Dana Beers Will Never Stop Drinking | You Gotta Try This Ep. 84

You Gotta Try This

In this episode of You Gotta Try This, hosts Large and Ian welcome Dana B (Dana Beers) to discuss food, travel, and personal history. The co

Key takeaways

• The hosts debate the culinary classification of Uncrustables, with Ian suggesting they are essentially 'soup dumplings'.
• Dana B discusses his Massachusetts roots, specifically highlighting the importance of North Shore beef and South Shore pies.

Main topics

• Uncrustables and food classifications
• New England regional cuisine

Notable quotes

I would go as far as to say it's a soup dumpling.

Conclusion

A nostalgic and humorous exploration of how regional identity and pers

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) Hey, you got to try this, listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. And Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Speaker 1 (0:09) Trust no one and accuse everyone in Who's the Bad Guy, the official Barstool Sports social deduction game from the brilliant mind of Nick Teraney. In what's quickly becoming the most popular new party game around, players are secretly assigned unique roles with the good guys trying to expose the bad guys and the bad guys doing everything they can to stay hidden. Each game unfolds under alternating day and night phases with roles like the cool chick, the shy guy, the gambler, el presidente, the mentalist, the planner, the funny guy, and more. Every round is unpredictable, chaotic, and ridiculously fun. Who's the Bad Guy is great for parties, pregames, family gatherings, or groups who just love deception-based games. Game night will never be the same. Shop now on walmart.com. Speaker 4 (0:51) Is an Uncrustable a dumpling? Speaker 1 (0:53) Oh, are we starting? No. Are we starting? Speaker 4 (0:56) No, no, I'm going to ask you. Is an Uncrustable a dumpling? Do Speaker 1 (0:59) you Speaker 4 (0:59) know what an Uncrustable is? I know exactly what it is, but I'm saying, like, the difference between a sandwich and a f***ing dumpling? Speaker 2 (1:06) Large, start the show. You know what Speaker 4 (1:07) I'm saying? I want you to have that on the top of your head. Yeah, you're right. I wish I would have had you asking me what an uncrustable is. You put me right in Francis's basket, you son of a bitch. Hey, everybody. Welcome on back. It's you got to try this podcast starring me. No, with me, Large, Ian behind the ones and twos, basically responsible for the whole thing. Much love to Ian. And to my immediate right, I have Dana B in the house. For those who don't know Dana B, Dana B is this. goofy guy who doesn't know anything. And that's something that he projects very well in an extremely likable way on camera. I'm going to peel it back a little bit because I've worked with Dana when he wasn't in front of the camera, when he was on the backside of the camera. And this guy happens to be one of the more talented producers. He gets put on big jobs for a reason. And I don't think people see that. Where a lot of other people who are in front of the camera get to jerk each other off for the most part of the day. When he was in the New York office, I know he's gotten lazier in Chicago. Dana was the guy who was on the other side of the floor doing what I see Ian doing. Speaker 3 (2:09) Like Speaker 4 (2:09) constantly in. whatever program you guys use to be cutting stuff up and making it. So if you want a guy that can have a piece of content, an idea, and be the dude who shoots it over here, then edit it. It edits it over there. I think Dana's the guy. You don't get enough fucking credit for that because you spend too much time getting hit in the face with pies and whatnot, which I also love. So either way, that's the intro. This is Dana B. Dana B, welcome to You Gotta Try Speaker 1 (2:36) This, brother. That was so nice. That's like the nicest thing anyone said to me. And you know how I know you're a true Dana B guy? Why? Because you call me Dana B. Yeah. All these new school stoolies and everyone, they know me as Dana Beers. I was Dana B for the longest time. Dana B for Speaker 4 (2:51) the longest time. Do you want me to switch? No, I love Dana B. That's like, you Speaker 1 (2:54) know me. That's who I am. That's the name that all my friends call me, everyone from home, and like true people. I've been here for a while, but early in my Barstool career, it's Dana B. So I do appreciate that. Speaker 4 (3:07) You gave me goosebumps. Last compliment I'm going to get you. You might even get hard. So I bring people down to NASCAR races a lot. Like that's one of the things Spider and I does. Spider and I do. And we love it. We love having different personalities come and see the track for the first time. But when we're there, typically people are just waiting to go to the race or waiting to do something. When we were in Nashville with you for the race, I barely saw you. Like, because you're off doing man on the street stuff. I think we had Glennie or maybe Marty down