrooms, you look at a morel mushroom, it's, you know, how much, Fred?
joe rogan
Very expensive.
david mcmillan
44 bucks a kilo in Montreal.
joe rogan
Dave, can you pull this a little closer to your face?
Absolutely.
Just try to keep it about a fist from your face.
Yeah, the morel mushrooms, I buy them online.
They're very expensive.
I buy them dried, but they're so delicious.
I mean, people who don't like mushrooms, like one of my daughters does not like mushrooms, but she loves morel.
david mcmillan
It's my favorite.
It's the number one mushroom.
unidentified
They're so good.
joe rogan
Good, with salt, with garlic salt and sauteed in butter.
They're sensational.
david mcmillan
Great mushroom.
joe rogan
It's a strange flavor.
fred morin
One of our favorite, there's a great recipe for that in the book, is like you poach chicken legs, right, until they're ready.
And then in the broth, very little broth, you know, you strain the broth, you add cream and saute morel mushrooms in there, and a little bit of sherry wine, any of oxidized wine, and you just add the legs in there and you let that simmer.
Man, that's good.
david mcmillan
We have a picture in the book of some morel mushrooms of the size of these water bottles.
We've had morel mushrooms that are about the size of my hand.
You can stuff like half a chicken leg inside of them and serve one stuffed morel mushroom in broth for one customer.
It's brilliant.
joe rogan
They're a strange mushroom, right?
Where they pop up after burns.
david mcmillan
Yeah, and they're also a spring mushroom, which is weird because most of the other mushrooms are later on fall damp, right?
And morel is like literally quite quick after the snow.
That's the first mushroom that appears in the forest.
So it's very different than all the others.
joe rogan
Are they commercially cultivated?
david mcmillan
They could be, but I've never seen it in my career.
fred morin
I tried growing mushrooms.
We tried everything at the restaurant.
I tried growing mushrooms, and you get everything but the mushroom you inoculate.
It's very difficult to keep the proper conditions and stuff.
That's why I'm not against the fact that they're expensive.
It's a good way to regulate a market price.
It's like, yeah, bluefin tuna is going extinct, but just make it three times the price.
It's going to regulate the market, you know?
unidentified
I guess.
joe rogan
I wish there was a way to reintroduce bluefin to the wild.
It just seems like the appetite that people have for those things is just untenable.
david mcmillan
If you look at any given night in a city like Manhattan, how much red tuna is sold on the island of Manhattan any given night of the year, it's scary.
fred morin
Yeah, I almost feel like it's like killing the last giraffe in a herd, you know?
Like fishing a giant tuna like that.
It's...
And again, you know, they're big, they're feisty, they're majestic, so that shouldn't guide my choice, my decision to protect them, but that's heartbreaking.
joe rogan
Well, the problem is there's complete lack of regulation in the open waters when these guys have these enormous ships filled with huge nets and they just drag them across the ocean floor and capture everything.
fred morin
Or bycatch.
That's the biggest joke.
What is that?
They call it bycatch.
So you didn't set off to fish for tuna, but that's with kind of bit, you know?
Like, yeah, come on.
You know, you go fishing for what?
To catch a bluefin tuna in the first place, you know?
Place?
joe rogan
Oh, so they're pretending they're not fishing for it.
Is that what you're saying?
fred morin
Allegedly.
joe rogan
Yeah.
Well, you know that whole thing with Japanese whalers.
They found a way to work around it, and the way to work around it is a science research boat.
So they...
Science research where we're going to do research on these whales that we kill and then they chop them up and sell them.
Sea Shepherd has been tracking that down and they hover over them, take photographs of it and report them.
It's ugly business.
david mcmillan
Wild protein is ugly business.
We've worked hard at the restaurant to ultimately avoid it, to be more sustainable seafood focused.
The oyster is a great thing to eat.
We should eat more oysters.
We should eat more clams.
Florida, oddly, is an amazing sustainable seafood scene.
Just the work that they do with the Florida stone crab, right?
You know that every year they just harvest the left arm?
And they put the crab back.
And the next year, it's the right arm.
And they put the crab back.
joe rogan
Really?
david mcmillan
Yeah, it's a brilliant fishing industry.
They don't kill the animal.
The claw grows back.
joe rogan
Right.
unidentified
And they all fit nicely on the plate, all side by side.
joe rogan
I don't like that you're telling me something good about Florida.
david mcmillan
They have a great shrimping scene.
They're actually leaders in sustainable seafood.
joe rogan
Well, the seafood and fishing is such a gigantic part of their economy.
It makes sense that they would do that.
fred morin
That's a smart thing.
joe rogan
Yeah.
I mean, grouper fishing down there is a giant, giant part of their industry.
fred morin
There's a good book that was published a few years ago, The Big Oyster, I think, Mark Kolanski.
He wrote a book about cod.
david mcmillan
The History of the Oyster.
fred morin
Yeah.
david mcmillan
The New York and the History of the Oyster.
fred morin
That's incredible.
And it's super interesting because his thing was like...
You know, we try to portray our history as, like, glorious, and we herded bisons before for protein, and that's how we started, like, modern farming.
But, in fact, we probably farmed oysters and snails and clams, because they don't move, and they're the most prolific and the most abundant source of protein.
david mcmillan
In that book, Kurlansky brings up a premise, and I'm loosely...
I'm interpreting it now because I read this book a few years ago, but think of this for a second, right?
The island of Manhattan is a perfect—all the rivers around it, all the water systems around it—is actually one of the greater oyster situations on the Atlantic East Coast, right?
The reason that the population exploded in Manhattan in the early days was that any person could literally get off a boat, walk onto the island of Manhattan, homeless, broke, and sleep in an alley and walk down to the river.
And pick five oysters.
A small oyster is five grams of protein, right?
A medium oyster's got 10 grams of protein.
So a completely destitute person could just eat six oysters a day, you know, three oysters, and live again another day to find a job.
So the population ultimately, you know, New York City and its population was based on this huge supply of oysters.
joe rogan
Wow.
david mcmillan
Yeah.
unidentified
That's crazy.
david mcmillan
It was a free, available source of protein that will make you live another 24 hours.
So if it takes you three days to find a job, four days to find a job, 20 days to find a job, you're not going to die because there's oysters.
joe rogan
Look at this.
fred morin
And they found oysters.
joe rogan
What is this from?
david mcmillan
Harlem River.
joe rogan
Oh, this is incredible.
fred morin
There's actual islands that they thought were geological formations that are made of oyster shells.
Layers and layers of oyster shells.
joe rogan
The article that Jamie put up is from Thrillist.
Is that what it's from?
Pull up to the top so I can tell people what the name is.
Why oysters are ridiculously important to the history of New York City.
And it's just showing all these ancient photos of mounds of oyster shells.
david mcmillan
There's an amazing program today.
You know some of the areas that...
They take these giant cages.
One oyster, if I'm correct, one oyster filters four metric tons of water per day.
From what I understand, I might be wrong with my math.
So take this for instance, you know, a cage, a caged box of thousands of oysters.
There it is.
There's the math.
joe rogan
A single oyster can filter about 30 to 50 gallons of water every day.
A little off.
And in case you haven't noticed, New York's waterways aren't exactly the cleanest.
The folks behind the Billion Oyster Project are trying to change that by recycling shells from the partnering restaurants and getting them back in the water to build oyster reefs.
The goal is to add a billion oysters to the water by 2035. So far they've restored 1.1 acre.
1.5 acres of reefs.
Don't say 1.05.
Bitch, you got an acre.
You just add in those extra two numbers.
1.05 acres of reefs and count 11.5 million newly grown oysters.
david mcmillan
But the oyster will clarify the water.
It'll make a murky river clear again.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
But does that affect the taste of the oyster?
david mcmillan
They don't eat those oysters.
I think those are pulled back into landfill after or mulched into gardens.
fred morin
Or for the shells again to reap it for more reefs.
But the oyster is interesting.
It doesn't move, right?
It opens its shells to feed.
joe rogan
This is showing how they do it.
This is incredible.
fred morin
And the oyster, you know that the oyster has a...
It will change gender according to the density of the population.
So it will go from male to female in order to balance the population.
joe rogan
That's incredible.
We're watching a video where the...
What is it?
The oyster recovery...
What does it say?
david mcmillan
It was the time lapse of it.
joe rogan
Oh, sorry.
So it's a time lapse, but it said, what does it say it was from?
unidentified
Oyster filtration.
joe rogan
Right, but there was a watermark on the video there in the corner.
It was showing.
david mcmillan
Oyster recovery partnership.
unidentified
Oyster recovery partnership.
joe rogan
Yeah, so the watermark is, so what they do is they have this horrible green water.
They chuck these oysters in and it turns it completely clear.
That's amazing.
I did not know that.
I did know that they used to eat lobsters and they thought of lobsters as poor people food because you just get them out of the river.
david mcmillan
The rich kids eat bologna.
fred morin
Isn't that crazy?
In New Brunswick, they used to harvest the lobsters to feed to the prisoners and keep the shells as fertilizer.
david mcmillan
Jefferson was one of the first presidents to bring the lobster into the White House because it was seen as a servant's food.
joe rogan
When did it switch?
david mcmillan
Jefferson.
joe rogan
So when he started doing that, that's when people realized it was so delicious?
fred morin
No, that's what the lobster spaghetti at Joe Beef...
We changed the whole thing.
joe rogan
The lobster spaghetti at Joe Beef is insane.
That lobster spaghetti, that's off the charts.
fred morin
You know, also the child labor laws where...
And stored primarily because of the kids that used to work in oyster shucking plants.
joe rogan
Really?
fred morin
Yeah.
We had one of our best friends, if not our best friend, passed away like six months ago, John Bill.
He was a great shucker.
He helped us at the bar, but he was like deep into sustainability and history of oysters and everything.
And he was like the source for oysters for everything.
david mcmillan
He wrote a beautiful book.
fred morin
Yeah.
david mcmillan
We'll send you a copy.
It's an incredible book.
joe rogan
They're a good food for vegans to consider too because they're more primitive than most plants.
fred morin
Yeah.
joe rogan
Most mollusks.
david mcmillan
John used to call them ocean cupcakes.
joe rogan
Well, they're delicious.
It's a great source of protein, but it's also, they don't have any nerve endings.
They're not feeling anything.
david mcmillan
It's a sea vegetable.
joe rogan
Yeah, it basically is.
We have an issue, or some people, not myself, but some people have an issue with things that are capable of moving.
For whatever reason, we just decide that don't eat that.
But if you want to talk about something sustainable, like mollusks and seafood, I mean, they can be commercially farmed.
They actually do have a positive impact, as you're describing, on the environment.
david mcmillan
Incredible source of protein as well.
joe rogan
Yeah, and really a complete source of protein, not like a very bioavailable source, unlike a lot of vegetable proteins.
fred morin
So maybe we should do a protein powder out of dried oysters.
joe rogan
Just eastern oysters?
unidentified
Clam protein?
Yeah.
fred morin
No, totally.
david mcmillan
How would you get so ripped?
joe rogan
Clam protein, bro.
I mean, a lot of people are eating cricket protein.
Have you guys ever serve any insect dishes?
unidentified
No, but I'm not opposed to it.
Not knowingly.
david mcmillan
I got a letter last week that someone found...
A bug in their salad.
fred morin
You know, sometimes the people are a bit...
They want the cake and they want to eat it too because people want organic.
And we support that.
We love that.
joe rogan
Occasionally get an ant in there.
fred morin
Yeah.
Organic is no pesticide.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
That's okay.
Bugs aren't bad.
The idea of bugs being...
Roaches are bad.
Most other bugs are not that big of a deal.
david mcmillan
Yeah.
If we're serving 100 people a day, that arguably being 40 salads, it's some kind of crazy work to really look at both sides of each leaf.
We try our best.
Right.
One will get past us every year.
joe rogan
I think you're better off.
The people that are freaking out about bugs, you don't want them coming in there.
Just give them their money back and get the fuck out of here.
david mcmillan
Yeah, I agree with that.
That's my policy.
joe rogan
But when I was in Mexico, we checked into this resort and they had a bowl of fried crickets.
In the hotel.
They had some sort of flavor to them.
They added some flavor to them.
david mcmillan
Yeah.
Rene Redzepi in Noma, arguably one of the world's best restaurants, is obsessed with serving ants.
unidentified
Really?
david mcmillan
Loves them.
fred morin
Lemony fresh.
unidentified
I don't know.
david mcmillan
I think they're crunchy.
They're delicious.
He thinks they're fine.
Of course, and he's doing this wonderful Nordic cuisine.
And there's ants.
And when they forage vegetables and they forage mushrooms, there's also ants.
So why not forage those too?
fred morin
And it's a homework they do for the rest of us.
They're doing the right thing.
People pay a lot of money, fly there to go eat there.
You know, he's doing some good legwork on how to prepare them, how to raise them, how to, you know, I'm not saying his food is based on that, but I'm happy that somebody did that part of the research.
david mcmillan
And he'll bring the point up and they'll, you know, ultimately by osmosis, the other younger chefs.
We'll try to do that.
And they'll normalize it a little bit more.
So, you know, expect ants at Nordic restaurants.
joe rogan
Interesting.
So this is the new trend.
Get ahead of it, folks.
You heard them, Los Angeles.
I know you trendy fucks are out there thinking about what's coming.
Crickets are a weird one.
Crickets seem to be universally accepted, like cricket protein.
You see a lot of cricket protein bars.
You don't see too many other insects being commercially harvested.
fred morin
David and I were in New York for Anthony's memory thing, memorial thing, and we walked in the Bowery, and middle of the afternoon, Hudson.
david mcmillan
Oh, this is a good one.
fred morin
And there's a little store.
No refrigeration and there's buckets of clams and you know like mesh bags like you put onions in this big mesh bag in a bin and it's full of giant bullfrogs.
david mcmillan
Like looking up at us.
fred morin
Like a hundred little bullfrogs.
david mcmillan
But like lined up in a box like oranges in a box.
Like one, two, three, four, five.
unidentified
And they're alive.
fred morin
And their little eyes just looking up like this.
And I was like sure we have frogs in the book but that was...
david mcmillan
So hang on.
Fred and I have been cooking for years.
You know 25 years arguably if not more.
I've processed every animal in French cooking.
So, of course, we just look at the frogs.
We don't say anything to each other.
We keep on walking.
And I go, hang on a sec, Fred.
Walk me through this.
He goes, how exactly does this work?
I know how to do a rabbit.
I know how to do a hare.
I know how to do a duck.
I know how to do any fish, any seafood.
Lobster, no problem.
fred morin
So you get a case of frog in the kitchen.
What's your first move?
david mcmillan
Right now.
What's our first move?
So we take the live frog.
Do I put it on the cutting board?
Do I hack its legs off?
And what do I do with the 60% remaining of the frog?
That's what I'm worried about.
joe rogan
Yeah.
david mcmillan
Is it ground?
Does it end up in dumplings?
Where is that other part of the frog going?
Is it soup?
Is it broth?
You know, that's an amphibian.
joe rogan
Right.
fred morin
It was fascinating.
joe rogan
Did you experiment?
david mcmillan
No.
fred morin
No, no, no.
david mcmillan
I'm mortified.
And after that, we went to Tony's Memorial.
It was in a Chinese restaurant.
And I was just like, I couldn't eat.
Because by default, everything had like frog in it, in my head.
joe rogan
So you were freaking out just because they were alive, staring up at you?
david mcmillan
No, because I know that the legs are delicious.
unidentified
Right.
david mcmillan
I know that, you know, if I chop the legs off and I peel the skin and I dredge them in flour and I fry them and I serve them with garlic cream, that they're delicious.
They're as delicious as chicken wings.
What I'm worried about is the frog is so big and...
The discarded part of the frog is the size of a softball.
fred morin
It's like eating the stem of the apple and leaving the apple.
unidentified
In cooking, we don't throw stuff out.
david mcmillan
I want to know what happens to that part in Chinese cookery or French cookery.
joe rogan
The place that you guys were at was a Chinese market?
fred morin
Yeah, it was one of those hole-in-the-door kind of, like, supplier.
And it was, like, we got it.
There were clams, there were periwinkles, there were, like, all, like, gooey ducks.
david mcmillan
I've never processed frogs in my career, really.
You know, when I've gotten fresh frogs, I was working in France, and it was just the frog's legs in a basket.
fred morin
But even then, I would wonder, in France, where does that other part go?
david mcmillan
I know, this is a very disturbing story.
joe rogan
It seems like there's got to be an answer to this.
david mcmillan
Maybe.
unidentified
I don't know.
joe rogan
You would be the people that I would call.
unidentified
That's the problem.
david mcmillan
Wonton stuffing.
joe rogan
Right.
Like some sort of boiled and ground.
david mcmillan
I'm hoping they're discarded.
jamie vernon
I just Googled it and the video is graphic.
joe rogan
Let it go.
Let's do it.
Let it roll.
I'm not going to put it up on YouTube.
Okay, we'll put it up for us.
