Bubble Gum and Cyanide

Conan and special guest Taylor Tomlinson speak to flavor scientist Jeremy in San Francisco about how to properly cleanse a palate, performing over 100 sensory tastings in six months, and the one flavor that is universally despised. Wanna get a chance to talk to Conan? Submit here: teamcoco.com/apply

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 0:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

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• 1:25Speaker 01

  Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com/callconan. Okay, let's get started. Hi Jeremy, welcome to Conan Needs a Fan. We have Conan and we have special guest Taylor Tomlinson here.

• 1:42Speaker 03

  Hi.

• 1:43Conan O'Brien?

  Hey, how you doing Jeremy?

• 1:45Speaker 04

  I'm good. How are you guys?

• 1:46Conan O'Brien?

  We're doing great. Um, and I have so many questions for you because the only thing I know about you, Jeremy, I know two things. I know three things. You're from Boston, you're now living in San Francisco, and it says here you're a flavor scientist.

• 2:03Speaker 04

  All of those are true. I have my Red Sox mug that I'm drinking out of to prove I'm from Boston.

• 2:09Conan O'Brien?

  Very good.

• 2:09Speaker 04

  And yeah.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  They don't just hand those out.

• 2:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 2:13Speaker 04

  They don't.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  You gotta earn that.

• 2:14Conan O'Brien?

  No, they, they do. They hand them out.

• 2:20Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, I'm a flavor scientist in San Francisco.

• 2:23Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, now, there's so much to talk about here because I really don't know what a flavor scientist does. Taylor, I can't speak for you. Do you know what a flavor scientist does?

• 2:35Speaker 03

  That's what I went to school for. So, yeah, I'm very familiar.

• 2:40Conan O'Brien?

  You know what? I did know that. I can't believe I forgot that.

• 2:43Speaker 03

  No, I didn't know. I did not know the term flavor scientist. That's one of those jobs that I feel like when you get high and you're eating snacks, you go, whose job is this? How do I get that job? So I feel like I'm so excited to talk to someone who has that job.

• 3:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  Like, how did you get that job?

• 3:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, Jeremy, what happened?

• 3:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. If I can kind of break it down for you guys. Um, I moved out to California in 2014 for my PhD in physical chemistry at Berkeley. And while I was at Berkeley, I was using a bunch of high-end analytical instrumentation to look at tailpipe emissions from cars and to look at emissions coming off of.

• 3:29Conan O'Brien?

  Was this a hobby or part of your work?

• 3:35Speaker 04

  It was part of my work. I wrote up a dissertation. I wrote up like papers on this. And partway through, I kind of realized that the same technology that I was using is also used in perfumes and fragrances and flavors to identify those molecules are responsible for individual flavors and sensations. And I've always loved cooking and exology. And like, I make my own cocktail bitters and limoncellos. I really wanted to do something where I could kind of combine the science with my passion for food and baking. And being a flavor scientist seemed like that the perfect opportunity.

• 4:16Conan O'Brien?

  All right, we have, I think, a photo of you doing your work. I think we're, we're gonna show here. There you are.

• 4:22Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 4:23Conan O'Brien?

  Boy, does that look.

• 4:24Speaker 04

  That's me.

• 4:25Speaker 03

  He goes, all right.

• 4:27Conan O'Brien?

  So, uh.

• 4:28Speaker 03

  Did you sign off on this picture, Jeremy? You're acting like no one, no one told you about it?

• 4:34Conan O'Brien?

  Jeremy, you supplied this picture. So only yourself to blame.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  Jeremy goes, I thought that was between us.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  I didn't know.

• 4:48Conan O'Brien?

  What's happening here, Jeremy? You are, your nose is attached to a device?

• 4:52Speaker 04

  Yes, so, um, this is an analytical technique called gas chromatography olfactometry, or GCO.

• 5:02Conan O'Brien?

  Yep, that's how I call it. Yeah, I call it GCO.

• 5:06Speaker 04

  And, um, the different flavors go through the instrumentation. We're able to identify what molecule they pertain to. And they also come out of the sniffing port. So that is me sniffing individual flavor molecules and then writing down what they smell like. If it's butter or grassy or chocolate. And then I can look at the data afterwards and be like, oh, this, I got a butter flavor at this particular time. And this compound came out of the instrumentation at this particular time. Therefore, this compound has a butter. So, no, you look so amazed. I love that.

