Sandwiches I've Had: "The Frankenstein Sandwich"

by Will Heyser

It took a lot of courage for our ancestors to make sandwiches. I mean, back in the days before sandwiches were actually called that, because the Earl of Sandwich had yet to be fictionalized. Imagine having a piece of meat (or cheese, for those of our ancestors who were vegetarian, because it's well known that vegans don't really eat sandwiches, they simply pretend so as not to arouse suspicion) and two pieces of bread and not being able to call it anything. I suppose you could just put them together and eat them and say nothing, but what a cruel, sandwich-less fate to befall anyone.

And what of the instructions? How could ancient peoples have known to put the meat between the bread? Wouldn't it make just as much sense to put the two pieces of bread on your feet and dance a little jig while you ate your hunk of animal carcass? I realize that they didn't dance jigs back then, but you get where I'm going with this, right? I don't think it's too much to ask that we understand that without jigs, there will always be hornpipes and reels and other various and sundry modes of terpsichorean movement, but without sandwiches, how would anyone know what to do with the three ingredients of sandwiches.

Think of the condiments! Mountains of mayonnaise, masses of mustard, riots of relish, and all being put to use on things that aren't sandwiches. How could mankind survive? How could he thrive? How could sandwiches without the name be savored to the full extent that the divine obviously intended?

Of course, one could argue with my thesis. After all, the burrito and the taco are superior to the sandwich, and the meat pie is essentially a baked sandwich. And what of the subs, hoagies, grinders, po-boys, and all the other things which take the place of sandwiches in a sandwich-deprived society? What of sandwiches without bread, or breads without sandwich? What of pasta? What of pizza? What of potatoes?

But the central facts are the same: it is a brave man who can make a sandwich when he doesn't know what it is he's making. You might as easily wind up with bread on your feet. That's no way to live. That's what shoes are for. Who would make a sandwich out of a shoe? Bums, probably, but who else? I thought not.

In closing, let me just tell you a story about the time I ate a sandwich that wasn't there. I was just sitting down to a first-class sandwich: turkey, pastrami, bacon, two kinds of cheese sliced nice and thin so they melt in your mouth, Ranch and Thousand Island dressings for the turkey, mustard for the pastrami, nice crisp lettuce, spinach with no sand in it, medium-spicy red onion, tomato that was just juicy enough to create a little gravy, but not so juicy that it ran down my hands, crisp Jewish rye bread, lightly toasted. God, I loved that sandwich. It was like a small piece of Heaven, if Heaven is surrounded by Jewish rye, which I have no doubt it is.

I was all set to take a bite of it, and then I realized that it was a hideous conglomeration of two or three eminently acceptable sandwiches that, together, were like Frankenstein's Monster. Then I understood why the deli had called it "Frankenstein's Sandwich." It was only missing the bolts in its neck. Since it didn't have a neck, the bolts had been ground up and put in the mayonnaise, which I had them leave off because I can't eat it. It makes me ill. Like this sandwich.

I realized that there were some things man was not meant to know, and that first and foremost among this forbidden knowledge was this sandwich. It was a hellish concoction of ingredients. God, how I longed for it. It was the siren song of deli fare, and I was its willing slave. Oh, woe upon the man who created its fiendish recipe. Surely he was no man, but a demon from the blackest depths. A vision of pitchforks and lava swam into my brain as I tried to unhinge my jaw to take a bite. I am not a snake, so it was difficult. Do snakes eat sandwiches? I'm sure they'd eat this one.

Sadly, it was all just a nightmare I had, after eating expired lunch meat on a Kaiser roll. I'm telling you that now so you know not to set foot into any delicatessen which offers, on its menu, anything having to do with Frankenstein. Or maybe it was Frank Stein, the owner and proprietor of the deli. I don't remember. The thought of tomato juice, mustard, and two kinds of dressing mixing and soaking bread haunts me still. Some day I hope to meet that sandwich in waking life. My will is strong. My stomach is ready. My jaw still doesn't unhinge, but that's not important. I am one with my ancestors, the sandwich eaters who gave birth to an age where a man can be menaced in his sleep by a glistening mass of sandwich evil. I am one with eternity.

Actually, I never ate the sandwich, so I guess I lied when I said I would tell you about eating a sandwich that wasn't there. But what do you expect from me? I can't eat mayonnaise.