Put it up for us so we can see it.
Here we go.
Okay.
Oh, no!
They don't even bother killing them first.
They just do it on the fly.
unidentified
So far, that's exactly how I presume.
joe rogan
Okay, so they squeeze it out.
Once they cut the head off, they squeeze it out like a...
What would you describe that like?
david mcmillan
They're peeling it now.
joe rogan
Right.
david mcmillan
They squeeze the innards out.
Like through the neck cavity.
fred morin
Like the last of toothpaste.
joe rogan
Yes, that's a good way to describe it.
Okay, so then they take it.
Now it looks like a man because it's headless.
It's like a headless man.
fred morin
It's like one of those mannequins that you use to draw bodies there.
joe rogan
Yeah.
fred morin
At what point do you put the batteries to the hind legs?
david mcmillan
Batteries?
fred morin
No, in like high school.
joe rogan
Oh, right.
fred morin
You put the little battery in the backlight?
david mcmillan
No, we used to put cigarettes in their mouths.
joe rogan
So he's chopping them up.
It seems like he's leaving the bones on.
Is that what he's doing?
Yeah.
david mcmillan
Okay, so you know what?
It's really great that we're watching this because I'm a lot less horrified by the whole prospect of it.
joe rogan
So he's just hacking it up, bones intact, and chucking it into a basket.
So it doesn't look like they're missing much other than the guts.
So it seems like the innards, and then they seem to be boiling all that stuff, and okay, so they put it in a soup with the bones intact, and you just sort of...
david mcmillan
I need that.
joe rogan
I need that.
fred morin
Yeah, it's funny.
If I had to make a dish with that, I'd make the soup with daylilies inside.
Water lilies, I mean.
joe rogan
Mmm, right.
david mcmillan
With lily pad soup with frog.
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Have you ever tried anything with lily pads?
fred morin
No.
david mcmillan
With tapioca?
Those are hot right now in cooking.
joe rogan
Do you guys try to do that?
Like add some of the ingredients of the native environments of the animals?
david mcmillan
One of the best tricks to cooking.
One of the best tricks to cooking.
Chef told me this a long time ago in France.
He goes, well, chef, what should I cook the lamb with?
He goes, it's easy.
What would it eat?
If you had a lamb, what would be growing around it?
And automatically, you just scroll down.
If I had a lamb and an acre of land, what would be around it?
There would be turnips.
There would be carrots.
There would be onions.
There would be apples.
There would be pears.
There would be thyme.
There would be basil.
There would be garlic.
There would be...
So just, there you go.
fred morin
Traditional, more idyllic environment.
david mcmillan
The problem is when you have lobster and you cook it with mangoes, right?
Where lobster is, where it comes from, there's no mangoes.
So the recipe doesn't make sense.
It might be delicious, but it's dumb.
joe rogan
But butter, lobster and butter, they go together.
david mcmillan
Lobster, butter, potatoes, what else grows there?
Onions, there's clams.
fred morin
Yeah, you go to Prince Edward Island.
Okay, small island in the Gulf.
One of the provinces of Canada.
We have cows, potatoes, and lobster.
unidentified
The region.
fred morin
The three resources.
joe rogan
Not the actual environment.
david mcmillan
If you have a rabbit in your backyard.
fred morin
In the line of sight.
What can you see there?
david mcmillan
Rabbit with apples and carrots.
Makes sense.
joe rogan
That does make sense.
But what if lobster and mango is fucking delicious?
david mcmillan
Yeah, but then, you know, it's for other people to do.
fred morin
We have our principles.
david mcmillan
It's academically incorrect.
joe rogan
Oh, academically incorrect.
That's fascinating.
One of my favorite pizzas, don't get disgusted at me, don't hate me, pineapple and anchovy.
david mcmillan
Pineapple and anchovy?
joe rogan
That's right.
david mcmillan
Pineapple and ham is out there.
unidentified
No, no, no.
joe rogan
Pineapple and anchovy.
It's goddamn delicious.
I fucking love it.
I don't care what you say.
david mcmillan
Who does that, though?
You'd invented that.
joe rogan
I might have.
fred morin
That's good.
I want to try frog soup with lily pads and pineapple and anchovy pizza.
joe rogan
I go hard with both.
Hard with the pineapple and hard with the anchovy.
david mcmillan
Do you want to write a book three with us?
joe rogan
No.
david mcmillan
Cooking with Joe?
joe rogan
I'm good at elk steaks and I know how to order pineapple and anchovy pizza.
fred morin
I have to say that when I see the picture you post of your meat cooking, it's always on point.
joe rogan
Thank you very much.
fred morin
Because there's a lot of hunters Yeah, some hunters don't know how to cook.
david mcmillan
We have a lot of hunters in Quebec and sometimes, you know, the hunter will bring by the...
Because I shot this beautiful moose, David.
It was 2,000 pounds or 1,500 pounds.
And he shows me a picture on his phone.
And then he brings me a jar of the spaghetti sauce he made out of the moose.
I'm like, really?
You shot a majestic moose in the forest and you made spaghetti sauce with it?
fred morin
And I put kiwi in it because it tenderizes the meat.
joe rogan
Well, listen, spaghetti sauce with ground mousse is delicious.
fred morin
I'll give you a tip.
joe rogan
You gotta have...
I eat everything.
I eat the whole thing, right?
I mean, I know how to make the roasts, and I use the ground for a bunch of different things, and I just think that...
If you do it properly or if you want to handle it properly, you've really got to read up on how to cook wild game as opposed to how to cook anything else.
There's a very low fat content.
It's a tricky kind of meat to cook.
fred morin
There's a tool.
It's called a lardoire in French.
It's like a big needle with a swivel tip.
And what you do is you cut long strips of fat and you poke them through the meat.
joe rogan
Oh, and you inject it?
fred morin
Yeah, you don't inject.
You put like long...
david mcmillan
You're like threading it.
fred morin
You're threading your piece of meat, like the loins or the fat, the back straps.
It tends to be leaner.
So you put long strips of pork fat inside and you cook it slowly enough that the pork fat will melt inside so in every bite you'll have a little bit of fat.
david mcmillan
It's a neat thing.
It's an old French cooking trick.
joe rogan
That sounds sensational.
fred morin
Or what we do, actually, like for the wild rabbit, which is extremely dry, we'll put a veal foot with the skin, so that'll give off the collagen, and we'll put a slice of pork belly with it.
That'll give off the fat.
joe rogan
When are you guys going back to Montreal?
david mcmillan
Tomorrow.
joe rogan
Tomorrow?
fred morin
Yeah.
joe rogan
I can't give you meat, right?
david mcmillan
No, we couldn't get through the border.
joe rogan
It wouldn't work.
fred morin
Not this way.
The other way works.
joe rogan
Yes, it works if you hunt it and bring it through.
I've brought meat back.
But, damn, I'd like to give you guys something and see what you do with it.
fred morin
It's a lot of things.
It's our favorite meat, but...
You know, it would be sooner be cut with bricks of hashish than venison as restaurant owners.
You know, like you cannot have any wild game in your restaurant.
joe rogan
Even if it's just for your own personal consumption?
unidentified
No.
david mcmillan
Really?
Yeah, sturgeon too is a problem in Quebec.
Caviar.
We have a lot of sturgeon in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The laws are like lights out ridiculous.
If you get caught with like a gram of caviar in your boat and you don't have a license, they'll freeze your bank accounts and seize your house kind of thing.
Really?
unidentified
Wow.
david mcmillan
It would go south quick.
joe rogan
What is the concern?
Is it such a commercial market for sturgeon caviar?
Is that what it is?
david mcmillan
Yeah, exactly, yeah.
joe rogan
Wow, so people just go that far out of their way to get caviar that they had to just make these...
david mcmillan
It's like a fish right now is worthless if you can't use a caviar, right?
unidentified
Right.
david mcmillan
We're allowed that there's a fishery for them.
They fish the sturgeon.
In the Gulf of St. Lawrence, when they catch them, they have to gut them.
They have to remove every egg and dump the eggs into the water.
That's crazy.
They're allowed to bring the meat back to smoke it and salt it and to sell it.
There is a commercial wild fishery for sturgeon meat.
So ultimately, you just put a price tag on the fish.
Let's say it's worth 200 bucks.
But all of a sudden, if you're allowed to harvest the eggs and the fish...
fred morin
15 grand.
david mcmillan
Yeah, it would just be...
fred morin
15 grand.
david mcmillan
Yeah, because they produce a monolithic amount of eggs.
joe rogan
Well, what's crazy is now you're making it useless because you're throwing it away, something that's incredibly valuable and delicious.
david mcmillan
The quotas are very small, though.
Let's say if you had a sturgeon license, I imagine you'd allowed five or six or something like that.
fred morin
And the First Nations, like Mohawks, the Iroquois, have the right to fish.
You know, we've been on boats where a guy was fishing.
You know, he showed us the traditional technique, and it's not sports fishing.
Like, they eat soup, they eat this, they eat, like, They love it.
It's great fish.
And themselves, they eat the eggs.
They make soup.
They put the eggs in it.
david mcmillan
Oh, they catch sturgeon 20 minutes from Joe Beef.
unidentified
Wow.
Yeah.
david mcmillan
Right there, downtown.
joe rogan
It's a dinosaur.
fred morin
Yeah, with a spear.
david mcmillan
Wow.
Yeah.
joe rogan
It's a crazy animal.
When you see them in the water.
unidentified
Oh, yeah.
david mcmillan
You see the scales on them?
joe rogan
It's so bizarre.
I mean, they're from, what, 100 million years ago or something?
david mcmillan
They're prehistoric animals.
They look like dinosaurs.
joe rogan
They really do.
unidentified
Yeah.
fred morin
And the guys that we know that fish them...
He's quite the character.
He's an interesting guy.
He's a Mohawk.
And he told us that the biologists put underwater cameras there to keep track of the fish.
And they said they see like 16 layers of sturgeon swimming, one on top of the other.
He said, I could walk on the fish.
Wow.
joe rogan
There's that many.
fred morin
Yeah.
david mcmillan
There's a ton.
joe rogan
Wow.
david mcmillan
That's incredible.
But again, you know, the people don't really...
We even struggle with it at the restaurant.
For me to sell a plate of smoked sturgeon...
Tough sell.
I'll sooner sell other things than that.
joe rogan
Because people aren't interested?
david mcmillan
I think it's a tough sell as a fish, let's say as a 200 gram or a four ounce piece of fish.
joe rogan
Look at that thing.
That is so crazy.
Is that the same river?
david mcmillan
That's probably Columbia River sturgeon, it looks like.
joe rogan
Fraser River?
david mcmillan
Yeah.
fred morin
Fraser and BC. Look at the size of that thing.
joe rogan
That is so...
Ancient looking.
It looks like it shouldn't be here.
fred morin
Yeah.
It's a fish that's a bit muddy sometimes, depending on where it's caught and everything.
joe rogan
How do you handle it?
Like if you were going to cook one of those.
fred morin
We make Jamaican patties with it.
david mcmillan
In this book we did.
In old French cookery, one of the ways to cook sturgeon is ultimately you apply cooking a piece of sturgeon loin as you would a piece of veal loin or pork loin.
Meat juice even is acceptable.
You know, roasted carrots, roasted onions, roasted celery, roast the sturgeon and serve it with meat juice.
fred morin
Bacon, mushroom, red wine.
david mcmillan
Bacon, mushroom, red wine, like Fred said.
So you treat the sturgeon as you would meat is possibly the best way.
To treat it as you would fish is not the best.
fred morin
You know, people got to expect...
We were overly fortunate to have 300 gram, like a pound of fish seared in a pan and served with a little sauce was a common thing, right?
But it's not the right thing to do if we want to keep things in the water for our kids or whatever.
So people got used to this, like a piece of fish that tastes like nothing that you can eat for like an hour and a half because you have so much of it.
And that's the standard.
But a fish like sturgeon is great if you have a little bit in a sauce like David May talks about over like buttery mashed potatoes or like with like egg noodles or something like that.
It's a great way to do it.
And it's a great way to look at fish where like you need actually 75 grams of protein, not like 500, you know?
joe rogan
What is the...
Is there a comparison that you can make in terms of what it tastes like?
unidentified
Yeah...
david mcmillan
Veal loin a little bit, I guess.
Somewhat.
unidentified
Braised veal collar.
david mcmillan
What do you say?
Blanquette.
A larger piece of stew.
Not a small two-inch block of stew, but let's say a bigger piece of stew.
fred morin
With a chunk of seaweed in it, you know?
david mcmillan
Yeah.
It's neat.
joe rogan
Wow.
david mcmillan
It's neat.
joe rogan
It sounds...
Now I'm hungry for it.
david mcmillan
We do.
Fred made the McNuggets molds, you know?
Because, you know, the McNuggets have this, like...
There's, like, four or five different sizes.
unidentified
Yeah.
david mcmillan
Fred made the mold in the first book, precisely exactly like the McDonald's McNuggets.
And we used to do sturgeon McNuggets.
fred morin
Or eel.
david mcmillan
Or eel McNuggets.
Same fishery, right?
We have eels where we get sturgeon.
unidentified
That's another weird fish.
david mcmillan
We sold a ton of them at the restaurant.
It would literally, you'd be at Joe Beef and you'd get on your plate what looked to be like six McNuggets with a sauce and a little paper cup on the side.
People were like, what the hell is this?
I said, sturgeon nuggets.
joe rogan
Eel is a weird one.
When I used to go fishing a lot, people would catch eels, they'd be upset.
And then I would go to buy sushi later on in life, and there'd be eel sushi.
And I'd be like, what the fuck is going on?
fred morin
It's a different wolf.
Is that a wolf eel?
david mcmillan
Yeah, it's a different fish.
It's not a true eel.
joe rogan
In sushi?
david mcmillan
Yeah, correct.
fred morin
Even like the real eel.
I can eat bits of it, but if we were to take an eel and first you have to put a nail in its head and a nail in its tail and skin it.
david mcmillan
You can cut its head off and peel it and put it in a cast iron pan with butter and it's still moving like a snake.
fred morin
It's a horrific creature.
It makes you choke.
We had a little trout pond at Joe Beef that I built.
joe rogan
Really?
fred morin
It was a bad experience because We had a refrigerator thing to make the water cold, you know, a cooler, and we had a pump.
Every time it rained, it would turn the breaker off, and now the fish, like...
joe rogan
Drown.
fred morin
Drown, no oxygen.
david mcmillan
Martin Picard gave us some eels.
fred morin
And we found him the next day in the parking lot, like...
david mcmillan
Dude, on the other side of the parking lot, in the baseball field where the bleachers were...
joe rogan
Look at that shit!
They're cooking it, and it's swimming at a rapid pace.
david mcmillan
It's got no head and no skin at this point.
joe rogan
This is a grill.
What does it say?
It's a shocking clip of cooking an eel alive in Seoul.
david mcmillan
No, but it's got...
That eel is beheaded and skinned.
joe rogan
Beheaded, skinned...
david mcmillan
And it's still...
Nervous system is still very intact.
joe rogan
What are those things in the bottom?
Is it its legs?
david mcmillan
That's probably its guts.
joe rogan
Oh, God.
Look at that thing.
Bucking it.
fred morin
Oh, man.
That's real stir-frying.
david mcmillan
I caught one once in Nova Scotia on a hook and line.
And when I caught it, the fisherman next to me said, oh, don't reel it in.
So I just held my fishing rod.
I wasn't reeling in.
And the eel reeled itself up my line to the tip of my fishing rod and started reeling down my fishing rod towards me.
I was a kid.
I was horrified.
Ever since then, I've had an issue with like eels.
I worked in a restaurant in France, in Dijon.
And in the fridge right near the cook of the hotline, the cooking line, there was a wooden box with a cinder block on it.
It's the first day I worked there.
I was helping out on the fish station.
And I hear in French, un angui en commande, one eel ordered up.
And then the fish chef says, go in the fridge.
There's a wooden box.
You take the cinder block off it.
You just lift the lid a little bit.
Plunge your hand in there.
Grab an eel and bring it back to me.
I was like, you're kidding, right?
So I literally do that.
I go into the walk-in fridge.
I pull the wooden box out.
I take the cinder block off the top.
I lift the...
unidentified
It was just literally...
david mcmillan
You know, 50 eels writhing together in a box.
fred morin
That's like Indiana Jones, you know?
david mcmillan
No, they live out of water, no problem.
Martin Picard at Pieter Cochon, in his restaurant right now, I was there last week, he has a lobster tank.
Right in the doorway, I think they hang your coats right above it.
And in it, there's like eight massive eels.
fred morin
They have to chase them when they come at work in the morning.
They reopen the restaurant.
They'll find them like in the cash register, in the coat check, in the lettuce bins.
david mcmillan
They have like cinder blocks down now on the top.
They got a plexiglass top with holes in it so it oxygenates.
And they're literally pinned down in that tank.
But even as you're eating...
And you just see those giant eels in a tank the size of your flag here.