• 5:45Speaker 01

  I am legitimately fascinated.

• 5:47Conan O'Brien?

  Can you imagine eating Doritos with this guy?

• 5:51Conan O'Brien?

  The rest of us are just munching away on Cool Ranch and, and Jeremy's here. He's got vials and dials hooked up to his nipples and he's going, yes!

• 6:02Conan O'Brien?

  So untrue!

• 6:05Speaker 01

  So cool.

• 6:06Conan O'Brien?

  It's amazing.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  Do you have something that you smell in between smells to like cleanse the palate?

• 6:11Conan O'Brien?

  Yes, very good.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, that's a great, that's a great question. So, um, in tasting, if you're doing like a tasting sensory, you want to rinse with lukewarm water because cold water numbs your taste buds, so it's not as sensitive. Or you should have like an apple slice or a saltine cracker, something very kind of bland or fresh. And then for smelling, you want to use the back of your hand or like your shoulder or something. Or you can use coffee beans. You may have seen that like wineries or something will have like coffee beans for you to like smell to kind of cleanse your nose. Yeah.

• 6:46Conan O'Brien?

  What if, I mean, what if the best thing to use was a pair of 19th century underwear?

• 6:52Conan O'Brien?

  Women's underwear. And unfortunately, it was the best thing to use, so you had to take this fierce sniff of 1895 panties. For some reason, we don't understand.

• 7:03Speaker 03

  Do you go for coffee beans or your hand usually? Like, do you, do you have a little?

• 7:08Speaker 04

  I usually go for my hand. I have like the back of the shoulder or the back of the, um, yeah, like your wrist. And then you can just like sniff it that way and cleanse your palate.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 7:17Conan O'Brien?

  Um, let's get off the sniffing for a sec because it's, it's taking me down a dark road.

• 7:24Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, I had one more question about the sniffing and it's appropriate.

• 7:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, go for it.

• 7:28Conan O'Brien?

  And if you, and you get to, I have six more after this.

• 7:33Speaker 03

  Have you always had like a particularly strong sense of smell? Or are you?

• 7:39Speaker 04

  I've always.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  Could anyone do this? Do we, is there a?

• 7:42Speaker 04

  So, the answer is yes. The answer is yes and yes. Um, I love cooking and I love like flavor. That's been a big part of my life since like college, graduate school. So I do have like a certain knack for it. But this is also trainable. Like, if you have, if you know you're going to be tasting like, um, the same thing kind of over and over again, you are trained on what is it supposed to taste like? These are the flavors. These are the texture. And then, once you know you have that authentic reference in your head, you can then do studies where what if we changed like a new flavor or added like a new ingredient? Does this change it? And you are now trained to know like, oh, there is a difference between this and the control. So part of it is definitely trainable.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  Like, over time, a lot of it's just repetition.

• 8:30Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 8:30Conan O'Brien?

  And you can, because it is amazing when you eat a snack these days and you know that this is not chicken. This is a pretzel. But it says chicken flavored pretzel sticks and you bite into it and you swear you're eating chicken. Is that because it's made of essence of chicken? Or you've just chemically recreated the, the same molecular structure of what a chicken tastes like?

• 9:01Speaker 04

  So in those examples, it's less the molecular structure of chicken and it's more just, um, the overall kind of like sensation or I wouldn't say like vibe of what chicken is. You have those like umami notes, those slight meaty notes. Yeah, yeah.

• 9:20Conan O'Brien?

  So you're a vibologist.

• 9:23Conan O'Brien?

  You'll find out later on, it's all vibology.

• 9:27Conan O'Brien?

  Those machines just say good vibe or bad vibe.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  Perfect mixture, yeah.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Because you worked on Impossible Nuggets?

• 9:33Speaker 04

  Sometimes.

• 9:34Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, is that right? It says.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  I did, yeah.

• 9:36Conan O'Brien?

  You, you worked on Impossible Nuggets?

