by Michelle Wescott

“Salt, pepper, ketchup?” This is the response you’ll get if you request a “Taylor ham, egg and cheese on a hard roll” in most breakfast-serving businesses in New Jersey. But if you say these words in any other state, you would probably get some puzzled looks. To people in New Jersey, Taylor Ham is to pork roll as Q-tip is to cotton swab. And, please note, a hard roll is not a stale roll; it’s a freshly baked Kaiser roll.

For many, Taylor Ham is as integral to a good breakfast sandwich as Cheese Wiz is to a Philadelphia cheese steak. Formally known as “John Taylor’s Original Taylor Ham,” this brand of pork roll is a regional delicacy that was invented by John Taylor of Trenton, New Jersey in the late 19th century.