It's just horrific.
fred morin
You know what's the best thing about eels?
Talking about it.
joe rogan
That's the best thing.
Now, what about the flavor?
david mcmillan
I like it super smoked, super salted down with a good sugary, salty brine.
joe rogan
So you have to cover it.
fred morin
Yeah, like in nuggets like we did.
But even in that restaurant David was talking about, if you take a fresh piece of eel and put it in a cast iron pan, the smoke it does, it's like mustard gas.
david mcmillan
Oh, yeah.
unidentified
Really?
fred morin
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's super allergenic.
david mcmillan
I'm a little bit allergic to, I guess, not all fish, but some fish.
And when I used to work at that restaurant, we would literally put a knife through its head and into the cutting board, and then another knife through its tail so it would be straight on the cutting board.
So we'd pin down the left side and the right side of the eel.
Then we'd lift the fillets, skin them, score them, And then pan-sear them with artichoke and country ham.
And as I was pan-searing them, I was breathing in the vapors of searing the eel and my lungs would seize.
It would give me an asthma attack somewhat.
It was wild.
joe rogan
Now, is this a popular dish in France because of necessity?
Because of a lack of food choices?
david mcmillan
A lot of old French cooking would be based on what you had in your neighborhood.
French cooking was very different pre-Federal Express, pre-Roads, you know.
So eels in French cooking would come from the Bordeaux region ultimately and, you know, would be like la matelotte d'anguille.
So it would be an eel stew in red wine, of course, carrot, onion, celery, exactly like a beef stew.
fred morin
And I think also the thing about it is that it's a dish that you wouldn't make at home, you know.
So people would go, allez, on va manger de l'anguille, let's go and eat eel.
david mcmillan
That's what there was.
fred morin
You don't want to have the cinder block plexiglass case in your house.
Imagine your house with your kids or my kids.
david mcmillan
They eat lampreys.
In Bordeaux, some of the famous iconic dishes of Bordeaux is lampreys.
fred morin
This is like an animal from Dune.
It's like a big hole with teeth.
joe rogan
They're the ones that cling to the bottom of sharks.
david mcmillan
Correct.
No, that's a remora.
joe rogan
Oh, okay.
david mcmillan
The lamprey is a problem, actually.
Now, even in America, they're coming up in some rivers, and they attach themselves to fish with their suction cup head.
They're just horrific animals.
fred morin
Toothed suction cup head.
david mcmillan
Yeah, it's tooth.
It's like dune.
It's like that animal in dune.
joe rogan
It does look like that, yeah.
What do they taste like?
david mcmillan
Probably crappy, like, eel.
fred morin
We did a dinner.
david mcmillan
Like a shittier eel.
fred morin
We did a dinner for Tony and he did his second book, I think, at Liverpool House.
And we were much younger and I was like, oh, let's buy some, like, daring food, you know?
It was Tony Bourdain, let's buy something, like, fucked up.
So I ordered, like, two of those eel.
And I try to make soup with it.
I try to make everything.
And again, my classic joke, the best thing to do with it is to put it in the garbage.
You make stock, you reduce it, then you throw it away.
I'm sure there's a recipe that's good.
And I'm sure in case of apocalypse, after the winter succeeds, We'll fish for that and we'll eat it.
But until then, I'm okay with cutting my Big Macs in half so they last for two days.
david mcmillan
There's a cool company, though.
I've been following a company online, I think on Twitter or Instagram.
It's called American Unagi.
They're up in...
The Atlantic Northeast, I think in Maine or Massachusetts somewhere, they're raising eels, I think, releasing them into nature, and they're selling eels commercially.
It looks, again, like horrific work.
unidentified
Raising them and releasing them into nature.
joe rogan
Is there some sort of environmental benefit of having the eels in the nation?
fred morin
Is that like sting about the lobster and put it away in a freshwater river?
david mcmillan
They're a weird animal, right?
Again, loosely based.
My facts are old reading.
But from what I recall, eels are cool because all the eels, every year, go back to the Sargasso Sea.
fred morin
Is it true then?
david mcmillan
That's what I remember.
Is that folklore you think?
fred morin
Is this an old fact in my mind?
joe rogan
The oyster filtration volume?
fred morin
Yeah, oysters filter eels.
joe rogan
So they all go back to this one area?
david mcmillan
Supposedly there's a breeding area for them called the Sargasso Sea.
fred morin
Great place for swimming.
joe rogan
And where's the Sargasso Sea?
david mcmillan
It's kind of a southern middle Atlantic, from what I recall.
fred morin
That's a pretty safe bet.
david mcmillan
Right where the mythical plastic patch is.
joe rogan
Oh, the plastic.
That's the Pacific.
You think that's mythical?
david mcmillan
I don't know.
I've never seen really a real true picture of it.
There's a Sargasso Sea.
fred morin
Eels.
joe rogan
Making their way.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
That's so creepy.
Look at that fucker.
Making his way.
fred morin
Beautiful video, too, eh?
david mcmillan
What is this?
joe rogan
Pretty cool.
Wow.
There's a guy named Boyan Slott, who is a young fellow that figured out a way to filter out the garbage patch.
And he developed this device and they recently started implementing it.
But he's been on the podcast before and went into great detail about it.
The garbage patch is real.
david mcmillan
See, that's the American Unavi site.
joe rogan
Look at those fuckers just flopping around.
david mcmillan
Yeah, so they're in Maine.
joe rogan
American Unagi's Instagram page we're on right now.
They're in Maine?
Yeah.
david mcmillan
Our aquaculture.
unidentified
That's cool.
fred morin
The Amaroscata has great oysters there, too.
david mcmillan
Yeah, amazing.
joe rogan
What about, have you guys ever cooked or eaten blueberry bear?
fred morin
No, we don't.
Martijn in Montreal.
david mcmillan
Martijn is eating bears.
fred morin
He's hunting bears.
He goes and baits every weekend and then he goes in shacks.
david mcmillan
What's a blueberry bear though?
joe rogan
My friend Steve Rinella has described this to me.
Apparently when bears eat blueberries, when they find, like it's towards the fall in particular, when they're trying to fatten up before they go into the den, they'll find these massive fields of blueberries.
He shot one in Alaska.
And this bear had eaten so many blueberries that when they opened it up, it smelled like blueberries.
The actual fat had a purple hue to it.
And it's supposed to be a spectacularly delicious meat.
david mcmillan
That totally makes sense.
fred morin
But you know, it's funny you say that because I was thinking about that with venison before.
We have some friends who had a venison farm and what they...
joe rogan
This is it right here.
This is Steve cooking it on his show.
The show's called Meat Eater.
Steve will actually be a guest on the show here Friday.
But see how the fat has a hue to it?
david mcmillan
Amazing.
joe rogan
But he said it all smells like blueberry.
So he rendered down the bear fat, because this was all in the field, and then cooked the bear meat, this blueberry bear meat, chunks of it in the fat.
fred morin
Well, if the pigment is liposoluble, then it would make sense that you find it in the fat.
But they made experiments, our friends with the deer farm, and what they did, they wanted to know if the taste of venison was owed to the fact that...
The diet of the animal or the way that hunters traditionally break down the meat in the field, the field dressing of the meat, you know?
So what they did is they put a beef, like a steer, and they shot him and they prepared him.
They dressed him the way you would a deer or a moose.
And then they, at the same time, did the same thing with the deer.
And then they did The slaughterhouse treatment, like a commercial treatment for both animals.
And they realize that once you wait a little bit, even on the beef, before you gut it, before you skin it and everything, that funky or that gamey taste will come even to beef.
david mcmillan
So you picture that's what, yeast in nature?
fred morin
It's probably also they think that you might lack the skills to properly extract the guts.
You might perforate the guts.
Sometimes you might perforate the bile pouch there.
Parts of the innards might come in contact.
joe rogan
That makes sense.
fred morin
The skin will be on too long.
david mcmillan
Or it's not bled properly as well.
fred morin
Yeah, it's not blend properly and then, you know, it's not chilled super rapidly.
You kill in the morning, the whole sun is out, you know, you don't have a fridge with you, you have no water.
But on the other hand, when we have the wild rabbits, they taste like juniper.
Like, very, very, very strongly like juniper.
And that's, in fact, the challenge is to get rid of some of that juniper taste.
david mcmillan
Yeah, it's like the partridge that we shoot at the lake.
fred morin
And in fact, it's...
david mcmillan
It tastes like spruce, spruce tips.
fred morin
And instead of, when we cook sometimes, we'll cook meat, and then we'll even add...
Partridge or at home, I'll have a partridge or a wild rabbit just as seasoning to the rest of the pot.
If you look at all the traditional French-Canadian dishes of hunters, all the games are mixed up.
So you never have...
This is a modern cuisinier, like culinary fancy thing to have a breast of partridge seared on a bed of cabbage.
You know, those things are always treated with, like I said earlier, with fat, with like all the spices, with wine, with cognac, with layers of like...
Even organ meats in there and you put a crust over it and cabbage.
Like we said, it needs a lot of skills to eat good games.
joe rogan
I've never had gamey venison.
I've been very, very fortunate.
First of all, I've learned to hunt from people that really know what they're doing.
So we didn't let anything sit out in the heat and made sure we opened it up and cooled it out quickly.
But one of the things that they do do when guys are deep into the backcountry and they have an animal and they kill it, and even in the summer when it's warm out, what they do is they hang it and give it a lot of air circulation and it develops a crust on the outside.
And then they cut that crust back and then the meat underneath it is sort of tenderized in a lot of ways.
And a lot of hunters say that it's even more delicious that way.
unidentified
Yeah, it's protected by the crust the air is created.
david mcmillan
And of course it probably starts, the bacteriological work starts to work inside of that crust.
fred morin
There's two process, right, by which the meat gets tender.
The first one is the rigor mortis, right?
Like the meat rests and the rigor mortis, like all, I guess all the cortisol and everything that like stiffens the meat at death.
Well, the meat will rest.
And then it's an enzymatic reaction where the enzymes work and break down some of the meat fibers and the tougher muscles and stuff.
In French, the word for resting meat is called faisandé.
And faisand is a pheasant, you know, because they used to hang the pheasants by the neck.
Yeah, until they fell.
david mcmillan
You'd say when the beak falls off the skull, then they're ready to eat.
joe rogan
Yeah, I've seen that before.
That is so strange.
david mcmillan
It's hard to eat.
I've had it a couple of times.
unidentified
What does it taste like?
david mcmillan
It tastes like death warmed over.
joe rogan
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
Why are they eating it like that?
david mcmillan
Because a lot of people love strong flavors like blue cheese, like Munster cheese in Germany.
Because ultimately, if you just eat it fresh, it's chicken of the woods, really.
unidentified
Right.
david mcmillan
But it's good.
By letting it go a little bit, letting it rot a little bit, they get these secondary, tertiary, intense flavors.
fred morin
Maybe, too, we're talking about probiotics.
Those traditional ways, you don't always know why you do them.
But maybe initially, you incubate, you immunize yourself a little bit.
The taste is, you got to love it after...
You're used to it, but initially it might be a way to have some of the bacterias.
I think you talked about soil-based probiotics before I read about that.
We're realizing that, okay, yogurt probiotics are not the whole thing.
So maybe there's soil-based probiotic, animal-based probiotic.
Maybe we're completely wrong about what flora we're ingesting.
And maybe there was like a...
david mcmillan
A good way to get your flora.
joe rogan
Makes sense.
I guess there would be some strategies for taking that stuff in, but I would think flavor-wise, it would...
Because pheasant, if you just eat it fresh, it's delicious.
It's light.
It's very nice.
I would think that...
Unless there was no other way to store it, and they didn't have refrigeration, which of course they didn't when they first started doing this.
david mcmillan
Refrigeration is a super modern invention, if you look back.
I worked for chefs in my apprenticeship that told me stories about their apprenticeship, and it's like night and day.
They said, when we woke up in the morning, we used to have to fill the ovens with coal, you know, and go down to the ice locker and drag an ice block through the...
What's that stuff called?
fred morin
Sawdust.
david mcmillan
Sawdust shed.
I was like, what?
joe rogan
Wow.
david mcmillan
A lot of these old French restaurants that are famous had coal-fired ovens and ice block fridges.
fred morin
And the apprentices would live above...
And they'd take shift, you know?
One night, it'd be you that would make sure it doesn't die, because otherwise it'd be hard to start again, you know?
Like, real cold.
joe rogan
Wow.
david mcmillan
Yeah, the stoves would burn every day, all the time.
Wow.
The restaurant stove was ultimately, it was also heating the whole building as well.
The hotel was heated by the restaurant.
unidentified
Wow.
david mcmillan
Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, it makes sense.
I mean, it really does.
But there's not a lot of animals that they would let get that funky, other than...
fred morin
Shark.
Shark.
joe rogan
Oh, that thing they do in Iceland, the pickled shark.
fred morin
There's a Korean dish that I'm actually curious to try, a skate wing that is fermented.
But until it gets that ammonia flavor, you know, like...
You smell a camembert and a poise and you smell it.
It smells good.
Funky cheese.
Then you go a bit deeper, you know, bigger whiff, and then you're like, wow, Windex.
You know, you got like the ammonia and some people look for that.
david mcmillan
Different cultures are into different flavors.
A friend of mine, Andy, went to Calcutta three weeks ago and came back with the number one candy in Calcutta or in India.
It's this weird candy called Pulse.
If we had one right now, all three of us, it's a repulsive candy that tastes incredibly of sulfur and fecal rot.
But in India, that's the candy.
Like, people love it.
What?
In American winemaking and French winemaking, there's things in winemaking called flaws.
You know, usually the flaws of wine in France and in natural winemaking, organic winemaking, will always be volatile acidity and Bertanomyces.
Wow.
Volatile acidity smells, in the wine, vastly of vinegar.
And Britannomyces smells vastly of fecal matter, barnyard fecal matter, you know?
These, in North American wine and even in French wine, are considered as flaws, you know?
In Japan, they love...
Natural wines from France that have high volatile acidity and Britannomyces smells.
What would be ultimately considered a flawed wine in France in natural wine world is considered a delicacy in Japan in the natural wine world.
joe rogan
Wow, so do they purposely take ones that have that funky smell and ship them off to Japan?
david mcmillan
Some winemakers, you know, the wine agent will come and visit the cellar and usually the winemaker will point him in the direction and say, maybe this might be for, and then he goes, yes, yes, this is what we like.
joe rogan
Do they cultivate it on purpose in that direction?
david mcmillan
I figure, like, nobody right now will come up and say it outright.
But I believe so.
As in, they don't stop it.
There are Japanese winemakers now all through France that work in a very funky way and are more or less pushing those wines into the Japanese market.
joe rogan
Okay, I have to try this just because it's disgusting.
So tell me what the name of the candy is again.
unidentified
Pulse.
david mcmillan
Spell that P-U-L-S-E. It's a green mango candy.
fred morin
Originally, it's a classic snack, right?
They used a sulfur salt.
It's called black salt.
And they put a bit of chili and sulfur salt on mango.
And I have to admit that when I had the real green mango with the sulfur salt, it's not that bad.
That candy was like pushed.
It's like the mega warheads, you know, that we had as kids.
I wonder, too, sometimes, like, the gamey flavor of the pheasant, the cheese, the this, the eel, the that.
I see it sometimes as a bit of a, like, you know, the ghost pepper.
It's a bit of a pissing contest between...
joe rogan
Ah, yeah.
fred morin
You know, like...
joe rogan
Right.
Like, no one could possibly enjoy the taste of ghost pepper, right?
david mcmillan
No.
joe rogan
I mean, does it even have a taste?
I mean, are you even responding to that taste?
david mcmillan
I won't even try it.
fred morin
Have you at all?
You know who loves that?
You know Olivier?
unidentified
Yes.
fred morin
Those guys, they have, like...
Well, they watch, like, Game of Thrones.
They get together.
joe rogan
And they eat ghost peppers?
fred morin
Oh, yeah.
unidentified
We're talking about Olivier Aubin-Mercier, who's a fighter in the UFC. Yeah, and they'll have, like, ghost pepper parties, you know.
fred morin
And then the next day, they'll go to Comic-Con and dress up as superheroes and then play some online poker and then eat more ghost peppers.
joe rogan
But he's also a UFC fighter.
I mean, you gotta think, he's a very extreme human being.
david mcmillan
He's a funny kid.
joe rogan
He's a very, very, very nice guy.
If you didn't know that he was a trained killer, you'd have no idea if you talked to him.
He just seems like a gentleman.
david mcmillan
Yeah, he's a sweetie.
He's a good kid.
fred morin
For us, it's interesting.
We actually have a bit of a chapter in the book where we talk loosely about those guys and that relationship.
joe rogan
Well, you guys sponsored him or something?
fred morin
Before the Reebok thing.
joe rogan
Right, yeah.
Because I remember one of the fights that we did in Montreal, we went to your restaurant afterwards and Olivier showed up after his fight.
And you guys were congratulating him.
fred morin
Yeah, yeah.