• 9:39Speaker 04

  Yep, I was one of the people who worked on the flavor system for that. Did a lot of, uh, sensory studies and optimization to get that chicken flavor like right so consumers, to like increase the consumer acceptance of the, of the product.

• 9:53Speaker 03

  That's crazy.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, do the chicken people hate you?

• 9:59Speaker 04

  I wouldn't say that.

• 10:00Speaker 03

  Does Big Chicken want your head?

• 10:03Speaker 01

  There's a bounty on his head from Big Chicken.

• 10:07Conan O'Brien?

  There's a, there's a, a chicken out there with a high-powered rifle.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  No, the chicken likes him. The, the chickens are very pro Jeremy.

• 10:17Conan O'Brien?

  Unless it's a self-hating chicken. That wants to give its life to bring others joy.

• 10:25Conan O'Brien?

  It says here, over a period of six months, you did over a hundred sensory tastings. Cake, brownies, cookies, cupcakes, meringues, mayonnaise, buttercream. I would think that your brain would just go into overload at some point and just not be able to tell one thing from another.

• 10:40Speaker 04

  Well, well, that's also a really great point. Um, we do, um, you have to like limit your sensory tastings. So in a given day, um, a sensory scientist or a panelist will only probably do like one to two hours of tasting, because then you just get taster fatigue. And you have to limit the number of samples that you have. So in a good like sensory study.

• 11:02Speaker 04

  Taster fatigue is very real. You should have. It actually is Taylor. You would be surprised.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  I know, I believe you. People in the room are chuckling.

• 11:09Conan O'Brien?

  Well, it's just Blay. Everyone else was very listening and, and showing you a lot of respect and Blay was giggling.

• 11:16Speaker 03

  No, I actually, that, I was gonna ask, uh, about, kind of along that line with the taster fatigue. Are there certain flavors that, are you pretty open-minded? Like you like everything, like you'll eat anything? Or there are certain flavors that you hate that you're like, someone else has to do this one, because this makes me sick?

• 11:36Speaker 04

  I'm pretty good. Like, I definitely have tasted a lot of weird flavors and kind of odd things over the, over the years. Um, there are definitely some other individuals where it's like super oxidized or super rancid, they taste it. And you'll hear like gagging, or you'll hear like just nope from like their little corner.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  You're like, okay, maybe they, maybe they should skip like the next round of tastings here.

• 12:00Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Conan O'Brien?

  Is there a flavor that no one really likes?

• 12:05Speaker 01

  That's a good question.

• 12:05Speaker 04

  Yes, uh, scatol. S-K-A-T-O-L. That is feces.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  I was gonna say, I was like, that's what, I have a personal question.

• 12:15Conan O'Brien?

  Wait, you're just gonna skip over that?

• 12:17Speaker 03

  Sorry, well.

• 12:18Conan O'Brien?

  How many times have you tasted feces?

• 12:20Speaker 03

  I thought.

• 12:21Conan O'Brien?

  How long did it take you to come to that conclusion? Let's give it one more try.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Taylor's like, yep, okay, anyway.

• 12:29Conan O'Brien?

  Jeremy's got shit all over his mouth. We're gonna try this one more time.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  We've all been there. I think we did.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  I had an, I had an intern once who was using that compound as like an authentic standard. And she accidentally spilled some on her lap coat. And for the, for the rest of the day, it was, she smelled like poop.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Who was that in?

• 12:54Conan O'Brien?

  I think she made that up. I think she said, oops, I poured some scatol. She shit her pants.

• 13:05Conan O'Brien?

  That is the oldest cover ever. I'm gonna remember that next time I shit my pants. Now my vial of scatol must have fractured.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  What is the, what is the scatol for then?

• 13:19Speaker 03

  What are, what's that used in?

• 13:21Speaker 04

  There's a lot of, if you're looking at like, um, different meat products, usually animal-based. There's some like trace amounts of like, if you look at like a cat, a matram, there's a bunch of flavors, a bunch of different things. Yeah.

• 13:34Conan O'Brien?

  It's also the base flavor for, I think Oreos. They start with just.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  How dare you?

• 13:38Conan O'Brien?