there at the same time. Always trying to pull more content out of the content that you're doing. Like getting the company's money. Maybe Dave should watch this. Getting the company's money's worth. You think you Speaker 1 (3:48) will? Speaker 4 (3:49) Ian, how many people have we spoke to since we've been here saying we're on the ground here in Chicago for like... 32 hours. We're going to do four restaurants, two podcasts. We have this pilot that we pitched to the creative team. Corey and these guys are awesome. They're unreal. We're trying to check as many boxes that I'm on a 6 a.m. flight tomorrow. Like trying to use the time. I'm almost done with this shit. Yeah. I'm thinking about stretching it out, doing a week in Chicago and two shows. But you're one of those guys that I think squeezes as much blood from every trip that you can. And I think that that's admirable too. So Dave, pay him more. Speaker 1 (4:25) That's what I guess what I'm Speaker 4 (4:26) trying to say. Speaker 1 (4:26) Thank you, Large. I did just sign a contract. So that was very, it was something that I was very pumped up about. It's just actually in the last month or so. And so I'm here. I'm hopefully not going anywhere anytime soon. And I am on this ship until it sinks or until I get fired. Speaker 4 (4:42) I think I'm going to go the other way and start making you out to be a fucking idiot again. One of your biggest guys that you do business with is Uncrustables. Uncrustables is something that I knew about, but I was always a peanut butter and jelly guy, you know, make my own type thing. And then when I started doing Rough and Rowdy, they were always around, Uncrustables. I started to pop them like aspirin and I love them. Honestly, I think it's one of those prepackaged foods that does this. trick every time. This isn't an ad, by the way, at all. But I'm just saying I'm relatively new to the Uncrustable game. I have a question for you. Is an Uncrustable a dumpling? You know what people say is a taco a sandwich. So we talk about dumplings all the time. Every culture has it. The Polish people have their pierogi, the wonton from China, the shumai from Japan, the empanada from wherever, the Totino's pizza roll from the United States. Is it a sandwich or because it's closed? I'm going to ask you this too, Ian. Is an Uncrustable a dumpling? I Speaker 1 (5:41) would go as far as to say it's a soup dumpling. Speaker 4 (5:44) It's a soup dumpling because... I wouldn't call the Speaker 1 (5:48) peanut butter and jelly liquid, but that consistency, it's pretty soupy. It does leak out. Yeah. Right? If you're not comfortable with Speaker 4 (5:56) it. Speaker 1 (5:56) You could even call it a soup dumpling. All right. So Speaker 4 (5:58) there you are. Are you against this or for us, Ian? I can't see your face. Speaker 2 (6:01) I... I was talking about this to you earlier in the Reese's room. I think it's not a dumpling because all dumplings are either steamed or fried in my – Or baked or something. Okay. But then you did bring up what if you toast it. Oh, people do. And now I don't know what to say. If you toast an Uncrustable, you're getting closer to dumpling territory. People Speaker 1 (6:21) are toasting them too. And Speaker 4 (6:23) I will tell you it's closer to what Dana is saying because I made a sandwich of the month where I used Uncrustables as the – as the buns, and I toasted them first in a pan with butter, which made the jelly kind of get a little bit more softer. Then we become a soup dumpling. Oh, my goodness. Right? This is the higher-end shit that we're going to be talking about today. Let's move backwards. Dana, you're from where? Speaker 1 (6:45) I am from the south shore of Massachusetts. I grew up actually on Cape Cod for about 14 years, and when my parents split up, I think I was in, like, fourth grade or something. My dad stayed on the Cape, and my mom moved to South Shore, Massachusetts. So I was a new kid as a freshman in high school, which was a little intimidating. But I went to Hingham, Mass., Hingham High School. Now my mom's in Scituate. My dad's still on the Cape. So I kind of have like all types of towns in Massachusetts, but Eastern Mass. Type of heritage. Speaker 4 (7:17) Is that heritage? Is that the word? Absolutely. Lineage? Lineage. Speaker 1 (7:20) But easy answer, south of Boston. Speaker 4 (7:24) And what do you feel? So growing up then and having that background, mom or dad, big cooks? Speaker 1 (7:30) My mom would make a lot of dinner for us. And my mom is very like. Speaker 1 (7:37) She doesn't believe in processed foods. She likes to make a lot of food from the heart. And we would have Sunday dinners. But my dad would make like steaks. He would make spaghetti. But really, kind of just your middle of the road type of family when it came to eating. Speaker 4 (7:55) Let's make people mad right away. I had said we had Jared Freed on the show a couple of weeks ago. And I had said, I just haven't had many great meals in Boston. And it's my fault. I haven't really. Every