His fiancée, his wife, his girlfriend works with us at the restaurant.
david mcmillan
Yeah, for a long time now.
fred morin
And, you know, we met because...
These guys, it's interesting, eh?
They're super into food.
And they're open to a lot of things.
And they're curious.
And a lot of them get aimed in the wrong direction, you know, like the brown rice and chicken direction.
And you're responsible for, in big part, for the awakening, the nutritional awakening of these guys.
You know, a lot of them go for their gun license now, just to be able to hunt.
They go fishing on the weekend.
They go for, like, two hours hike in the wood and, like, little fishing rod.
They come back with trouts and we get a phone call.
He's like, hey, Fred, I go fish for trouts.
You know, what do I do with that?
You know, it's...
It's a great thing.
And yeah, we did sponsor them after, but then what we do now is we cook for them post-Way In.
joe rogan
Ah.
unidentified
Yeah.
david mcmillan
Marco did GSP at the last fight at Madison Square Gardens.
The boys were there for a week.
We've done...
fred morin
Tim Kennedy after...
joe rogan
So they came for a week and just hung out and cooked meals for them?
david mcmillan
We send the kids, Marco and Fred goes and Gab goes, Gabrielle Joppo, they rent a suite.
And they prepare all of the meals up to weight cut and afterwards.
joe rogan
And do they have nutritional requirements for the weight cut?
They do.
unidentified
They have a nutritionist there with them, but then they have the plan.
fred morin
But I have a take on that.
If the nutritionist writes a plan and the food's not good and you don't eat it, then it doesn't work, right?
It can be right on paper, but if you don't take the pill, then you don't do the job.
david mcmillan
You can say chicken and kale, this much grams, but we can...
A professional cook...
We'll make the kale delicious.
fred morin
Or Brussels sprouts instead.
david mcmillan
And cook the chicken properly.
Because the kale could be bad and the chicken could be dry.
fred morin
And the thing, too, that works...
david mcmillan
The guys are already suffering.
fred morin
The thing that works the best in that case is that all of a sudden you have in the room, we set up a little table.
It's not like PlayStation dirty underwears, like pre-fight vibe.
unidentified
It's...
david mcmillan
Dining with friends.
fred morin
It's dining with friends.
Yeah.
Whether it's Marco, Gab, me, we know.
We don't talk.
If you don't want to talk, if you want to talk, we're here, you know, and we'll hang out.
But then you feel like you're eggs in a tortilla, you feel like you're eggs with potatoes, or, like, it's mellow, and it helps a lot with just the context of not being, like, ordering pizza from room service, you know?
david mcmillan
George used to tell us horror stories, you know, before some of his biggest wins years ago, George said, eating, like, room service rigatoni.
And pizza before a major fight, you know?
So now it's different.
fred morin
And it's fun because, like David said earlier, we have many interests.
And it's great to be able to explore them like that, you know?
Because we couldn't...
We couldn't do this job if it was for, like, 12 stoves in the kitchen, a bunch of pans, cooking pieces of meat, writing books about the seasons, and tomatoes, and starting again.
Like, I couldn't do it.
Like, we love...
david mcmillan
Yeah, being a chef is, like, one-dimensional, really, you know?
fred morin
And that, whether it's, like, Olivier, whether it's, like, going to visit a Neil farm, and, you know, like, it makes it...
Worthwhile up to this point.
joe rogan
Well, you guys have a great philosophy about that, and that's one of the things that really came through with the Bourdain show when you guys were in the ice shack, is that you enjoy living well.
david mcmillan
Yeah, everybody has to live better.
Take care of yourself, man.
Turn your phone off.
Sit with your kids.
unidentified
Listen to them.
joe rogan
That's one of the things that I really liked.
david mcmillan
Brilliant things, man.
joe rogan
Turn your phone off and come with stories.
david mcmillan
I had friends.
I have all my children now.
I love to sit at the table and I'm quiet.
I just let them talk and ask me questions and watch them.
It's just the best.
My relationship with my kids is better than any relationship I have with any of my best friends.
My kids are more interesting.
My family is more interesting.
It's work to stay in contact with your family and even the staff.
I enjoy very much working in the restaurants that we've built.
I work five days a week With people that I've been working with for 15 years.
These are important relationships.
It's not employee-employer.
It's if you quit and you tell me you're leaving, I'm going to go in my car and cry.
I've been working with you for 15 years.
My relationship that I have with many people that I work with is intimate.
I've seen their children born.
I've seen them go through breakups.
I've seen their parents die.
I've seen...
We go to war every night at 6 o'clock.
150 people are coming to eat in the next three hours in four restaurants.
We, you know...
fred morin
It's a job that's so different.
david mcmillan
Very high-stress environment for five minutes.
For two hours, we've got to walk properly.
We're knowledgeable of each other's space.
There's a ballet, you know, when you're washing the glasses and the food's coming out behind you.
You know, you have a sixth sense to know to move, not to get the plate to burn your elbow.
You know, there's this ballet we dance every night with these people.
fred morin
And for us to think that, like, and most people still think that we're behind the stove cooking.
I've got more phone calls to get help finding a doctor, therapist, whatever, you know, nutritionist for the staff.
Then I got calls about recipes or food.
You know, our job is I'm an expert in drainpipes.
david mcmillan
Artisanal plumbing?
Artisanal electricity?
Artisanal refrigeration?
fred morin
I know about concrete pouring now.
Why?
joe rogan
Because you've done it yourself?
david mcmillan
Yeah, we have these restaurants.
They're very decrepit old buildings.
And you can't...
We're running restaurants with employees and a constant burden of payroll.
And we can't just call everybody all the time.
By default, any good cooking school today...
What Fred is saying, and Fred is the example of what a great chef should be, should be a very good cook, a very good person with people skills, but should also have a minor in electricity, plumbing, and refrigeration technology.
fred morin
First aid, you know?
Even now, like, we both don't drink.
We both, I wouldn't say a health kick, but just, like, want to be there, you know?
Mind and body.
We want to be, like, present.
And that's...
david mcmillan
We built something cool.
I want to appreciate it and not be clouded.
fred morin
That's overlooked.
People don't think about that when they get into this job.
They think it's this warrior thing.
We're savage.
We're going to drink.
We're going to party.
We're going to do this.
No.
If you want to do that until you're 60 and then get a little cottage and write, paint, watercolor, buy a sailboat, you have to think about it.
You can't live that life of...
joe rogan
Why do you think that life is synonymous with chefs?
david mcmillan
We've been promoted and taught ultimately that you will get paid, you will make money, you will persevere if you understand how to promote excessive eating and excessive drinking.
You will be recompensed if you build a place where people come and eat too much and drink too much and then spend too much, then you will be able to have a life, a car, a house, and raise children.
Okay, so it's all good.
First you have to learn how to cook, then you have to learn how to run a restaurant, then you have to learn what a restaurant looks like, and how to host, what the playlist should be like, how to fix a plumbing disaster, how to fix an electricity disaster, how to fix a staff situation disaster, how to run a clean house, or people are working together with all their different idiosyncrasies.
But...
For my whole apprenticeship, alcohol was a reward.
You did a good job tonight.
Drink.
fred morin
And then it went from reward to, oh shit, there was like a blood bath in the restaurant.
We had to pick up this guy at the hospital.
Okay, it's not a reward.
Let's forget about it.
Let's drink.
And it was always there.
Great service.
Let's have a drink.
david mcmillan
You're in the food industry, but you're also in the wine industry.
Because 50% of what you're doing is selling food to people, and the other 50% of what you're doing is selling alcohol to people.
So by default, you're part of the people that sell food.
A liquid drug.
And you're in that world every day.
You go to wine tastings.
You talk with people that sell alcohol at bartenders.
You talk to people that sell wine.
You're partaking, eating in your colleagues' restaurants and drinking wine.
Next thing you know, you have a little bit of celebrity.
You've been open for 15 years.
And you look back and you go, there's seven days in a week.
And I drank six of them.
I don't feel good on Sunday.
I'm just kind of recovering.
And then what happens is one week turns into two to four, and then you kind of look back and you realize in 2017 that you may have drank 48 weeks out of 52. And then it goes quick.
Then it's 10 years.
You're a 10-year restaurant, and you've been drinking...
Five days out of the week for ten years.
And then all of a sudden, you kind of have a problem.
You realize that, like, my day-to-day is based on food and wine.
Right?
Now, I don't want my...
It's not making me happy.
I've had all the wines.
I've had all the foods.
Am I better for it?
Not really.
What am I better for?
Restriction.
Eating less.
Eating clean.
Drinking only on very special occasions.
joe rogan
Do you still drink on special occasions?
david mcmillan
I don't.
I'm completely sober, no.
joe rogan
Did you make that decision based on the idea that you weren't able to control it?
Or just that the best decision would be to just completely eliminate it?
fred morin
Textbook case of a person who couldn't drink.
david mcmillan
Yeah, I tried several times to stop.
I googled it.
I read about it.
It didn't work.
I was intervention by Fred and my managers of the restaurants in January 12th, around there, 16th, I think we figured.
joe rogan
Of this year?
david mcmillan
Yeah.
I'm eight months sober or something.
joe rogan
Congratulations.
david mcmillan
Thank you.
You look really good.
Thank you.
unidentified
Thank you so much.
You do.
joe rogan
You look healthy.
david mcmillan
I'm happy, man.
fred morin
It changes the skin, everything.
joe rogan
Isn't it amazing when that happens?
fred morin
Conversation.
david mcmillan
I was angry for a long time.
It's not only alcoholism.
I think all alcoholics are codependent somewhat.
It had been part of my whole apprenticeship, not being sober for so many years.
It was all under control and funny for a very, very long time.
It was always a big part of my life, drinking wine, eating food.
Until it wasn't.
Then one day, I was 45, my relationship with alcohol changed.
I became dark.
I became unhappy.
I had success.
I had beautiful children.
I was not happy.
I tried many different things.
Nothing worked.
I was interventioned by people that I work with that are dear to me, that I love very much, I guess that love me.
They're tired of watching me.
You know, make bad decisions and I just went to a great rehab called Chatsworth that Educated me.
You know, I was sitting in a classroom with a pad and paper for six hours a day, learning about the disease called alcoholism, learning about a disease that 30% of the population has, you know, and how and why I was an addict, you know?
First, I was an addict with food.
Then, you know, at a young age, after a traumatic event, then I was an addict with beer, then I was an addict with marijuana, like, you know, all drugs, and then I was an addict with wine.
Follow up a couple more traumatic events in my, you know, horrendous apprenticeship and the stress of leadership in these restaurants.
You know, one thing led to another.
My relationship with alcohol became not positive.
With help, I understood.
Through education, I understood.
And now everything's great.
fred morin
It's funny, too, because...
I saw it as an example.
You know, I don't like to tell him, but maybe it's a little bit of mentoring, you know?
david mcmillan
I was the canary in the coal mine for Fred.
fred morin
You know, and I decided, I was like, fuck.
You know, after Tony passed, I was like, you know, I remember I was working on a new project doing tilings, and I was like, oh, I heard the news in the morning.
I went to tile all day, and then I couldn't wait to get home and have, like, two bottles of wine.
And I was like, why?
And...
We were the same about that.
It didn't matter, like, what we loved at a point.
Look, for example, we loved MMA, right?
We loved going to the fights.
We were, like, so fortunate.
We'd go and see, we met the Fertitta brothers.
We discussed, like, we sat with them at dinner table.
We met you.
We met all those guys.
David loves winemaking, met all the winemakers.
We met the best people in the field that we loved.
david mcmillan
Charmed life, not happy.
fred morin
Not happy.
Like ungrateful fucking little pricks.
joe rogan
Well, you know, I think part of the problem is that alcohol is a depressant.
david mcmillan
Correct.
It's your problem.
joe rogan
Just you get down.
It brings you down.
It brings your energy level down.
It brings your vitality down.
It's also a solvent.
david mcmillan
Alcohol is a solvent, and it destroys your soft brain tissue.
You know, I was taught that in rehab.
I said, would you drink acetone?
I go, no.
joe rogan
Well, if it was made by a lovely French vineyard and had great aroma...
But do you miss anything about the flavor of wine with a meal or anything?
Have you ever tried non-alcoholic wines?
I don't even know.
fred morin
Non-alcoholic beers?
david mcmillan
I go to wine tastings.
I was just at Raw Wine in Los Angeles.
I went to taste all the natural wines, beautiful natural wine festival.
joe rogan
And you can taste them still?
david mcmillan
I taste them.
I don't swallow.
I rinse my mouth out.
I'm very much involved in natural wine and viticulture, reading, and all that stuff.
joe rogan
That's got to be so weird to have a mouthful of delicious wine just spit into a bucket.
david mcmillan
No, it's the same.
joe rogan
Really?
david mcmillan
Yeah.
Why did I drink wine?
Olfactory, the nose, the flavor, understanding the winemaker, his philosophy, the geography of where the wine comes from, his work...
You know, with using organic and biodynamic viticulture, not using sulfur, just making this amazing organic beverage with very little intervention, natural wine.
fred morin
Without side effects.
david mcmillan
I don't have to swallow it because the drug is the same drug that's in all the other ones.
That they can't change.
joe rogan
The flavor is what's different.
david mcmillan
Yes.
And what I like is more of the story, the guy, the vineyard, the varietals.
joe rogan
Would you eat at a fine restaurant and have a delicious steak and a wine accompaniment and then just spit it into a bucket?
david mcmillan
I've done it.
fred morin
It goes to the bathroom.
david mcmillan
I was really worried.
fred morin
He shuts his mouth and he goes to the bathroom.
david mcmillan
I was worried that...
fred morin
With a mouthful of wine.
david mcmillan
Ryan Gray, our friend from Elena that worked with us for years, Ryan goes to a restaurant and asks for a bucket...
He'll sit with other people, people in the wine business, and they all drink wine, and he tastes the wine, and he has discussions about wine, and he tastes it and spits it.
joe rogan
Because he's an alcoholic.
david mcmillan
Yeah, he's a recovered alcoholic.
Three years, but he's a wine buyer, and he's very much involved.
He was my mentor when I got out of rehab, because in rehab they were telling me, you may never be able to go back to the restaurant.
joe rogan
What?
unidentified
Yeah.
fred morin
High risk of re-offending.
unidentified
Yeah.
david mcmillan
And I was like, I can't.
I don't know anything else.
I have no education.
fred morin
I've been in kitchen since I'm 17. It's way too late for med school, and we don't do well in Adderall.
david mcmillan
I really don't want to clean iceberg lettuce at the fruits and vegetables store and try to make a go of that.
fred morin
And you know, it's funny, too.
Even de-alkalized beer, non-alcoholic beer, it's better than alcoholic beer.
joe rogan
What are you talking about?
david mcmillan
Heineken 00, man.
fred morin
Crisp.
joe rogan
Really?
david mcmillan
Crisp.
Outstanding.
unidentified
Really?
david mcmillan
Heineken 00?
Outstanding.
joe rogan
It's really good?
david mcmillan
It's fine.
joe rogan
Well, I've only had like O'Doul's.
david mcmillan
No, that's not good.
joe rogan
Okay, so Heineken does it correctly.
david mcmillan
The order of non-alcoholic beer, okay, in my head is Heineken 00, Carlsberg 00, Grolsch, zero.
Bex, zero.
And then everything else is not good after that.
fred morin
Let me add to that because I'm also celiac, right?
And there's a Glutenberg they make in Montreal that's no gluten and no alcohol.
Now you can insert any joke you want.
david mcmillan
People are signing off the podcast right now.
joe rogan
I thought these guys were going to talk about heroin and getting fucked up and eating meat.
fred morin
Though we eat meat.
joe rogan
Yes, I'm sure.
I'm sure.
That's fascinating, though, that you actually still taste it.
It's almost like if you're a heroin addict just scratching the skin with the needle.
david mcmillan
We don't penetrate anymore.
I don't recommend that.
My therapist and the people at rehab do not recommend that I taste wine and spit it.
joe rogan
I'm sure they don't.
david mcmillan
But I have friends, again, I know a lot of sommeliers, and even I know winemakers, some of the most famous winemakers in the world I've met in Burgundy at an AAB that are completely sober.
joe rogan
Wow.
david mcmillan
Because they wanted to break this cycle of my great-grandfather was an alcoholic, abusive person, my grandfather was an alcoholic, abusive person, my father was an alcoholic, abusive person, and I didn't want to take over this thousand-year-old winery, the legacy of my family.
I didn't want to work here.
fred morin
And I'm sure, like, you know, with all the epigenetic stuff, if you don't drink when your kids are young, like, there might be a thing where you can stop the passing of the gene, you know?
david mcmillan
But you did Sober October.
How'd you do?
joe rogan
Fine.
fred morin
Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, I did, but...
david mcmillan
You didn't love it.
unidentified
No, it wasn't...
fred morin
How was the relapse?
joe rogan
Sobriety wasn't...
This was a very crazy Sober October because we added this insane fitness challenge.
So I was literally working out between three and a half to five and a half...
