A New Jersey photographer looked through almost 6,000 menus to see what each place calls the breakfast sandwich. The result is an interactive map of the state’s great divide.
One of New Jersey’s never-ending wars is the one between Taylor Ham and Pork Roll. Traditionally speaking, those in North Jersey call it the former, and those everywhere else call it the latter. Look, I’m not interested in relitigating a fight that will never have a clear answer (it’s Taylor Ham), but what I am interested in is the data.
We have a rough idea of where the divide lies, but what if we knew for certain? What if someone dove in and figured it out once and for all? Well, good news for you, curious reader, because someone has done exactly that.
Local New Jersey photographer Christian Fiedler is a bit of a self-admitted nerd. And as such, he spent four months nailing down just how deep the Taylor Ham vs. Pork Roll lore really goes. The result is the most comprehensive breakdown of the NJ civil war that I’ve ever seen.
How He Did It
Fiedler started with an open data source of locations (bagel shops, delis, bakeries, diners, etc.), then worked through each menu one by one to see what the tangy breakfast meat was called.
“Sometimes this was looking at their websites. A lot of times it was using online ordering platforms like DoorDash, occasionally it was looking at images of the menu that were uploaded by people on Google reviews or Yelp,” he says.
Automating the process wasn’t really an option. “Web scraping for this stuff is actually pretty spotty so I knew that I had to do it manually,” he says. So he built what he calls “a sort of cockpit” to open menus quickly and log what each one said. “It took a lot of time but once you get used to the menus you can kind of slip into a flow state and knock out one every few seconds.”
Plenty of that work happened on flights, where he’d sit down and “rip through menus.”
If New Jersey food projects like this one interest you, Fiedler has more. His New Jersey Hot Dog Index is a personal favorite of mine. Check that out here.
What He Was Looking For
The border wasn’t his only goal. Fiedler also wanted to know whether there were “little enclaves behind the line that served the opposite item name,” and whether any other patterns of interest showed up. He found the menus that specifically said “Taylor pork roll” especially interesting.
The project also turned up “a ton of truly bizarre and creative menu items, as well as menus that actually leaned into the debate in a meta-way.”
He found that popular NJ bagel shop O’Bagel, which has locations across New Jersey, calls the classic Garden State breakfast sandwich the “Jersey Debate” on their menu. A Jersey Shore spot on the list calls it Pork Roll everywhere on their menu, except for in “The Benny,” where the description refers to it as Taylor Ham. “I can’t help but think that’s intentional,” Fiedler says, noting that Benny is a slang term used by Shore residents to refer to North Jersey tourists.
The result? This glorious map, hosted at Fiedler’s website PrimitivePines, which I’m certain my fellow New Jersey obsessives will have a blast combing through. Full map and info here. Enjoy.