time I would go there in my old life, it was always going to a steakhouse. Speaker 3 (8:11) And Speaker 4 (8:12) normally like a chain steakhouse back then, like you could bring your finest clients to like a Morton's and they would be very, very happy. So I haven't been too deep in the weeds. The only thing that I know that I love from Boston is the North Shore beefs. and those bar pies on the South Shore. South Speaker 1 (8:28) Shore Speaker 4 (8:28) pies. Yeah, the South Shore pies. Those are the two iconic things. I go hot and cold with lobster rolls, literally. Sometimes I get them hot, sometimes I get them cold, but it's nothing that I really jump at or anything. So all in all, as a guy who grew up in and around the South Shore but knows a lot about New England, how do you rate Boston as a food town? Speaker 1 (8:48) No, I get a lot of guff for my eating style because... People will get mad at me because I do the series Dana Tries where I try new things. A lot of it is seafood. Everyone's like, you grew up on Cape Cod. How the fuck did you not eat seafood growing up? It is weird. So I am not the guy to talk to about those types of cuisines in Boston. I could talk to you about a calzone on the South Shore, though. Right. You want to talk about a calzone. Dude. Not your New York calzones because you guys just put fucking ricotta in there. Rigote. Is that what you call it? Rigote. Rigote. And you call it a calzone. That's not a calzone. You got to go to these Greek style spots in Massachusetts, specifically on the South Shore. Okay. Man, you stuff that thing with some chicken, some cheese, and you dip it in some ranch or blue cheese. That is my, like that is what I know. And I know that's very sloppy and greasy. But when it comes to like real fine dining. in Boston and around Boston, I am not your guy. I lived there for a year in the actual city, and I got a lot of pizza. I didn't get a lot of seafood. I got Speaker 4 (9:52) a Speaker 1 (9:52) lot of just like Regina's pizza. And I'm not your... I was making $37,000 a year. I'm not going to Nice for restaurants. You're going to 99 for steak tips. Don't you... I'm not. Don't get Speaker 3 (10:04) me Speaker 1 (10:04) going on the 99. Get some steak tips Speaker 3 (10:06) at a fucking Speaker 1 (10:07) White Russian. Tips and tenders. You get the little gold fever sauce. That... Speaker 4 (10:12) What the fuck is gold fever? Because they have a gold fever calzone again in my life. I'm fucking rattled. My favorite sub shop in Hingham with my favorite item of food of all time is closing. How the shit do I get the recipe? Does it just disappear? This is from 2019. By the way, Ian does this. Ian, before we come on, he goes a little bit deeper in Speaker 1 (10:32) the weeds. Speaker 4 (10:32) So like gold fever calzone. Now, look, you can tell, like, I water up all the time when I'm on this fucking show talking about food. Dude. What's gold? Is that the place? Is that a solid? No, Speaker 1 (10:44) it's a style of sauce. It's like a I would describe it as a barbecue, but also kind of spicy sauce. It's as if you like mix the barbecue and a buffalo together and you just you just throw the chicken in that sauce. Dude. This place, Subgalley in Hingham, Massachusetts. I would eat it before my basketball games. I would get a big calzone. Double-double Speaker 4 (11:07) guy. Speaker 1 (11:08) Double-double. I'd have a stomach full of chicken, and I would just go out and get 12 and 10. But this type of calzone, it's sloppy, but that's why you like it because you're sitting down, and you're ready to get just messy. Right, right, right. But it's like the sauce, and then you dip it in the ranch. It's great. No, that place. Funny story. Oh. They closed, you said 2019? 2019. So they closed in 2019. I got married last May. My buddies, they know how much I love this specific calzone and this food. Once we're dancing on the dance floor and everything at my wedding, there's a little break, and I see this guy that I recognize, but I'm like, how do I know that guy? It's the owner of that place, and he's walking in with a calzone, the first one I've had in six Speaker 4 (11:57) years. That's awesome. Speaker 1 (11:59) So they set it up that he came down into the wedding and made his first calzone since 2019 just for me. That's unbelievable. And then, to make it funnier, I had like... Two or three slices and I'm like, okay, I'm going to put this upstairs. When I'm a little bit tuned up, I can eat it drunk like the old days. Speaker 4 (12:17) I Speaker 1 (12:17) get up there. My dad is just chowing the thing. It's all gone. I'm like, dude. He had no idea what it was. He Speaker 4 (12:25) just Speaker 1 (12:25) thought it was some pizza or calzone. I'm like, dad, that's my favorite calzone. I was saving that. Speaker 4 (12:29) So one of the things that we ask at the end is what's a meal that you wish you can get back? Speaker 1 (12:33) And Speaker 4 (12:34) it's one of my favorite questions to ask because it tends people in different directions, like