One day, six and a half hours in a day.
unidentified
Whoa.
joe rogan
Yeah, it was insane.
One day I did five and a half hours and I did another hour at night.
Six and a half hours in the day.
We were trying to kill each other to see who could get the most points.
We had a fitness tracker.
We wore this heart rate monitor.
fred morin
Oh yeah, I heard that.
joe rogan
The application would score up the amount of points you would get.
fred morin
Who won?
joe rogan
I won.
That's the belt right there.
If you get 70% of your max heart rate, you get three points per minute.
This is how crazy it got.
70% of your max heart rate is three points per minute.
80% and above your max heart rate is four points per minute.
One day, I got a thousand points.
So just think about that.
Think about how many minutes you have to exercise at 80% of your max heart rate to get a thousand fucking points.
fred morin
So you think sober helped you with performance or recuperation?
joe rogan
I think I was on drugs the entire time.
This is what I think.
I think I was on the endorphins that come from long-range cardio.
There's what I was calling the I-don't-give-a-fuck drug.
There's you get this...
This feeling when you do, like everybody always talked about runner's high, and I never really experienced it, even though I had worked out really hard my whole life.
I'd never been into like long-range cardio.
I'd never done hours and hours of the same activity, just droning on, you know, either on a bike or running.
I'd never really done that.
I'd run hills for the most part, and I'm sure it benefited me and it made me relaxed, but it's at a totally different level when you're doing it for three and a half hours, four hours a day.
david mcmillan
It's a true survival mechanism that kicks in.
joe rogan
It's that, but it's also you feel wonderful.
You have zero anxiety.
fred morin
And you're still benefiting from that?
joe rogan
No, no, that's what's interesting.
I've been out of the house for a week now because of the fires, so we've been running around and the kids aren't in school, so they're here hanging out with me.
We haven't had a chance to get our stuff together.
It's been very stressful, so I haven't really been working out much.
I've only worked out like once or twice this week, so I have more stress.
I feel a little bit more tense, a little bit more take a deep breath, calm down, During October, I had none of that.
None of that.
I felt great.
I was like, if you could take how I feel and put it in a pill form and give it to people, everyone would be hooked on it.
Because you feel fantastic.
And I never understood that.
I would see these people running every day, and I thought they were just exercise fanatics.
Like, they just want to be leaner, or they want to just...
Maybe they're obsessed.
fred morin
Body obsessed, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, maybe that's what it was.
But I think they're drug addicts.
They're natural drug addicts, but in a very positive way.
I shouldn't call it drug addicts.
Endorphin junkies.
That's what they are.
fred morin
It makes sense, too, that you would...
Every cycle...
In nature, it's like feast and famine.
It's like running and resting.
If you're a hunter-gatherer, you don't hunt every day.
You follow a cycle.
For a month, you'll hunt.
You'll drag back the meat home.
You'll eat a lot.
And then after the next month, you'll be quiet.
You'll eat less.
And then the next month...
So there's very little exercise program out there that look at it like that.
But if you were to look at it over a year, maybe you'd see it like...
I see October is more quiet.
I'll do my month in October.
November will be quiet.
Busy with other things after that.
I'll go back to it in December.
It's better for the soul, too.
You don't have this...
Is there any obsession looming over you that you have to do it tomorrow morning and at night?
joe rogan
Well, my take on it was a little bit different.
My take on it is that everyone's anxiety levels and all the different stress and all the things we deal with, a lot of it is because your body has capabilities.
And you're not using even a small percentage of those capabilities, so it's always like, what are we doing?
Are we going?
We're going to go?
We're going to go?
And we're in traffic, you're moving quickly, so you're constantly aware of all these cars around you, and there's all this stress, and there's very little physical release that the body takes part in.
And for most people, I mean, the great percentage of our population lives a sedentary lifestyle.
They sit in their cars until they get to the office, they sit in their office until they get home, they sit in front of the TV until they go to sleep.
This is a giant percentage of our population, whatever the number is.
It's very normal, and occasionally they work out, and when they do, it's a struggle.
When you force the body into rigorous exercise on a constant basis, your body's, all the needs of this capacity, the capabilities that it has, all those needs are satisfied.
So what I found is incredibly low anxiety levels.
And I didn't think I had anxiety.
I'm not an anxious person to the point where I thought about taking medication for anxiety, like I'm nervous or...
But I didn't know how anxiety-free I could be until I did this exercise program for a month.
david mcmillan
See, I found that in sobriety.
I suffered, and Fred suffered from anxiety our whole careers.
Every day, 200, 300 people are coming for dinner.
unidentified
Painful.
david mcmillan
It's always there in my head.
unidentified
It's crippling.
david mcmillan
Is there staff?
There's 300 people coming.
It never goes away.
There's always people coming for dinner.
Are they happy?
I'm throwing 400 people every night.
But when I was drinking, that would just keep the stress going.
Now I'm fine.
It's gone.
joe rogan
That's interesting.
david mcmillan
There's this magic number.
I kept on hearing in rehab, and I kept on hearing through therapy.
fred morin
Four months?
david mcmillan
16 weeks, man.
16 weeks.
I was like, yeah, shut up, fuck.
You know, what's this fucking guy who's always telling me about these 16 weeks?
They're like, 16 weeks, man.
Watch 16 weeks.
The morning, 16 weeks.
That morning.
I woke up that morning and my phone said, oh, 16 weeks.
And I had this peace and this joy and this childhood...
Innocence that I hadn't had in years on the day, 16 weeks.
Not because I'd been premeditating in my head and I was looking forward to the 16 weeks.
I didn't believe in it.
But it was literally 16 weeks of sobriety that brought this I was clear.
fred morin
The drain is clogged.
No problem.
I'll be there in half an hour.
david mcmillan
Yeah.
fred morin
As it should be.
david mcmillan
The fridges don't work.
The lights are out in the restaurant and five tables are unhappy.
I'm coming down.
joe rogan
Do you think that some of the anxiety was just your body responding to the fact that you were poisoning it all the time?
fred morin
I also think it's the psyche creating reasons for you to drink.
Your mind is telling you, you're stressed.
I have a quick remedy for it.
Why don't you try drinking?
david mcmillan
When you feel this way, usually what's your go-to?
I'd be like, I could taste sometimes when I'd fall into stressful situations at the restaurant, three tables I don't like, a couple of criminal elements behaving badly at one table.
Maybe on the border of lacking respect to their waitress, I might have to get involved, and I could almost taste Chardonnay in my salivary glands.
fred morin
Yeah, your brain still plays the trick on you.
david mcmillan
My brain was making me high before the high.
I was like, why do I taste Chardonnay?
fred morin
I think it's the same with sugar addiction too, where people eat sugar, lots of carbs, mostly carbs.
Then you're like, oh man, I have to go for three hours without eating.
I have to bring something sweet with me because I'm going to get shaky.
It's like you're feeding basically.
I don't know if it's your gut biome that changes, but you're feeding a monster inside of you.
You're not feeding Fred or David.
You're like feeding something else, you know?
Like you're planning a weekend at the cottage.
You're like, the kids are going to be loud.
I'm going to have to bring like two more bottles of wine, you know?
And I have to make sure that the wine is cold and have to make sure we have that.
Or like you have to, you know, I have friends like that.
I have to make sure I have like four granola bars because I have to eat all the time.
And you know that.
If you don't have breakfast, you have like a quick coffee.
You can go till like four or five in the afternoon and not shaking and getting cold and sweaty, you know?
joe rogan
Especially if you have a good, healthy diet.
If your body's not sugar-dependent.
fred morin
I think it's funny, eh?
Every time...
You know, sometimes we fall off the wagon and stuff.
And I was pretty solid for a few years.
I think that two weeks of drinking more water, having walks, and not eating ice cream and fries, and two weeks of home-cooked meals and water, cutting down on coffee, because that, too, will fuck with your anxiety, you know?
joe rogan
Sure.
fred morin
We know this, too, like both of us.
david mcmillan
So many diseases are based simply on overconsumption.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
joe rogan
Yeah.
david mcmillan
Just period.
Overconsumption of cigarettes, overconsumption of alcohol, overconsumption of sugar, overconsumption of meat, carbs.
Restriction brings clarity.
joe rogan
Yes, and restriction diets are one of the best remedies for people with autoimmune diseases.
unidentified
Oh, really?
joe rogan
Yeah.
They cut down almost everything.
One of the things that people are doing today that's very popular, but I keep talking about this, unfortunately, is the carnivore diet.
Because Jordan Peterson made it very popular when he was on the podcast.
It's really fascinating.
There's a spike.
If you look at the Google search results for carnivore diet, it's July of 2018. It goes like this.
Takes off because that's the day that Jordan was on the podcast.
So he's on the podcast, you know...
Whatever amount of millions of people listened and watched it.
fred morin
Steak, salt, and water.
joe rogan
Because of his ranting and raving about the positive benefits that he's experienced.
On the carnivore diet, people really got into it.
I got into it as well.
What is it about this?
I started consulting a lot of actual nutrition experts and scientists.
What they believe is what's going on is calorie restriction.
Because of the fact that Jordan is only eating steak with salt and drinking water.
That is all he's consuming and he feels fantastic.
fred morin
And not lean steak.
unidentified
Real steak.
joe rogan
Yes, fatty.
fred morin
So then you can't eat too much because you have the fat.
You're feeling full.
joe rogan
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
fred morin
That fat is important.
joe rogan
Yeah, and because of this, quite a few autoimmune issues that he had went away.
He was having receding gums.
That went away.
He was having severe depression and anxiety and all these different issues.
That went away.
Lost a tremendous amount of weight.
His body leaned up.
And the scientists that I've talked about...
You know, this is a very new thing for people to embark on this and do it on a mass scale because there's quite a few people doing it.
What they're attributing it to is the calorie restriction, is that because of the fact that you really can't eat that much steak, if you eat a steak, you know, it might be a thousand calories, whereas if you eat a full, big, Thick steak, lots of fat.
david mcmillan
1,000 calories of steak is a lot of steak.
unidentified
Right.
joe rogan
But, I mean, he might be eating two of those in a day, whereas if you're eating french fries and soda, you're getting way more than that.
What do you think an 18-ounce ribeye is, if you had a guess, calorically?
fred morin
11?
18?
david mcmillan
600?
fred morin
800?
Depends if you have like the end of the rack.
unidentified
Okay, so let's just get crazy and let's call it 700. It's probably like 1700 calories a day.
Yeah.
fred morin
Because he's not putting cream in the coffee.
He's not having a...
joe rogan
Seven to nothing.
Water and steak.
fred morin
When I started eating no gluten, right?
It's fully diagnosed, right?
I'm not making this up.
I stopped eating gluten.
david mcmillan
He gets flack every day.
fred morin
What does that mean?
joe rogan
Everybody gets crazy about the gluten thing.
david mcmillan
No, he is.
joe rogan
They don't want to hear it.
david mcmillan
People don't want to hear it.
We don't want to hear it.
I sit.
fred morin
But what does it mean?
david mcmillan
I don't eat gluten.
joe rogan
Smoking cigarettes.
unidentified
Smoking cigarettes.
fred morin
But what does it mean, no gluten?
It means that you don't go to...
No drive-thru.
No slip.
joe rogan
Right.
fred morin
There's no...
There's no options out there in the fast food world.
So I have to plan my day.
So I'll eat a piece of meat for breakfast or eggs or whatever, and then I won't eat until I show up at work or at home later and eat.
So it's what you've excluded that counts.
It's not that the steak is so good for you.
It's that you're not eating all this processed food anymore because you can't eat it anymore.
joe rogan
That's what the scientists are saying.
But the people that are pro-meat, it's really fascinating because they're just as culty as the vegans are.
The people that are the real pro-carnivore diets, they want you to think that it's the meat that's healing them, the meat that's helping them, the meat that's making them lean.
Well, it's not hurting you.
I mean, it's nutritious.
I mean, there's a lot of real nutrients in red meat.
And this is also a problem with a lot of studies that people have A lot of vegans love to cite about heart attacks, strokes, cancer in relationship to meat.
These epidemiology studies, they're essentially saying, look, when you look at people that eat meat five days a week, these are the people that have higher instances of cancer, higher instances of diabetes, all these different things.
What they're not taking into consideration is they're not just eating meat.
They're usually eating a cheeseburger with fries and a soda, and there's all this sugar.
fred morin
Two gimlets before dinner.
joe rogan
Yeah.
It's bullshit that's involved with the meat.
There's not any studies that show that people who eat a grass-fed...
david mcmillan
Only meat and water.
joe rogan
Yeah, a 12-ounce grass-fed steak with a good plate of sautéed spinach and olive oil and garlic that these people are getting cancer.
david mcmillan
There's no doubt on that.
joe rogan
There's nothing.
fred morin
You can't make a nutritional study.
It's impossible.
People fundamentally lie.
So you cannot have people, you cannot say, like, this is cocoa fat and beef tenderloin, I'm gonna give you a weak portion, you go home, then you come to report, we do blood tests.
joe rogan
You get anecdotal evidence from people that talk about their own personal diet, but yeah, it's very difficult.
And it's also...
Very ideologically based.
I mean, whether it's on one side with the vegans or the other side with the carnivore diet people, I find the same psychological characteristics in both groups.
They want to convert people, they want to proselytize, they want people to think that their way is the right way, and they are not honest about health issues that they're having.
fred morin
You should make like a...
A conference on a deserted island, you know, in a rich man's castle, like a Bruce Lee movie, and you invite the vegans on one side and you don't tell them you're also inviting the other, you know?
And then both groups, you just have like a kumite.
joe rogan
Well, both groups think the other group is going to drop dead any second now.
fred morin
The proof is in the pudding.
If somebody is on your podcast to talk about eating meat, he's alive and he's not dead, so it works.
You know, like, why look any further?
joe rogan
Well, who knows how long they're gonna last.
Well, none of us are getting out of this alive.
fred morin
No, that's for sure.
joe rogan
When it comes to meat, do you guys prefer a grass-fed beef, or do you like corn-fed?
Because I had this discussion with Tony, and he was telling me that he actually liked corn-fed beef.
He's like, it's a fattier...
david mcmillan
There's two schools of thought, and then there's two schools of what is quality beef.
unidentified
Right.
david mcmillan
So...
One school will say, yeah, quality beef is an organic animal, pasture-raised, eating grass, the flavor's different, it's not as tender, but it is high-quality beef.
Okay, then the other, of course, is, you know, a cow, USDA Prime, corn-fed, incredible marbling, ridiculous fat content, restricted motion.
I'd say a lesser quality beef than the other.
fred morin
But they all start grass-fed, though.
david mcmillan
Eating-wise...
fred morin
They're all pastured at first.
david mcmillan
Eating-wise, pound for pound, the corn-fed steak will be more delicious for some people.
And then for some people, the other one will be.
In my mind, the grass-fed, organic, pasture beef with its different flavor, for me, is a higher quality animal.
joe rogan
I prefer that taste.
david mcmillan
Correct.
joe rogan
I feel it's a richer taste.
It's a denser, darker meat.
fred morin
More of that iron taste.
joe rogan
Yeah, I just like it better.
And I do like a corn-fed steak.
I do like it.
fred morin
But there is.
david mcmillan
And the general public, the steak-eating public that come to restaurants and counter more corn-fed beef, and their first...
Judge of character to the quality of that meat is...
Marbling.
It's tenderness.
It's marbling.
It's not tender.
It's not tender.
That's the reoccurring thing that we fight with every day at Joe Beef.
fred morin
Juicy and tender.
joe rogan
Just eat a 16-ounce foie gras.
david mcmillan
I know.
joe rogan
Because they just want tender.
david mcmillan
I know.
joe rogan
I mean, what are they looking for?
unidentified
Tender.
fred morin
It's not tender.
joe rogan
Don't your teeth work?
david mcmillan
When we get a steak sent back, it'll be because...
joe rogan
It's too tough?
david mcmillan
Yeah, exactly.
I usually go to this steakhouse and it's more tender.
joe rogan
Because you're serving a grass-fed steak.
david mcmillan
Serving a grass-fed steak that's not as marbled as it's non-organic.
joe rogan
Well, it's an animal that's healthy.
fred morin
But you can also have...
david mcmillan
It's an upgrade file.
It's like the natural wine versus conventional wine fight that we're having.
fred morin
Yeah, but it's also...
We're calling it binary.
Now it's like it's only corn or it's only grass.
No, I think the solution is maybe a little bit of corn, a little bit of barley, but mostly grass-fed.
A brief finish in quality grains.
Why not?
david mcmillan
And then there's a whole other point.
fred morin
Not giant feedlot.
david mcmillan
I like to sell beef in my restaurant that comes from very close to my restaurant.
When we opened Joe Beef at the beginning, when the first book was written...
Beef was a problem back then.
You know, local beef was kind of difficult.
And, you know, we were buying beef from larger wholesalers.
And if we didn't know how to read the barcodes on the boxes, they would say it was Canadian beef.
