On May 23, 3:05 pm, "Anny Middon" >
wrote:
> Slate.com has had a continuing discussion in letters-format about the
> Sopranos. (Not sure how long they've done this; I've been reading only this
> season.) Brian Williams (yes, the TV news anchorman) has been participating
> lately.
>
> In an earlier post, Williams mentioned that the Lincoln Log sandwich on last
> Sunday's The Sopranos brought back memories for him. Timothy Noah (one of
> the other correspondents) asked what it was and went into a funny riff with
> speculation about the symbolism of the sandwich. I recommend Sopranos fans
> read the whole set of posts -- it's good stuff.
>
> At any rate, here's Williams on the Lincoln Log sandwich in particular and
> the food of his childhood in North Jersey in general (warning--there's a
> small plot spoiler at the end):
>
> "...Would that my mother were here to defend herself. She went to her reward
> years ago, and with her went the Lincoln Log recipe. During what has been a
> painful day of culinary reminiscence on my part, all I can recall were Oscar
> Mayer "frankfurters" (as my dad still calls them, I believe in deference to
> the Supreme Court justice) split suggestively down the middle (I never
> watched that part, because as with lobsters, I was never really sure they
> were dead) and then slathered-in our version-lengthwise in mayonnaise. I
> know. How do you think I feel? That was my life in north Jersey. They made
> for a handy, portable heart attack on a bun. Enough aggressively bad food in
> a fist-size package to give the eater/victim instant angina (and this was
> years before he got voted off American Idol) if not worse. I remember we had
> to get a certain kind of bun-the Pepperidge Farm "New England cut"-so that
> when splayed open it presented more like a double-thickness slab of Wonder
> Bread. On the dog would go copious amounts of mayo-and in some houses, cream
> cheese. Always Breakstone's. My mom later developed some tsoris over the
> quality of the Oscar Mayers, so we switched to Hebrew Nationals.
>
> "Message: We didn't eat well. We enjoyed aerosol cheese, and served it to
> guests with Triscuits. My mother once took a vacuum pouch of Carl Buddig
> thin-sliced turkeylike lunch meat; flattened the watery, gooey, scattershot
> sheets as a "steak"; and warmed the mass in a frying pan. It was served,
> this flattened collection of 15-or-so slices in pretend solid form, as
> "we're having turkey!" Yes, it was bad in the kitchen where I grew up ...
> and not exactly flush with cash ... or cooking skills. So does anyone blame
> me somehow for not remembering each pinch in the recipe for Lincoln Logs? I
> merely remember they never seemed time-sensitive. They were better than the
> sandwiches my mother sometimes packed for my school lunch: butter, sprinkled
> with sugar, on white bread. Oh ... and she always used to gently take the
> dull point of a pencil and draw a heart in my banana, just to optimize the
> chance that the guys on the football team would go all Coco on me during
> recess."
>
> Anny

Only the sandwiches Carmela made were with cream cheese, not mayo.
You can distinctly see the Philly Cream Cheese container if you look.