  No, they start, I'm saying they start with.

• 13:39Speaker 01

  His eyebrows went up.

• 13:41Conan O'Brien?

  They start with scatol. Did I hit something, Jeremy? Admit it.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  Nope. Nope, you're good.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Are we eating poop? I eat so many Oreos.

• 13:50Conan O'Brien?

  I'm just saying, it's the base flavor. And then they add a few other things and it tastes amazing, but it's mostly shit.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  What is it in? What snacks is it in?

• 14:00Speaker 04

  That I don't actually know. I just know that, um.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  Someone's media trained?

• 14:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:09Conan O'Brien?

  He took another sip.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  Big sip. I don't know. Big sip.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  No, like, um, it's really cool because when you take these.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  You can like get all, you can look at these different compounds and like part per billion, part per trillion amounts. So it's kind of like, um, it's an interesting study where just because some, a compound like scatol exists, it might not be odor active. There's a thing in flavor science called your odor activity value, or O A V. And if it's above a certain concentration, then you get the overall feeling and like the sensation of it. But if you're able to quantify this compound like scatol at like a part per trillion or part per billion level, it's so amount, it's so tiny, it's not gonna really do anything.

• 14:56Conan O'Brien?

  You know what I'm gonna do?

• 14:56Speaker 04

  If you have the analytical power, it doesn't matter.

• 14:58Conan O'Brien?

  Jeremy, next time I'm at a wine tasting, I'm gonna take a li, a really fancy, I'm gonna take a little sip and go in. I'm getting, I'm getting scatol.

• 15:09Speaker 04

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• 15:49Conan O'Brien?

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• 15:54Speaker 01

  I fell for a scam?

• 15:56Conan O'Brien?

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• 15:58Speaker 01

  I did lose and it was very inconvenient. And now they put protections on my account like I'm, uh, dumb.

• 16:04Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I don't know where they got that impression.

• 16:08Conan O'Brien?

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• 16:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:25Conan O'Brien?

  Do you know what I mean?

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Maybe I should start scamming.

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  No, that's not the point.

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• 17:12Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, I wanna try something different.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  What?

• 17:14Conan O'Brien?

  I like to change it up. I like to learn things. So I'm gonna try and make apple cider. Every morning.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:19Conan O'Brien?

  This fall, just to see if I can do it.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:22Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, fall's the perfect season to try something new, like joining T-Mobile.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Oh, that's good.

• 17:26Conan O'Brien?

  See what I did?

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:27Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, there are 250 reasons to join T-Mobile right now. You wanna hear what they are?

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:32Conan O'Brien?

  They're America's best network.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 17:33Conan O'Brien?

  True story. Plus, T-Mobile has got off-grid satellite coverage. That comes in really handy. I like to just wander in the woods sometimes.

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Oh, that's weird.

• 17:41Conan O'Brien?

  When I'm thinking about like making apple cider. And, uh, that's when it comes in handy. Here's another reason. High-speed data in over 215 countries and destinations. I travel a lot for the.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  You travel a lot.

• 17:51Conan O'Brien?

  Travel show that I do.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:52Conan O'Brien?

  Stream this podcast while ignoring local landmarks. That's always fun to do. Like, oh, look, there's the Mona Lisa. Yeah, I'd check it out. I'm in the Louvre. I should, but I'm listening to Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  That doesn't seem like a good idea.

• 18:04Conan O'Brien?

  It's a great idea.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:06Conan O'Brien?

  You know, uh, you can see art anytime. But how often can you listen to this podcast?

• 18:11Speaker 01

  My god.

• 18:12Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Now, all these reasons make T-Mobile a great choice.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 18:16Conan O'Brien?

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• 18:40Speaker 01

  Oh.

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• 20:03Speaker 03

  I had a question about, and again, it's a little personal. So if you don't want to say, I don't know. Are you in a relationship? Are you?

• 20:09Speaker 04

  I am, I am not. I am currently single.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Are you on apps with flavor scientists? Cause if I saw a flavor scientist on a profile, I would be like, what is that?

