Battle lines drawn: Pork Roll or Taylor Ham?
If you're from Philly or South Jersey, we're pretty sure we know where you stand.
Since its beginnings, New Jersey has been a state divided.
East Jersey and West Jersey, which were actual colonial provinces with a fixed border, are now basically divided between North Jersey and South Jersey with a flexible dividing line in the middle somewhere around Interstate 195.
It's the Giants in the North, Eagles in the South. Mets (or Yankees) in the North, Phillies in the South. Ben Franklin, whose son William was New Jersey's last royal governor, described the state as keg tapped at both ends, with the North emptying into New York and the South into Philadelphia.
Now a North Jersey assemblyman, Tim Eustace, a Bergen County Democrat, has announced plans to introduce a bill that would indirectly legislate the name of a food that is known differently in the North and South.
Should it be Taylor Ham (North) or Pork Roll (South)?
Eustace's planned measure slyly not does deal with the meat itself, per se, but rather its role in a sandwich that includes cheese.
Setting asides any doubts that New Jerseyans could agree on an official anything in the first place, Eustace asks in an online poll: Should New Jersey's Official Sandwich be known as "Taylor Ham and cheese" or "Pork Roll and cheese."
Even President Obama weighed in on the subject during his recent address to graduates at Rutgers University.
"I come here for a simple reason — to finally settle this Pork Roll vs. Taylor Ham question," he said to laughter "I'm just kidding. There's not much I'm afraid to take on in my final year of office, but I know better than to get in the middle of that debate."
A Rutgers-Eagleton Poll from December found that the state is essentially split on the issue, with 35 percent of New Jersey residents saying they call it "Taylor Ham," while 38 percent insist it's called "Pork Roll."
As for the rest, 13 percent don't call it either name, 2 percent use the names interchangeably and 12 percent are simply not sure what they normally call the sandwich.
Regionally, 59 percent of those who reside in North Jersey typically refer to it as Taylor Ham, while 65 percent of South Jerseyans call it "Pork Roll," according to the poll.