dead relatives, obviously closed restaurants. And then I mention it all the time. Patty, who grew up in Franklin, Mass. He said the chicken nuggets and powdered mashed potatoes every Wednesday at his high school thing because that's when all the boys were able to get together. Right. You know what I mean? That's an experience. And we all loved it at the time. I probably would hate it now. Speaker 3 (12:59) But Speaker 4 (12:59) like, I'd love to get that lunch table back. on a Wednesday eating frozen chicken nuggets. For sure. So this seems like it's something that's a little combination because when you're talking about it, you start talking about the first time your kid hit a Grand Slam, honestly. And then also it's not there anymore. Speaker 1 (13:16) Exactly. You know what I'm saying? I would say, yeah, I'd say that's probably my answer. But on that point, I'm thinking of like... Don't answer Speaker 4 (13:23) it if you have another one because I'm going to ask you it again. No, that's Speaker 1 (13:26) the answer. Speaker 4 (13:26) Because there's got to be a couple. That's the definitive answer. But Speaker 1 (13:28) I'm thinking about the lunch table with my boys with Big Daddy Pizza on Fridays. at Hingham High School. And again, that's an experience. Everyone just has their big slice of pizza. You're laughing it up. But this is the answer. We're Speaker 4 (13:39) going to bounce around all episodes just so you know. Before I do, listen, I mention this every episode. Likes, subscriptions, anything. is what keeps these things going. And we've been extremely fucking lucky with the positivity that we got back. Please keep it going. Do it. And with any kind of five-star review, you can drop in a question. I'm going to bang out the question now. Ian, do you have a question? If you send in a question with a five-star review, we try to get to one at least in an episode. Do you mind taking a question real quick? Whatever you want. Speaker 2 (14:13) This one is from Drew Simon, 7007. Always a great listen. What is the most underrated food city y'all have visited? And this comes after the conversation because we were talking about all the NASCAR cities that Large takes me to and all the places that we stop in. Speaker 4 (14:28) Right. Speaker 2 (14:28) And we've talked about Charlotte and Atlanta and Birmingham and all these cities. So he wants to know the most underrated that we've been to. And I know Dana travels a lot too for Barstool. I think Speaker 4 (14:39) it's a better... I mean, it's as good of a question for Dana as it is for me. I know that... you know, particularly down South things start to taste the same, or at least that's how it was when I used to live down in Atlanta, you know, 20 some odd years ago. And now the food scenes down there blow me away with the amount of like, you know, with they have to all the things that they offer. Um, I know you spent a lot of time in Mississippi. Was it like a hidden gem down there? I was Speaker 1 (15:02) going to say, Oh, go, uh, uh, people probably don't know too much about Jackson, Mississippi, but that's some of the best food I've ever had. Right. A lot of that Southern cooking. with the barbecue and even just some of the like the like there was definitely wasn't good Italian spots, but there was the southern food is the best I've ever had in Jackson, Mississippi. I Speaker 4 (15:23) will never. I was speaking to an extremely Italian group the other day. Aisha Nurjaya, Joe Isidori, and I was sitting out on a stoop in Brooklyn and I said, as fellow Italians, meanwhile, I'm nowhere near being Italian. Do you ever order meatballs out? No. We never order meatballs. We make our meatballs and my grandmother's meatballs. I can tell you as the bullshit Irish guy from New York, I never order Italian in the South. I don't think that's where I'm going to get impressed. But if I go to a meat and three place or a soul food place, like Willie just moved. Willie Colon, you remember Big Will? Oh, yeah. He just moved back down to Speaker 1 (15:58) Mississippi. I remember seeing him at a Waffle House once in Mississippi. And he loves it Speaker 4 (16:02) down there. So I think Jackson, Mississippi, maybe it's not worth just going for the trip alone to go for food. But if people go down there and they're pleasantly surprised, I'd love to fuck with Jackson. Speaker 1 (16:12) Dude, they had some of the best restaurants I've ever been to. And just like you could tell they just made that food. with love and with their hearts. So if you are ever in Jackson, I can give you some recs. Anybody. Let Speaker 4 (16:23) me blow you a little bit, too. That was a chunk of your life where it was like you, Booze, Kelsey. Steve Romano was on Speaker 1 (16:34) there. Speaker 4 (16:34) Steve Romano, yeah. John Speaker 1 (16:35) Kelly. Speaker 4 (16:35) There was like that core group of people that basically lived in Mississippi for like a year and a half. Speaker 1 (16:39) I was just having this conversation with Peyton, one of our producers here, and she