• 20:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:20Speaker 04

  It, it does work. It's definitely a good opener. I'm not gonna lie. Yeah. Yeah. People definitely ask me that. And um, sometimes during a date though, it turns into more of a job interview. You just like keep on asking questions about the flavor science. And I'm like, let's talk about you. Or like, there's other areas of my life. We're going for like a walk and it's like, oh, what do you think this like cookie tastes like? And I'm like, tastes, tastes like a, like a cookie you got from the bake shop.

• 20:48Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:49Speaker 04

  It's good.

• 20:51Conan O'Brien?

  Can't you just like me for me?

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Not my flavor abilities? No, that's, I mean, that was my like first question.

• 21:00Speaker 04

  It's super fun. Yeah.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  Cause when you see people with like cool jobs on dating apps, it's like, kind of really exciting.

• 21:05Speaker 04

  It's definitely a conversation starter. Yeah. Especially in San Francisco where a lot of people kind of work in tech or AI. It's like, this type of career is a little bit unusual for sure.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  I think this is tech.

• 21:18Conan O'Brien?

  I think it's tech, but it's also, you're a mixologist, you bake. You've got that cool Red Sox mug and those, as we established are hard to get.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 21:29Conan O'Brien?

  Unless you live anywhere near the East Coast or the West Coast. But um, but no, I would say, I would think that that would be fascinating to people. It's fascinating to me. That's why I'm really happy we got the chance to talk to you because this is cool, you know? I, it's such a big part of our lives and the way that chemically flavors can be created in so many different ways. We're not even thinking about it. We're not even think, we're eating these foods, we're eating these snacks, we're tasting things. And all these different parts of our brain are lighting up and it's been a lot of times manipulated.

• 22:07Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's like super interesting. And the reason why I love this job is like, the goal is to bring like joy to people through flavor. People love like new foods or new beverages or this like exotic, like, you know, we see it coming in from different areas of the world. With like Boba tea or like Dubai chocolate. These are all like different flavors that are being introduced in like the US and like vice versa. And it's just a really cool experience to understand where they come from and then to create a product or an ingredient that people want to use and have like a good versatility. And all of that is just, you know, bringing that excitement of food and flavor to everybody.

• 22:49Conan O'Brien?

  Now, could you use, and I'm going somewhere with this, could you use your skill to make a deadly poison taste, taste nice? Do you know what I mean? Could you take?

• 23:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I could do that. Yeah.

• 23:02Conan O'Brien?

  What is the most?

• 23:03Speaker 04

  Do you have somebody in mind?

• 23:06Conan O'Brien?

  For example, I've always heard that cyanide, it's very bitter. Could you make cyanide taste like a bubblegum flavored cyanide?

• 23:14Speaker 04

  Oh yeah. That would be quite simple, actually. Yeah.

• 23:16Conan O'Brien?

  Okay. How do I reach you independently of this podcast?

• 23:23Speaker 04

  Well, um, I was gonna maybe save this at the end, but I know that uh, you like to go to outside lands every year.

• 23:29Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah.

• 23:29Speaker 04

  In San Francisco.

• 23:30Conan O'Brien?

  I was just there. Yeah.

• 23:31Speaker 04

  I went, yeah, I was, I was there too. I think I saw like an interview with you watching Wet Lag and I was in that same crowd. So maybe if you want to go to outside lands next year, you're in the area.

• 23:44Conan O'Brien?

  No, this killing has to happen sooner than that. I need this person dead much faster.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  Oh, my bad. Okay.

• 23:50Conan O'Brien?

  Okay, we'll figure it out. I'll, I'll just get to San Francisco. I'll find you.

• 23:55Conan O'Brien?

  This is, I mean, I'm just, I, and Sona, you might be able to speak to this because you uh,

• 24:03Speaker 01

  love food.

• 24:03Conan O'Brien?

  Well, also you're Armenian. You're a proud Armenian.

• 24:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:07Conan O'Brien?

  And there are very strong flavors associated with your cuisine. Is that right?

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:11Conan O'Brien?

  What would you say are the big flavors?

• 24:13Speaker 01

  I mean, we use, you know, the, the spice sumak a lot. We use a lot of um, uh, that's all I've got. A lot of cumin. It's a lot of, you know, it's, it's very filled with different kind of spices. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like a lot of tahini. Um, but you're saying your upbringing and my upbringing is different.

