This past Sunday, on the occasion of our 51st anniversary, my wife and I decided to have "a big breakfast," which means only one thing. No, not pancakes or waffles or omelet or even the old reliable bacon and eggs. It means pork roll.
Pork roll: indescribable, undefinable, occasionally undigestible but always, at least in my experience, utterly unbeatable.
Have you ever tried to describe pork roll to an outsider, which means anyone who doesn't live in the tri-state area? We had a friend over from Texas a while back and announced we were grilling pork roll for dinner. "What's that," he asked. My wife and I looked at each other blankly and had no answer. "I don't know, exactly," I said finally, "You just have to eat it to find out."
It's easier to define what it is not, for there are widespread misconceptions about pork roll, which is frequently confused with other breakfast, shall we call them, mystery meats. It is similar in color to spam, which is probably more widely known than pork roll; the subject of a hilarious Monty Python skit, which, if you haven't seen it, you should YouTube it.
Other ignoramuses confuse pork roll with scrapple, which should be at least a misdemeanor. The main difference between pork roll and scrapple is that pork roll is delicious and scrapple is disgusting, its most prominent feature being an unappetizing mushy texture. I mean, bless the Amish, but I'm not turning to them for culinary guidance.
Now, some of you are asking, "Why are you waxing so superior to pork roll, a produce, after all, that is manufactured in Trenton, New Jersey?"
Scrapple, spam, and pork roll are all made from some glorious marriage of pork and other stuff—much of that other stuff being salt. You can find a scrapple recipe online, though God knows why you'd want to. But pork roll specifics are a tightly guarded secret. The website for Taylor Provisions in Trenton lists pork, salt, sugar, and "a proprietary blend of spices." It's been that way since pork roll was invented way back in 1856 by a man named John Taylor. Yes, the nation was trying to decide what to do about slavery but Taylor, a businessman and member of the New Jersey Senate, was trying to figure out what to do with the extra pork he sometimes had on hand from his wholesale grocery business.
And let's be clear: when I speak of pork roll, I speak only of John Taylor's pork roll. Not Case, which you see from time to time. As far as pork roll, there's no case for Case, And not Alderfer, which is the brand you get when you purchase a pre-made pork roll sandwich at Wawa, which I don't advise. I'm not suggesting that healthier or easier on the digestive system, it just tastes better.
Now, granted, there's something unnecessary about it; its tightly bound brown wrapping, which requires a saw-edged knife and lumber jack strength to remove, a pretension that it has in common with the Milano cookie, which Pepperidge nestles into its own little white paper condo. Plus, Taylor advocates know that you have to make four mini cuts on the sides to keep it flat while it cooks.
Now, to be honest, pork roll is considered more Jersey than Pennsylvania. And, in fact, there's a bit of a Garden State civil war about the product's nomenclature, with North Jersians calling it Taylor Ham, the product's original name, and Central and South Jersians going with pork roll. President Obama even made a joke about it during a commencement address he made a Rutgers, which kind of straddles the Taylor Ham pork roll debate.
But in this household, we are firmly aligned with South Jersey and that means pork roll and Taylor. If you live around here and think differently, you probably favor Drake's over Tastykakes. Don't get me started on that.
