Warning: Spoilers ahead.
Throughout the years, the detailed depiction of food and drink in classic movies about the Mafia has played a memorable supporting role — from “leave the gun, take the cannoli” in “The Godfather” to New York mob boss Paulie Cicero meticulously slicing a clove of garlic with a razor blade while prepping for a multi-course jailhouse feast in “Goodfellas.” But David Chase’s landmark HBO series “The Sopranos” reset the red-checkered tablecloth for what would become a whole new world of culinary cinematic verisimilitude.
For eight years, and over six seasons and 86 episodes, hungry viewers pulled up a chair each Sunday night to linger at the table with waste management consultant and New Jersey mob boss Tony Soprano. Within the bursts of shocking violence, countless murders, humor, and unforgettable eccentric characters, the everyday reality of eating, drinking, and talking about eating and drinking took on a character arc of its own.
In “Wise Guy: David Chase and The Sopranos,” the recent two-episode documentary reflecting on the impact of the series, Chase marveled at how viewers virtually ate alongside these characters in a pre-streaming landscape when appointment TV thrived. “The best thing about it, people were having pizza parties to watch the show,” he said. “To think people were eating Italian food and drinking Italian wine watching this — it’s getting me choked up thinking about it now.”
Revisiting “The Sopranos” is like digging through a refrigerator full of delicious holiday leftovers. Nearly every episode featured food and