• 24:34Conan O'Brien?

  We had no flavors when I was growing up. Food had no flavor. We had butter, butter, we would put butter on things, but I think that was, and salt. But those were the flavors that I grew up with. There was potato and there was fried ham. Then there was more potato and more fried ham. And then there was fried ham and then there was potato.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, mine's different.

• 24:54Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Okay. I had a heart attack when I was nine.

• 24:58Conan O'Brien?

  They had to crack my chest.

• 25:01Speaker 01

  Taylor, did you grow up with a lot of flavors?

• 25:03Speaker 03

  No, no, no one can. I can't cook. Like my, my parents would like assemble food, like more so than like cook, I would say.

• 25:13Conan O'Brien?

  When you say assemble, well, let's, let's, what do you mean?

• 25:16Speaker 01

  Like Lunchables?

• 25:17Conan O'Brien?

  Like push them closer together to the center of the table.

• 25:19Speaker 03

  There's four cans and the contents of those cans need to be heated up. And that takes some time and that's cooking, I guess.

• 25:29Conan O'Brien?

  Jeremy, if I just opened, and I like SpaghettiOs, this is no diss on SpaghettiOs, but if I opened a can of SpaghettiOs in your presence.

• 25:39Speaker 03

  This episode is sponsored by SpaghettiOs.

• 25:41Conan O'Brien?

  I wish. But let's say I was hanging out with you and I emptied some SpaghettiOs into a bowl. And then I handed it to you. Could you, using lab equipment and various chemicals, make that taste remarkably different? Or, you know what I mean? Could you, could you really change the game for that bowl of SpaghettiOs?

• 26:05Speaker 04

  I think so. Yeah. Like um, I think it would help if you kind of guided us and like guided me in what kind of flavor you would like it to taste like. Yeah. Yeah. You can definitely, I mean, you can do that in your own kitchen, Conan. Just take like some vanilla.

• 26:21Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. I just pour extract in there and I eat it.

• 26:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  Do you have a certain food or snack or anything that you're, that you've worked on that you're most proud of? Is it Impossible Nuggets? I don't want to lead the witness.

• 26:35Speaker 04

  Pretty proud of. Yeah.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Besides Impossible Nuggets, I think we all know Impossible Nuggets is incredible. Besides Impossible Nuggets.

• 26:42Speaker 04

  I was, I was very proud of that. It's really cool to see like, I mean, it sounds cliche, but like you're at a grocery store just doing your thing and then you see somebody like reach for your product. They look at it and then they put it in your, um, in their grocery cart.

• 26:58Speaker 03

  That's not cliche. Most of us haven't had that experience where we see someone picking up Impossible Nuggets and go, I did that. I, I think that's amazing. Those are in movie theaters now. Like those are, those are good.

• 27:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. When we got that partnership, it was super fun. Yeah. It was really cool.

• 27:18Conan O'Brien?

  And what is in there? If it's not chicken, I know that. What is in there?

• 27:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. So the main protein is uh, soy and then we add various um, yeast, yeast extracts and glutamates and to make it kind of more savory and like mommy tasting. And yeah, just, you know, using science to create a new product that will give somebody the same, like earlier vibe of chicken. And then a lot of it is just the scale up too, where you go, just because I did it on a bench in like my test kitchen. Like we're talking about like, you know, millions of chicken nuggets. All have to have the same flavor and the same texture.

• 28:03Conan O'Brien?

  I haven't had these.

• 28:04Speaker 04

  It has to be very robust.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  They're pretty good.

• 28:06Speaker 03

  You should do a taste test where you put them out and see if you can tell. I eat meat, but for, I've done stints of veganism and I have like vegan friends and stuff. And I like, I'll eat Impossible Nuggets sometimes just because I think they're tasty.

• 28:20Conan O'Brien?

  I play music with these guys in this band and all of them, uh, to a one, they don't touch meat. And I'm always wanting to, they're always taking me to, you know, uh, some vegan restaurant and saying, whatever you want, Conan. And you know, it's uh, it's, it's not my vibe, but maybe I can change. Maybe I can start eating these Impossible Nuggets.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're really good. Very impressive.