But it might not be Canadian beef.
It might be Northern USA beef.
But we didn't know because only a professional could read the barcode.
But they were saying it was Canadian.
But one day I had a professional come into the restaurant and he said, Investiture is in Canada, but this is from Western Australia.
And I said, I don't want to serve anything in my restaurant from Western Australia.
That's super far.
Like, you know, just like remove beef from the menu or seek alternatives.
fred morin
But it's a business that's complex because there's pastures and feedlots, slaughterhouse and packers.
Right?
And it's not like we have lambs.
Get a baby lamb that come from the parents' lamb and then they raise the lamb and they bring it to the slaughterhouse themselves and then we get a lamb.
Beef is like tracing bourbons, you know?
It's like trading and brokerage and stuff and we're not...
david mcmillan
It's the most sketchy item on a restaurant menu.
Like, I know that I bought lamb from you and I know I bought rabbit from, you know...
Beatrice.
And I know I got goat cheese from this family.
And all of the products in my restaurant, I know exactly.
The farm, the farmer, beef is always dicey because beef always goes to the packer.
Beef always goes to the distributor.
And the general public only really eats two cuts of beef in restaurants.
You know, three cuts.
The tenderloin, the...
What do you call it in English?
The entrecote?
fred morin
Yeah, the loins.
The loins and the ribs, right?
david mcmillan
That's what people eat.
fred morin
And the hamburgers.
david mcmillan
Beefs are not that, you know?
There's two big humps, and there's two big shoulders, and there's a lot of braise.
So...
You know, it's difficult.
joe rogan
Did you guys see that documentary on steak?
david mcmillan
Yeah, we were in it.
fred morin
We were in it.
joe rogan
That's right.
You were in it, right.
What did you think of that?
Their conclusions?
fred morin
What was the conclusion?
joe rogan
Well, basically we're saying that Peter Luger's Steakhouse in Brooklyn is the greatest steak in the world.
david mcmillan
USDA, Prime, Corn Fed.
fred morin
For taste, maybe.
david mcmillan
It's a good restaurant.
fred morin
Good story, good history, great restaurant.
joe rogan
I ate there just a few months ago.
It was very good.
david mcmillan
Yeah, very good.
joe rogan
But again, it's a subjective thing, right?
david mcmillan
Correct.
joe rogan
The flavor in terms of what you actually look for.
As they were talking about, like your customer was saying, they're accustomed to a certain type of meat.
They were saying that their customers are accustomed to this.
They're not interested in grass-fed anything.
david mcmillan
But I understand that.
Yeah, they've been doing that for a long time and grading that beef that way, and I don't think they should change ever, not based on anything, right?
joe rogan
Well, it's a great place where you get consistency.
I mean, you go there, you get this fantastic steak.
I mean, it's so old-worldy, too, when you get in there.
I mean, how long has Peter Luger's been around for?
david mcmillan
God, forever.
joe rogan
Forever, yeah.
fred morin
120 years?
joe rogan
Something insane like that.
david mcmillan
Moishe's is like that in Montreal.
It's a very old steak restaurant.
Moishe's is a famous restaurant in Montreal, and they do have their beef program, and they should not change because there's new conversations happening.
He knows what he's doing, Lenny Leiter, and he should keep on doing that.
In a small restaurant, let's say that Fred, marginal characters like Fred and I own, I always see it like...
Those restaurants maybe are public places.
My restaurant is my restaurant, of which I want to do what I want in.
We don't listen so much to the public.
I serve at my pleasure.
It's not the customer's always right.
It's the customer's often wrong, and I'm always right.
unidentified
Because we can do salmon, chicken breast, and tender one.
david mcmillan
I serve the food we want to, and I serve the wines we want to, and if you don't like it, you don't have to come.
But this restaurant is for us.
joe rogan
Well, that's one of the things that I learned from watching Bourdain's original show, the No Reservation show, that it changed my opinion on things.
Because I didn't have a strong opinion on food before that, other than I really liked it.
I didn't think of it as an art form and watching his show and seeing the passion, his appreciation for food and for the way it's grown and brought to table and the production of it and then ultimately the flavor of it and the taste and his admiration for chefs and you guys as well.
His admiration for it and his appreciation for the way everything's put together made me realize, oh, this is an art form.
fred morin
It's a craft.
And, you know, Tony did something.
Tony was the most faithful, most, like, we were so lucky to be on that ship with him, you know, that he took us aboard.
He had the same apprenticeship we did, you know, like suffering and like big bistro kitchens and stuff.
And you think about it.
The guy, he didn't make the promise to himself that when he'd get rich and famous, he was going to buy a big house and not talk to people.
He helped every cook not walk out of the kitchen and get famous, but get a voice, you know.
david mcmillan
Even outside of the television show, the work he did in private is massive.
fred morin
And not look like a dirty guy that makes the pasta in the back, you know?
All of a sudden, it's like, yeah, the manager in the suit and the owners, but who's the guy in the back, you know?
joe rogan
No, he had appreciation for everybody, and he had a real passion for the process.
david mcmillan
And the marginal characters, you know, there's lots of commercial restaurants in the city of Montreal, in any given city that he went to.
He's able to isolate, let's say, the marginal characters in every city that, you know, were...
We're historically bound, kind of.
Fred and I practice a weird faction of French cooking called Cuisine Bourgeois, and only kind of Tony and a handful of other guys could look at what we do and go, huh, those fuckers, they're up to that.
No one's up to that.
fred morin
He curated his crew.
david mcmillan
You guys are into that, really.
He goes, you guys are the only people, like the last of the Mohicans that do this kind of food.
I mean, oh, yeah, no, we can't stop.
We got to keep on.
fred morin
What a great guy to get it, dude.
david mcmillan
Yeah, because nobody does, right?
Nobody understands the rabbit hole we're down.
Tony did.
joe rogan
Yeah, the cognoscenti.
Yeah, he really did deeply influence my appreciation for food, the way I think about it.
And, again...
Treating it as an art form, which I just thought it was just delicious.
I didn't think of it as like, oh, these guys are making temporary art.
They're making art that you're going to enjoy now.
You can't put it on film.
I mean, you can, but you're not going to get it all.
You're just going to want to go out and experience it.
fred morin
Yeah, ultimately food is, you can't, we go and do like, we're asked to do like demonstrations, you know, you can go on a big stage, 5,000 people to talk about food or make like little crackers with smoked salmon on stage.
Food is not fit for a stage.
Food is for a table for us to enjoy, you know, with a fork, a knife, we talk about it, we go hunting.
That's what food is.
david mcmillan
People offer us food shows all the time.
And I mean, I can't, it doesn't work.
fred morin
It's like, what's the concept?
Well, you guys can be in a pickup truck and you go and visit your suppliers and maybe have a bottle of wine with them after.
I was like, dude, like we worked hard not to copy our like fellow, you know, culinarians.
david mcmillan
Yeah, you look at our food and it's like it's ours.
fred morin
TV producers are out there just like blatantly proposing.
The previous show to you again, you know?
joe rogan
Well, that's one of the things right after Anthony died.
There was some talk about Gordon Ramsay doing some very similar show, and the outcry against it was enormous.
I mean, he was just getting assaulted online.
I mean, it was crazy.
david mcmillan
Everybody that I was talking to, our agent who represents us for our book, And she was saying all the big production companies are being berated by people pitching who's going to be the next Tony, right?
fred morin
You know, I don't want to say that, but one of the characters, and you guys, you could take over.
david mcmillan
Yeah, you could do it.
fred morin
Because you guys, you know the way he went in West Virginia?
And it wasn't like Republican, Democrat, like he went to places and he's like, yeah, sure, I have my views, but let's break bread, you know?
And I always said that, that like all our countries are divided on issues, but there's nobody that overlaps them with a coherent vision.
david mcmillan
Everybody loves each other when there's delicious food on the table, man.
unidentified
Yeah.
fred morin
And guys like you, with a clear view and a rational and science-based and evidence-based view on things, and like Tony, just have such a voice now in our countries that it's...
I could see you doing a food show.
joe rogan
I love food, but I'll never do a food show.
I just can't imagine.
fred morin
No, because you ask good questions.
joe rogan
I like doing shows.
I mean, I love having guys like you on and talking about food.
It takes a special type of person to want to travel 300 days a year.
And that's essentially what Tony was doing.
And I think that has a massive toll.
It takes a massive toll on your body.
It takes a massive toll on your psyche.
david mcmillan
Your family, everything.
unidentified
Yes.
joe rogan
It's not healthy.
fred morin
There's not enough melatonin or like CBD or like...
It cleanses to help you with that.
joe rogan
I travel more than enough already, and I've cut my traveling way back.
I'm down to only 10 UFCs a year now, and I do comedy around that and stand-up comedy, but I consciously make the effort to travel much less because I just don't think it's good.
I just don't think it's good for you.
And also that road life, you know, the drinking and all that other stuff that comes with it, that accentuates all the problems that you have with travel.
And I think that's also one of the things that was dragging Tony down when he would talk about the sadness and the loneliness of being on the road.
I can't help but, from knowing him and partying with him, I can't help but have thought that a lot of that was probably accentuated by the alcohol consumption.
And, you know, you guys could...
Speak to that now that you're clean and you're not experiencing those rugged hangovers every morning.
david mcmillan
I was worried for Tony that way.
Just that, you know, that hotel living, planes, trains, and automobiles constantly.
And it wasn't like for a year.
It was like 12 years.
fred morin
It's a sad life to watch River Monsters at 11 in the morning burping Jameson.
And I'm referring to many occasions in our lives where you're traveling in a hotel room and You're in a beautiful place, but, like, it just...
joe rogan
You feel weird.
fred morin
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, I've taken steps to mitigate some of that.
One of the big ones is I travel with friends.
I bring really good comics to work with me on the road so that when I'm in these cities, I'm in these cities with friends, and we just go.
It's like they're family, so we go, we'll go eat together, we'll go work out together, you know, and try to keep the unhealthy shit to a minimum.
Plus, I'm more of a marijuana enthusiast than I am a drinker anyway.
david mcmillan
It's legal in Quebec now.
We have stores.
joe rogan
Yes, the entire country.
Canada is way ahead of America there.
fred morin
Quebec, as usual, we got a little bit of special treatment.
joe rogan
Yeah?
Does it have to be in French?
fred morin
On top of it, yeah.
You can't grow.
joe rogan
What do you call it?
fred morin
Cannabis.
joe rogan
Cannabis.
fred morin
You can't grow.
joe rogan
Can't grow.
fred morin
No, and you have to only consume the government's...
david mcmillan
People are going to grow anyway.
I'm not worried about that.
joe rogan
The government stash.
fred morin
So you know what they did, right?
david mcmillan
Yeah, it's like, you know, we have a Monopoly Liquor Board.
So we have like stores.
fred morin
Liquor Commission.
david mcmillan
Liquor Commission.
Now we have the Cannabis Commission.
fred morin
So what they did, it got legal on October 17th at midnight.
The stores were opening October 17th at 10 in the morning.
The cops were giving tickets to people smoking weed during that little layover time because they knew that it was impossible.
They bought it legally.
So some people got ticketed for smoking illegal weed.
david mcmillan
In the lineup waiting for legal weed.
joe rogan
Oh, God.
What a bunch of assholes.
fred morin
We just drank the Kool-Aid on that one, I think.
Fuck.
unidentified
That's good.
david mcmillan
We'll put more money into Medicare.
joe rogan
Well, I think it'll ultimately lead to a relaxing of people's opinions and ideas about marijuana and what it is.
But I also think that marijuana, just like alcohol, can be used as a crutch and it could eventually overcome your life.
I like it, but I like it every now and again.
And one of the things that came out of last year's Sober October was taking a whole month off of it, realizing that, A, I don't need it, I can function fine without it, but it made me more apprehensive about regular use.
Like, instead of using it every day, I'll use it a day a week or two days a week or something like that.
And I appreciate it more when it does happen.
When I do get high with my friends on Friday night or something like that, it's like it means something.
It's almost like a sacrament We're experiencing a little moment together and just having fun.
david mcmillan
That's the proof, though.
What you just said is the proof that you don't have addiction issues, you see.
I couldn't be able to prove that I smoked marijuana responsibly once in my life, that I drank alcohol once in my life, that I did drugs responsibly.
I'm fascinated.
I brought some of our cooks that were here in L.A. with us to a restaurant.
And we had a beautiful dinner and I ordered them a bottle of wine and they barely finished it and I didn't understand.
fred morin
The first and only bottle of wine.
david mcmillan
I was like...
Do you guys want more?
I was like, I would have paid for nine.
Right.
And they had one, and I was just sitting there.
I told Fred, I go, I don't really...
joe rogan
What is it like to be in that environment and watching people glass over?
Like, see the booze hit them?
fred morin
They don't get drunk.
We say that all the time.
We used to think that everybody was smashed.
No.
david mcmillan
It was only me.
fred morin
It's like the beer goggles.
joe rogan
Right.
You just thought you were in it with everybody else.
david mcmillan
I realize now that everybody at the restaurants, generally, like 9 out of 10 times, drink quite responsibly.
Well, they must.
joe rogan
Otherwise, it would be just accidents everywhere and violence everywhere you turn.
david mcmillan
Right.
Yeah.
And I realize a lot of the people that I'm friends with drink responsibly.
They can have a glass of wine with lunch.
Me and Fred opened a bottle of wine at lunch.
We'd go till 10.30 till we couldn't anymore and then that was it.
fred morin
Last time we came to LA, we did Hell's Kitchen.
We're a judge for a show on ostriches.
It was disgusting.
joe rogan
Ostriches?
I've had an ostrich burger before.
Fuddruckers serves an ostrich burger.
It's actually delicious.
fred morin
It's really bloody, right?
And there's that thing for cooking shows like that.
It's regulated by the Gaming Commission.
So they have to keep the camera rolling and they're not allowed to touch the dishes because they're the object of the competition.
So you take your break, you go to the green room, you wait, they're cleaning up the kitchen.
Now the food sits on the pass there, like for two hours.
And you come back, you sit at a table and there's like rare ostrich, tenderloin.
joe rogan
That's been sitting for two hours?
fred morin
Yeah.
joe rogan
Two hours post-cook?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
That's ridiculous.
fred morin
And you have to like...
Judge.
joe rogan
Wait a minute.
You're judging food that was cooked two hours ago?
TV. That's so fucking stupid.
fred morin
And I felt like, again...
joe rogan
That's insulting.
For guys like you?
fred morin
No, but the thing is, I felt so bad because there's people who put a job on hold.
They left their kids at home.
I made it.
I'm in the casting.
I was selected to be part of Hell Kitchen.
And then...
We say something and then...
david mcmillan
You know Gordon's gonna hate us right now, right?
fred morin
No, the show's great.
unidentified
But I felt like I felt sad.
fred morin
But all that to say that whenever we came, we stayed by the airport, you know?
We stayed at the...
joe rogan
Just so you can get out of there quick?
unidentified
Frozen margaritas at the hotel bar, man.
fred morin
11 o'clock, we're in the whirlpool at the Radisson Hotel.
david mcmillan
It's sad, man.
fred morin
Having cocktails at the Encounters.
joe rogan
That hotel life can be fucking sad, man.
fred morin
I know.
I get it.
And now we're completely not drinking.
They got us a room and we're staying at the Chateau.
I never thought I'd stay there.
david mcmillan
I would really love to get drunk at the Chateau Marmont, though.
fred morin
You did once, but not this time.
joe rogan
Yeah, that's like a spot.
You know, I've been here forever.
I've never even gone in that building.
david mcmillan
It's beautiful.
joe rogan
Maybe I did once.
I think I was there once for a TV thing that I had to do, one of those party things in the 90s.
I think I went once.
david mcmillan
It's funny because there's really B-list Hollywood stars hanging out at the pool, drinking champagne cocktails, trying to be cool, smoking blunts and trying to pick up girls.
joe rogan
That's where Tony used to stay.
He used to get a villa there.
When he was writing, he used to stay there.
He told me he loved it.
He just loved everything about the feel of it, the whole dirtiness of it.
david mcmillan
We stayed at the Raleigh Hotel with him in Miami.
He loved that place, too.
joe rogan
He likes dirty spots.
fred morin
The Raleigh was fun.
That's how Tony was.
He's like, guys, I like old food like you do.
What if we do a dinner based on old transatlantic ship boats, dining room?
Yeah.
So we say, oh yeah, sure.
He gets Eric repaired, Daniel Balu, a bunch of guys.
He's like, oh, I'll put you up at the Raleigh.
We're just going to do that one dinner, but we're just going to hang out for a week after, you know?
And we're in the pool.
david mcmillan
The pool every day.
fred morin
Sneaking cigarettes.
Otavia was like there with the kid in a rash guard all the time.
We went to Cyborg, Roberto Abru.
We went to school there, and I was just like starting.
Fucking killer.
joe rogan
Yeah, he's a monster.