• 28:43Speaker 04

  And we have a spicy version as well. So there's like the plain Impossible Nuggets and the spicy one. I personally like the spicy ones myself. That's my uh, go-to.

• 28:53Conan O'Brien?

  Okay.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Hey Jeremy, do you have a question for Conan?

• 28:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. So um, we were talking about kind of flavor and um, products earlier. And I know there's a bunch of weird flavors in like potato chips these days. You have like maple or bay crab seasoning or whatever. It's not just like Blue Ranch and nacho. So in your kind of average day, everyday snacking, Conan, what new flavor would you want to have in that product?

• 29:21Conan O'Brien?

  Well, I opened this question, I opened this question to you too, Taylor. So this won't just be my question.

• 29:30Conan O'Brien?

  How did you all do improv?

• 29:33Speaker 03

  Conan needs more time to answer. He goes, how about you, Taylor? What kind of chip do you want?

• 29:37Conan O'Brien?

  I'm happy to go for it. I'm happy to go for it.

• 29:39Speaker 03

  Throw me on the sword.

• 29:41Conan O'Brien?

  Try to be inclusive as a host.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  No, no, no, of course.

• 29:44Conan O'Brien?

  But uh,

• 29:45Speaker 03

  I'm curious to hear your answer too.

• 29:48Conan O'Brien?

  You know, it's funny. I know that theoretically I'm supposed to love vinegar flavor, but I just don't. So you know, when people say, oh my God, these vinegar chips are amazing and my wife likes that flavor. My kids like that flavor. And I just like, I, I just doesn't, it tastes off to me. So I haven't been able to go with that. I am just such a sucker for any kind of, any kind of barbecue-y sweetness that has a little honey in it. That's my go-to. That's my jam. In terms of a new flavor that I've never tried before, eel.

• 30:26Conan O'Brien?

  I've never tried eel. I don't like eel, but I'm interested in trying something that has an eel kind of flavor.

• 30:32Speaker 03

  I love eel and I would love an eel potato chip.

• 30:35Conan O'Brien?

  Eel chips. That's what I want to see you working on.

• 30:37Speaker 04

  Okay. Yeah, it's like some unagi kind of thing. Okay, I like that. I can do that. Yeah, it's delicious.

• 30:44Conan O'Brien?

  Well, sir, it has been an honor talking to you. You're very smart. You're very accomplished. I like what you're doing. You're making people happy. And so I salute you and I can't wait to see what you come up with next. And this is not a plug. We're making no money. I'm going to try these Impossible Nuggets.

• 31:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:01Conan O'Brien?

  Because I haven't had them and I try it because then I can eat with my bandmates, finally.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  I think you'll be impressed. I really do.

• 31:07Conan O'Brien?

  Yeah. Okay. Maybe it is an ad now.

• 31:10Speaker 03

  I know.

• 31:10Conan O'Brien?

  Someone call Impossible Nuggets.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  I did commercial voice, sorry.

• 31:14Conan O'Brien?

  Tell them I want $15,000 in a bag.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  We're fans, Jeremy. We're just fans.

• 31:20Conan O'Brien?

  We're fans, Jeremy.

• 31:21Speaker 03

  We're fans of your work.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  You're a fan of me. I'm a fan of you. So.

• 31:24Conan O'Brien?

  Thank you very much, sir. Take care.

• 31:26Speaker 04

  Great. Thank you. You too, Conan.

• 31:27Conan O'Brien?

  And make that poison. All right, bye.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  Poison.

• 31:32Speaker 05

  Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan with Conan O'Brien, Sonam of Sessian, and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Nick Liao. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivina. Take it away, Jimmy.

• 31:49Speaker 05

  Supervising producer, Aaron Blair. Associate talent producer, Jennifer Samples. Associate producers, Sean Dougherty and Lisa Berman. Engineering by Eduardo Perez. Get three free months of SiriusXM when you sign up at siriusxm.com/conan. Please rate, review, and subscribe to Conan O'Brien Needs a Fan wherever fine podcasts are done.

• 32:18Speaker 05

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