How long have you been doing jiu-jitsu now?
fred morin
I did it for a year solid and I stopped because I had a back surgery.
joe rogan
Oh, discs?
fred morin
Yeah, yeah.
joe rogan
What's going on?
fred morin
It's totally fixed, but I keep surgery.
joe rogan
What did you have wrong?
fred morin
It was stenosis.
joe rogan
Stenosis, so shortening of the disc?
fred morin
Yeah, and then compression and then they went in and chipped some parts out.
unidentified
Mm-hmm.
fred morin
In retrospect, I spoke to some rheumatologists, and it's interesting you're talking about, like, Jordan Peterson, because the autoimmune thing can be everywhere, right?
And now my doctor says, like, maybe celiac caused inflammation in so many places.
joe rogan
That's what I would say.
fred morin
And all that, like, maybe the drinking, too, like this inclination towards abuse, you know, this inclination towards depression, this...
You know, back problem.
It's all related to that.
And again, the proof is in the pudding.
I don't eat bread.
I don't eat sweets.
Very little.
I eat mostly meat.
And I feel 100 times better.
I don't give a fuck if it's in my head or not.
david mcmillan
Fred's also sober now.
Four months?
fred morin
Five months, yeah.
david mcmillan
Five months.
unidentified
So it works.
joe rogan
I don't think that it's in your head.
It's definitely been proven that all those foods cause inflammation.
But I do think that jujitsu in particular is ruthless on your back.
fred morin
Because of the torsions.
joe rogan
Well, it's just big people on top of you.
You're yanking them around.
You're moving your back.
And very few people strengthen their back.
That's a big issue.
And after we're done here, I'm going to take you into my gym and I'm going to show you some machines that I bought specifically to strengthen my back.
I've had some disc issues too, and the doctors are pretty adamant about putting me under the knife.
And I... I just didn't like the idea of it.
I've had many surgeries.
I've had both my knees reconstructed.
I know when you need surgery and when you don't.
And the more I looked into it, the more I realized that there's doctors that they have a hammer, so everything is a nail.
Like, oh, that's a nail.
Let me just fucking whack that thing.
They're not like, oh, you're going to have to change your diet.
You're going to have to lose some weight.
You're going to have to strengthen all those muscles around your back.
And if you do do that, I find that the results are superior in many cases.
fred morin
Yeah, it's a combination.
Like, yoga works wonderfully for that.
joe rogan
Fantastic.
Yoga.
Decompression of the spine is critical.
Because you're always compressing.
You're always like, well, these chairs we're sitting in.
These are chairs from a company called Fully, and they're called Capisco's, and these are ergonomic chairs.
You notice we've been sitting in this place.
It's two and a half hours in the podcast now.
Wow.
Comfortable, beautiful chair.
They feel good too.
They're comfortable.
So I knew there was a solution.
Had to find a solution.
Luckily this company contacted me and sent us these chairs.
This is what we needed.
I tried a fucking shitload of chairs before that.
But it was the same thing with exercises.
I knew there was a solution.
I had to figure out what it was.
I tried decompression.
I tried a bunch of different forms of decompression.
I figured out the best ones.
You know, I have those...
Those things where you hang by your ankles.
What the fuck is the name of that company?
fred morin
Hooks?
joe rogan
No.
david mcmillan
The Upside Down thing?
joe rogan
Yeah.
Goddammit, they're a sponsor of the podcast.
fred morin
Sex Swings?
joe rogan
Teeter.
Teeter.
Teeter makes those, like, just relaxing in those.
We have one back there.
You clamp your ankles in, just let that back just stretch out.
And then there's a bunch of different exercises that I do with yoga that stretch your back out as well.
We're in a constant state of compression, right?
Constant gravity, constant pushing you down.
And a guy like me, I'm always lifting weights too.
So I've got these heavy kettlebells and everything's compression and I'm pushing up and...
You've got to spend as much time lengthening as you do pushing down.
And you also have to stretch everything out because the more your hamstrings are tight, it's going to pull down on your back.
A lot of people that have back pains, it's connected to having tight hamstrings.
fred morin
A theory, too, that a lot of things starts in school.
Because you look at kids.
I have two boys and one daughter, Henry, Ivan, and Eleanor.
Five, seven, nine.
They can do monkey bars, pull-ups, muscle-ups.
They do judo.
They play hockey.
They're very active.
But school, the way that physically a classroom is designed, is wrong.
It's like putting them in a cast for the next 15 years.
And then they're going to come out of high school, like I was, unable to climb a rope, unable to do monkey bars, unable to do anything.
And then they're going to go to more school and sit down for more times.
joe rogan
They don't get enough physical activity.
david mcmillan
Not even close.
Not even the education towards it, not even the education of nutrition.
fred morin
And they get...
We're graded and evaluated on how well they listen in gym class, which is completely insane.
joe rogan
Yeah, it really is.
I mean, it's just making them sit down for all that time during the day.
We're just preparing them for some job that's going to be unnatural in the first place.
david mcmillan
Making good little taxpayers.
fred morin
And look at it too.
This is a model of school that was based on like religious schools, you know, and like old Catholic schools, let's say in Quebec.
How did you keep them from like being distracted?
You know, the ruler and the fingers, you go to the corner, the leather strap.
Now we haven't changed the classroom, the schedule and the curriculum barely, but there's no more straps.
So like, okay, we haven't changed anything.
Like, it's normal that particularly little boys don't listen in school that well.
We have to find a way.
We have to redesign school from, like, the schedule, the design of the classroom, the hallways, the introduction.
You know, like, we have to bring restaurants back into school, like cafeteria and all that.
No, but, like, cafeterias.
And...
I don't know if it's you that talked with Jeff Bridges about that because he's in the like school lunches thing.
And the problem with school lunches is that if you subsidize half the kids, then you have a kid with like a badge here that says like poor, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah.
fred morin
So the only way to do that, and I know some people are a bit anti-socialist, but you have to feed all the kids.
It's like crucial.
unidentified
I agree.
joe rogan
I mean, the idea that that's a problem.
I mean, Jesus Christ, we're talking about food and also the sense of community that's established when everybody eats together.
You're going to create this rift between students where you establish that one student is poorer than the other one.
So it's going to fuck them up already.
You know, it's going to already make them insecure.
david mcmillan
Unless you have the labor force with the kids.
Not to say that we're going to make the kids work, but it's going to be a learning experience and people can take their turns preparing family meals inside of the school system.
It's a valuable tool.
joe rogan
And if it was done and handled with respect and appreciation, if they had classes perhaps that showed how important food is.
I mean, maybe even show an episode of No Reservations or Parts Unknown and show how people can appreciate food.
What food really is, and then how great it would be.
I mean, and also, it would open their eyes to the possibility of food as a career, of getting into the same position that you guys are in.
I mean, this is something that's never discussed.
I mean, when was the last time a kid was encouraged to become a chef?
It's like a stand-up comedian.
You know, you never get encouraged to become a stand-up comedian.
They just call you a fuck-up and try to put you on drugs.
fred morin
It never comes out when they do the survey.
david mcmillan
You know, 90% of our labor force inside the restaurants is...
Anybody who cooks inside the restaurants...
As someone who didn't work inside the traditional school system, we employ dropouts.
joe rogan
Yeah.
david mcmillan
But brilliant.
There's brilliant people on the team.
The school system did not work for them.
joe rogan
Well, that's the same thing with both of my jobs, whether it's the UFC or whether it's stand-up comedy.
Everyone that I'm close with is a fuck-up in the traditional sense.
None of us fit in.
There's very few people that get into stand-up comedy that were thriving in some other career.
Most of us were extremely frustrated with traditional environments, and most of us didn't do well in school because we felt confined and just couldn't wait to get...
I used to have nightmares about going back to school.
fred morin
Did you have ADD as a child?
joe rogan
I'm sure I got it all.
Whatever the fuck it is.
Whatever it is that gives you energy, that makes you better at stuff, I got that.
They'll call it a bad thing and say, like, you can't concentrate.
Well, I'm fucking bored.
fred morin
You have to harness it, not treat it.
joe rogan
Right, but give me something that I can concentrate on.
Give me something that I actually enjoy.
I got a lot of energy.
It's not that there's something wrong with me.
It's that I have no interest in what they're selling.
And it's being sold by some underpaid, under-motivated person who really is just following some sort of a curriculum and they have to do that because they want to keep their job.
This is what kids are being subjected to all across the world in the most fertile time of their life in terms of their imagination, their creativity, and their free time.
fred morin
Frontal cortex is a sponge.
They're ready to take everything.
joe rogan
No one would ever say to some kid who's cracking jokes in class and running around being a fool, no one would ever say, hey, you ever thought about being a comedian?
No one says that.
It just never comes up.
But meanwhile, everybody loves comedians.
People love to go see comedy.
But nobody ever says to some fuck-up kid, hey, man, you might be a comic.
It just doesn't come up.
fred morin
They'll do the test and like David was supposed to be a travel agent.
david mcmillan
I was.
fred morin
I was supposed to be a golf pro.
joe rogan
Is this something in Canada?
You were supposed to be a golf pro?
Are you really good at golf?
fred morin
No.
And then according to the questionnaire and one of my friends who flies planes was supposed I think to be a folly artist, make sounds of horses with coconuts and stuff.
joe rogan
For movies?
fred morin
Yeah, that's what they told them after the questionnaire.
joe rogan
What the fuck kind of questionnaire do you guys have in Canada?
david mcmillan
The success of Restaurant though, you have to think though, is due to a lot of very sad people that have gone through the academic process.
I have a disproportionate amount of lawyers and professionals and people who wear suits that love to come to the restaurant and drink wine and let the dogs stop barking inside their heads because they're really fucking miserable.
You know, when you spent your whole day in the 72nd floor of the IBM tower downtown in your cubicle punching data into graphs and taking a licking from your boss who's also a suit.
joe rogan
Just a constant.
david mcmillan
You can't wait to get to Joe Beef and, you know, relax.
fred morin
It's like the Michael Douglas movie there.
Enough?
joe rogan
Oh, what was that called?
david mcmillan
Falling Down.
fred morin
Falling Down, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Oh, Enough is with J-Lo.
joe rogan
What is enough?
What does she do?
david mcmillan
Jiggly, you mean, no?
fred morin
No, no, no, no, no.
Enough is the movie with J-Lo where she avenges some ex-boyfriend that traumatizes her.
It's great.
I love those movies.
david mcmillan
What?
fred morin
Okay, there's something about airplanes.
I don't know if the altitude in the plane...
joe rogan
Stupid movies are great when you're in the sky.
david mcmillan
The last two days I discovered he's quite the movie buff.
Yeah, he loves Notting Hill.
He was like, that's a beautiful movie.
I was like, what?
joe rogan
I don't even know what that's about.
What's Notting Hill about?
fred morin
That's a movie with you, Grant.
unidentified
Oh, Christ.
fred morin
I wouldn't...
I can't remember what it's about.
You know what I love, too?
unidentified
What?
fred morin
I love the night at the Roxbury.
joe rogan
Start drinking again, man.
Something's happening to you.
Notting Hill, Julia Roberts, and Hugh Grant.
unidentified
It sucks.
fred morin
We were just...
You know, the chateau is right by the Roxbury, where it was.
And I couldn't wait to just get out of the car, go walk there, take a picture of it, and just, like, try to show...
Like, I sent a picture to everyone.
Nobody reacted.
Dude, it's the Roxbury!
You see?
You saw that movie?
joe rogan
Night at the Roxbury?
fred morin
Yeah.
joe rogan
Yeah, I saw that movie.
fred morin
And for me to travel there is like...
david mcmillan
Did you like that movie?
Did you like that movie?
fred morin
Yeah, I loved it.
david mcmillan
Really?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Interesting.
fred morin
Same reaction.
unidentified
Yeah.
david mcmillan
What else is your favorite movie?
fred morin
What?
Alone in the Wilderness, Dick Prenneke.
david mcmillan
That's great.
fred morin
You saw that movie?
The guy that whittles hinges for his house in Alaska?
david mcmillan
Joe, that's a must view.
joe rogan
Is it really?
david mcmillan
It's like once a year you watch.
joe rogan
Really?
unidentified
Yeah.
david mcmillan
Alone in the Wilderness, Dick Prenneke.
Can you bring that up on the thing?
joe rogan
What is that?
unidentified
Do you know what this, Jamie?
fred morin
The guy runs away.
joe rogan
Is this a Canadian thing?
unidentified
No, no, no, no.
david mcmillan
No, it's Alaska.
A guy who just moves and lives in the woods for the rest of his life.
joe rogan
Is it like how the French love Jerry Lewis?
david mcmillan
No, they play it on Vermont PBS as a fundraiser every year.
joe rogan
Wow!
This is it?
fred morin
So the guy put a tripod and films himself, and he carves everything you need, hunts everything.
joe rogan
Oh, okay, okay, okay.
I did not know this guy's name.
See, I thought you were talking about a movie.
This is like a documentary, almost.
fred morin
Self-made.
david mcmillan
He literally gets dropped off there with an axe, and then he builds a house, and then he kills a goat, and then, you know?
joe rogan
Yeah, I do remember this guy in interviews that I think I probably saw on YouTube.
But yeah, he builds his own house, and Log cabins and shit.
Yeah, yeah, this guy.
Yeah.
fred morin
That's, like, such a beautiful, like...
joe rogan
Did you guys ever see that Vice piece about the guy who lives in the Arctic?
Heinmo's Arctic Adventure?
david mcmillan
No.
joe rogan
Fucking amazing, man.
It's a Vice guided travel piece where this guy got a very small cabin in the Arctic in like the 1970s and he's been there since.
The only thing he's ever seen from 9-11 is some photographs.
He had no idea what was happening when it happened.
fred morin
Does he still love Michael Jackson?
joe rogan
I don't know.
But this is it.
This guy lives alone in Alaska with his wife in the Arctic National Refuge.
And you have to get in with a float plane and he just hunts caribou and lives with his family.
His wife is Inuit and they have children together and children leave and eventually went on to college.
I mean, it's fucking crazy.
One of their kids was two years old, died in a canoe accident.
The canoe fell over and the kid fell into the river.
They revisit the spot at the time of her birthday and it's really intense.
But this guy really believes that people are happier and healthier when they live a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
fred morin
Caloric restriction.
unidentified
Look at that.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, all he does is eat caribou.
I mean, the guy is out there eating caribou, and during the time where they're filming this, his cabin and his caribou stash gets attacked by a grizzly bear, and he shoots the grizzly bear on film.
He chases it down in the night and blasts it.
One of the grizzly bears had eaten one of his dogs.
I mean, this motherfucker's out there living.
But he's a very smart guy.
He's not what you would think.
When you think of someone like this, you think of someone who is some weird kind of inbred half-wit who's living up there.
No, he's very intelligent, very introspective.
fred morin
Slightly introvert.
joe rogan
Maybe introverted, but he doesn't seem to have a hard time talking to people, so I don't know if he's introverted.
But I mean, he's definitely restricted his access to dialogue.
I mean, he's out there alone in the forest by himself, but he makes a very compelling point that there's a natural...
feeling that he gets from doing this where everything falls into place.
He's constantly getting exercise because he's hiking and chasing after these caribou, but that there's natural human reward systems that are in place in his DNA for hunting and gathering and cooking this food over an open fire and the way he lives.
He just thinks it's the way people really are designed to live.
david mcmillan
We're absolutely not meant to live piled on top of each other within, you know, 10 million of us in a square mile on the island of Manhattan, you know, absolutely.
Do you remember when there was the floods in Manhattan?
joe rogan
Yes.
david mcmillan
All the money in the world couldn't get you out.
unidentified
Right.
david mcmillan
You had to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to leave Manhattan with everybody else.
joe rogan
Yeah.
You know?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
And there was a real worry because of climate change.
I That was going to be happening every year now.
People were like, is this the new normal?
I remember Shane Smith had some piece on Vice.
david mcmillan
Shane had to walk out.
joe rogan
Yeah, Shane had to walk out.
He had some piece on Vice where they were detailing the inside of his apartment building.
The fucking thing was completely flooded, like six feet high in water.
And people were worried.
This is going to be what's happening on a regular basis now.
This...
Climate change thing has changed.
david mcmillan
I have a heightened sense of, you know, since three kids, it's something that I think about.
It's something that I have ready, you know?
I bought a generator.
I have...
joe rogan
Yeah.
david mcmillan
I check the batteries, the rechargeable batteries, for all of the equipment that I have.
I own solar panels.
I own a duffel bag full of everything that I need to throw in the back of my pickup truck, grab my kids, and I know which way to drive away from the city to go to the cabin.
It's something I've planned just because I'm the ward of these small humans whom I love.
fred morin
It's funny.
You talked about restriction again.
I'm thinking of preparing.
The most common thing that people prepare is food.
They prepare cans and cans and cans of food.
But still, they eat so much of that food that the best way to prepare...
The best way to prepare would be to start to eat less and learn how to live at 1700 calories, you know?
And learn how to live with the people around you because if you're going to spend like two months in a bunker or in a bug out location or whatever, you're not some like asshole to your kids and your friends and the family and people with you.
joe rogan
One of the things that happens to people, this is really fascinating, when disasters do strike is everyone gets a lot friendlier.
And this is one thing that I've experienced myself this week.
Because when we got evacuated, it was 2.30 in the morning on Thursday, and there was fire, rocks throw from my house.
And I'm not talking a little bit of fire, I'm talking just hundreds of acres of fire.
I mean, it was just roaring over.
We started to see the gas lines explode.
Houses burst into flames.
And it was right down the street.
So we're seeing this.
And, you know, we got outside.
We're in the driveway.
The neighbors come over.
Everyone's talking.
What are you going to do?
I go, we're getting the fuck out of here.
And he's like, have they given the evacuation orders?
I said, no, we haven't.
But I go, it's right there, man.
I go, we got to go.
I go, if we're wrong and we come back and the house is still here, that's okay.
But...
You want to get out of these things quickly because they can turn south quickly.
But there was a sense of camaraderie and community that happens.
And then quite a few of us all went to the same hotel, including my friend Tom Segura and his wife and his family went to this hotel, too, with some of my friends from this neighborhood who were all there huddled in together.
But people were a little extra friendly.
And there was the same kind of feeling after 9-11 when I was in New York City.
There was people a little bit more friendly.
david mcmillan
We felt that during the ice storm back in the day.
People were like assessing the street that we live on.
And then they go, well, who's got a wood-burning stove?
And they go, oh, Roger does.
And then people would go to Roger's house.
And all of a sudden, all these neighbors that just wave at each other were all at Roger's house by the wood-burning stove.
Going back to the houses to get blankets, planning sleeping arrangements, planning food arrangements, and assessing each other, giving each other their personal space, and learning how to speak to each other in a respective manner that we might have to do this for several days.
Yeah.
Do the best out of it.
Through tragedy, a sense of community was built somewhat or reinforced for a brief moment in time, which made going back to our regular lives on that street better.
joe rogan
Yeah.
david mcmillan
You know?
joe rogan
Yeah.
david mcmillan
Yeah.
joe rogan
Have you ever read Sebastian Junger's Tribe?
david mcmillan
No.
joe rogan
It's a great book, and he kind of talks about that, about how, in part...
Situations of extreme stress and when people are really pushed, those people bond together and they find that these are the happiest times of their life.
People that even go to war, they find that they miss the camaraderie of the bunker.
They miss the camaraderie of being in the trenches.
They miss the camaraderie of being together, huddled up, not knowing what's going to happen in the future, but counting and depending upon each other for their very lives.
david mcmillan
That's a thing that happens in very, very, very busy kitchens.
A bunch of no-education guys out of cooking school working a difficult restaurant line.
We're working six guys on six four-burner stoves every night, a difficult menu with a difficult chef.
In a very busy restaurant, those hours, you know, from 6 p.m.
till 10 p.m.
at night...
fred morin
Like, it's intimate.
david mcmillan
It's intimate.
You're bending over to get into the stove to get a chicken out.
I'm grabbing something out of the fridge.
My nose is in your butt.
Your nose is in my butt.
You know, I need your knife.
You need my knife.
Yeah.
It's very, very, very close quarters.
Often, like, some of my strongest relationships, some of his strongest relationships are, you know, the bond that I've built with guys that I've cooked on lines, whether in Europe or here, are unbreakable.
You know, these guys got your back.
Tony talked a lot about that, you know.
joe rogan
Yeah, I think people are better off when they're struggling.
david mcmillan
Yeah.
joe rogan
I really do.
I mean, I think they're better off when they're, you know, when life creates challenges.
And there's things to overcome, and there's difficulties to get through, and there's real pressure involved in these, and there's physical activity involved in these pressures as well.
david mcmillan
Yeah, it's like rowing on the galley.
joe rogan
Yeah.
david mcmillan
A centurion and a cat-o'-nine-tails looming over you.
joe rogan
Well, all the years you guys have been in business now, what do you look forward to now?
What keeps you going now?
You have this established restaurant, this amazing menu, and you have fans of your restaurant like myself.
What keeps you going?
fred morin
Tiny restaurant where David and I cook.
You saw the movie The French Connection?
joe rogan
Yes.
fred morin
You see when Gene Ackman's on the other side of the road, it's like freezing in New York.
He's in a deli with a piece of pizza and a shitty coffee.
He has little leather shoes on the icy pavement.
And then the French gangsters are in the bistro and they're eating like snails and eclairs and like all the food that comes in the little crockpots on the cart at the table.
If we could open a place like that for like 16 customers that we have the key only, we decide to open whenever we want and we don't lose money.
That's all.
david mcmillan
I want to build with Fred a tiny little French restaurant that we...
Do what we want at.
joe rogan
16 seats.
fred morin
An art project.
david mcmillan
Or I can take a four or eight or close it or just a toy to just practice this skill that we've learned all of these years to do this very, very weird, old, forgotten food that's not cool.
But that I adore, you know?
joe rogan
What is in the back of your head that you don't bring to Joe Beef?
david mcmillan
Oh, you know, one that everybody would know, but to do a proper lamb wellington served for two people and a little trolley.
To still bring out the 12 cheeses on the little trolley.
To have a trolley just of digestif, you know, after dinner alcohol.
To do crepes tableside.
To do a duck flunk.
fred morin
Flambe.
david mcmillan
For two with orange sauce, table side for two.
fred morin
You saw with Tony, we went to the Flambe place in Quebec City in the first show, in the first Parts Unknown.
And it was wonderful.
Like, little langoose, flambe.
And, like, there were skills.
Like, we want to be able to, like, this morning we'll do tartare and it'll be mixed table side and that's it.
Or Dover Souls.
david mcmillan
To really practice hospitality at the level that it used to be.
Back in the day, to bring out the very old porcelain, very beautiful silver, not ostentatious way, just almost in like a kitschy romantic kind of...
fred morin
Nostalgic.
david mcmillan
Nostalgic sense.
What, you know, to build a restaurant from the 20s, you know?
Do that food.
Handwritten menu, flowers on it, you know, like...
joe rogan
Yeah, the appreciation that you guys have for it is very contagious.
It really is.
david mcmillan
Dining is great.
Candlelit dining.
Heavy velvet, woodwork, silver trays, copper.
There's a Hemingway-esque.
Who's the other big guy?
Orson Welles.
Did you ever see those Orson Welles interviews at the Hotel Pierre in Paris?
Those are just brilliant.
You want to just eat yourself to death at Hotel Pierre.
joe rogan
That's kind of what he did, though.
david mcmillan
Yeah, exactly.
fred morin
It's the only way we could build a time travel machine, right?
Like, you read about it.
It's fun.
And you go to a museum when you see, like, silverware from Sunken Ship.
Yeah, it's nice.
But we'll never travel back in time, nor do I want to get polio, you know?
There's great, great benefits to living now and then, now and here, you know?
joe rogan
The art of it.
fred morin
Yeah, and the beauty of it is like we've grown up watching like This Old House, Victory Garden, all those shows on PBS, right?
We're huge fans.
And the beauty of this is we can build a restaurant like that with our hands.
So it's just a matter of is it this year, is it next year, you know?
david mcmillan
Well, yeah, we're doing it now, by the way.
fred morin
Yeah.
joe rogan
Are you?
david mcmillan
Yeah, I bought a farm and he's going to read.
I bought a farm.
unidentified
I bought Fred a farm for me.
That's what the gag is.
joe rogan
Where are you guys going to do it?
david mcmillan
I think down in St. Armand there, I bought a little farm right on the Vermont border, but there's a summer kitchen part that has beautiful brick, wood-burning oven situation and...
Big window, an old factory wrought iron window.
The room is just begging to have like three tables of four or three tables of four and a little stove and a zinc bar.
And I don't know.
He's been cracking out.
He's talking about going down there in January and starting to build it.
joe rogan
This is the polar opposite of the theme restaurant in Vegas.
TGIF. Well, not just that, but like the celebrity chef as you're going down the escalator at the airport, there's a giant billboard of this latest chef.
david mcmillan
Did you ever hear this story about the Fertitta brothers?
joe rogan
No.
david mcmillan
So they called Fred one day and they said, we're coming to Montreal.
We'd love to meet you guys.
I'm like, yeah, okay.
What's going on?
You know, we're not open for lunch.
joe rogan
What year was this?
fred morin
Last year.
david mcmillan
Last year?
fred morin
After they sold.
I think they bought the palms.
joe rogan
They had all that cash.
It's burning a hole in their pocket.
fred morin
They're great guys, man.
joe rogan
I love those guys.
david mcmillan
Best.
Wonderful.
joe rogan
They get a hold of you?
david mcmillan
So they fly privately to the airport in Montreal.
Three Escalades roll into Joe Beef at noon on a Tuesday.
All the boys get out, plus help and the crew that surrounds them.
joe rogan
Assassins.
david mcmillan
Yeah, we make a table at 10. We all sit down.
Lorenzo starts off, first, I'd like to let you guys know that Joe Beef is my favorite restaurant.
And I'm like, what?
This dump?
You're Lorenzo Fertitta.
You're all over the world.
You live in Las Vegas.
Everything is at your beck and call.
You live in the...
So that was flattering, you know, and we prepared a little dinner for them, a little lunch, and we talked, and they pitched us to take over one of the rooms in the palms upstairs.
And, of course, it was flattering.
We had a wonderful meeting, but we knew right away as we were having the meeting that that was not for us and it was never going to happen.
We have young children.
fred morin
We're in a bad place, too, at the time.
It was tough in our life, you know, still drinking, still slept.
david mcmillan
Yeah, it was pretty dark, but it was nice and flattering.
And I think Fred moved them on to Mark Vetri, who eventually did the project from Philadelphia.
And in retrospect...
Yeah, it was nice, flattering, but we wouldn't do that.
There's no way we couldn't do Joe Beef anywhere else.
People don't eat.
The dining public doesn't exist unless it's on my street.
joe rogan
Montreal's just such a different place.
fred morin
The idea is like, before they offered any room there, I said, is there like a decommissioned laundromat in the back that's for employees only?
david mcmillan
We said all the wrong things, man.
fred morin
800 square feet that we can make a five-table French restaurant.
david mcmillan
They're pitching us the top floor of the pubs and we're asking for the door next to the garbage container in the alley with no windows.
And they were looking at us like we were insane.
joe rogan
He wanted a five-table French restaurant.
fred morin
Yeah.
david mcmillan
And Lorenzo was looking at his brother and his brother was looking at Lorenzo like, why the fuck did you bring me here?
fred morin
Did we fucking fly here?
We sent them some books now.
joe rogan
Well, I'm sure they're happy.
It's such a funny way of responding to that.
We want to give you the top floor of the palms in Vegas.
Do you have a fucking 800 square foot room?
david mcmillan
In the back alley that nobody can access?
I want to make it so expensive that basketball players think it's too much money?
unidentified
Yeah.
joe rogan
Well, that would be a very interesting spot, and I'm sure if you did create something like that, or someone did, an unbelievably exclusive spot that literally has 20 seats available in a night, and they only open for one sitting.
david mcmillan
Right.
And we want to build the, what's the movie?
fred morin
The Roxbury?
david mcmillan
No, the...
We want to build the French Connection restaurant.
joe rogan
No, the other one with J-Lo.
What's that one?
david mcmillan
Jiggly.
Enough.
Ishtar.
fred morin
Made in Manhattan.
joe rogan
Yeah, I mean, I guarantee if someone did do something like that, particularly because of Vegas, it's all about who you know and who you are.
I mean, if you can get in, you know, you can get into Joe Lamb.
Oh, it's Joe Lamb is in Vegas.
david mcmillan
Right behind the garbage container, the leaky one next to the grease trap.
joe rogan
Yeah, girls and their Jimmy Choo's have to step in these puddles of grease.
fred morin
La Boutin.
joe rogan
Yeah, on their way to the back.
It would, ironically enough, it would be probably the hot spot in Vegas.
david mcmillan
I know, Joe.
Lorenzo didn't get it.
joe rogan
Probably wouldn't be very profitable, though.
Right, exactly.
Obviously.
Well, when they took over the Palms, I was excited.
I know that Nine Steakhouse there was excellent.
I haven't been there in years, but that used to be a great place.
fred morin
But Mark who's there, Mark Vetri is an excellent cook.
david mcmillan
Yeah, great.
fred morin
He's really involved in like solid charity things.
I think he's also brown or black belt in jujitsu.
unidentified
Really?
fred morin
From Philly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
david mcmillan
Mark Vetri is a resourceful dude.
unidentified
Wow.
joe rogan
So is the restaurant open?
fred morin
I think this week it was opening.
joe rogan
Oh, wow.
That's fantastic.
That's awesome.
fred morin
And his food is delicious.
joe rogan
I'll try it out.
david mcmillan
Yeah, Vetri is in Philadelphia.
It's like an institution.
We opened, like, there was one thing when we, what was the story?
The lobster spaghetti.
You know, we took the kind of like, there was a story in Bon Appetit magazine about Mark Vetri doing lobster spaghetti and fighting with his dad about removing a table to put a meat slicer in.
fred morin
I think they had 24 seats and he bought a nice red slicer and he said, we're taking out four seats and now we're down to 20 seats.
david mcmillan
His dad thought he was insane.
unidentified
Yeah.
david mcmillan
But he insisted that, you know, they have 20 seats instead of 24. That story was endearing to Fred and I. And he was doing a lobster spaghetti at his Philadelphia restaurant at the time.
So when we opened Joe Beef, one of the first items on the menu was our version of the lobster spaghetti that Mark Vetri was doing.
And just a simple homage to that story.
That's great.
Years later, we met him and we told him the story and became friends.
joe rogan
That's amazing.
So why did it take four seats?
What did this thing look like?
david mcmillan
Well, you know, have you seen those big Italian red Burkle meat slicers?
joe rogan
No.
david mcmillan
They're amazing.
They're not electric.
joe rogan
So did he do it just because it would add to the ambiance to have this cool thing in it?
david mcmillan
Yeah, in Italy, this is a pretty standard piece of equipment that you'd have on the bars and cavernas.
fred morin
It turns slow.
It's a big blade that rotates slowly.
It's very, very sharp, so it doesn't...
david mcmillan
It's a pinwheel.
fred morin
Yeah, it doesn't melt the fat of the ham, right?
So you don't get this white film.
So it makes like perfectly thin, cool slices of perfect ham.
david mcmillan
And they're gorgeous objects.
Like we have a couple now.
We have a blue one and we have a red one.
They're gorgeous.
joe rogan
Got one for me, Jamie?
david mcmillan
I'm trying to find one like cutting meat.
fred morin
Oh, that one's nice.
joe rogan
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Oh, you know, I saw one of these in Italy.
david mcmillan
Yeah, sure.
They're all over the place.
joe rogan
Yeah.
When I was in Italy, I saw one of these.
They were making sandwiches with it.
david mcmillan
Yeah.
fred morin
Oh, wow.
david mcmillan
That's like a $10,000, $15,000 machine.
unidentified
Wow.
That's beautiful.
david mcmillan
So when you remove four seats from your restaurant to put one of those in, you're kind of like, you know...
joe rogan
You're stepping up.
david mcmillan
You're on the wrong side of business.
fred morin
But you're in Dobie Point?
joe rogan
You're on the right side of business.
You guys have something going on tonight, right?
david mcmillan
No, no, no.
joe rogan
No?
fred morin
No.
david mcmillan
We did last night.
We cooked an Animal last night in Las Vegas.
How was that?
Yeah, those guys are great.
fred morin
Awesome.
Have you been there?
joe rogan
I've never been.
david mcmillan
Yeah, John and Vinny's, man.
unidentified
Amazing things.
david mcmillan
Yeah, they're good boys.
They have John and Vinny's across the street.
Animal is a restaurant that kind of opened around the same time.
Joe Beef.
We were friends back then.
They came up to Montreal a bunch of times.
I brought them to all the weird...
fred morin
We're all kindred spirits.
It's like the same...
david mcmillan
Yeah, same thing.
They practice the restaurant business like we practice the restaurant business.
The restaurant's so similar to ours in weird ways.
And their relationship, John and Vinny, is very Dave and Fred.
It's strange.
joe rogan
You have these sort of connections with these fellow like-minded chefs.
david mcmillan
All the pirates on Tony's pirate ship, man.
joe rogan
Yeah, well, he was the one who introduced me to you guys.
fred morin
Yeah.
joe rogan
He told me about you guys.
Listen, Joe Beef, Surviving the Apocalypse.
Is it out now?
david mcmillan
Yes, sir.
fred morin
In a week.
david mcmillan
24th.
joe rogan
November.
I have it already, you fucks.
Sorry.
But you're going to have to wait.
But please, go out, go buy it, support.
And if you're in Montreal, go visit my best restaurant, Joe Beef.
You guys are the shit.
david mcmillan
Thank you, Joe.
fred morin
Thank you so much.
joe rogan
Thank you very much.
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