“Taylor ham” or “pork roll”?
Pork roll, also known as Taylor Ham, was developed by John Taylor in Trenton in 1856. He invented the cured meat with a mix of spices, salt, a sugar cure and preservatives, and smoked it before packaging it.Taylor popularized his product as “Taylor’s Prepared Ham.” But the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 forced a name change to “Taylor Pork Roll” because the product could no longer be marketed as “ham.”
Those who still refer to Pork roll as Taylor Ham are simply referencing the
original name, before our friends at the FDA intervened.
The rebranding caused an issue for John Taylor and his company {established as Taylor Provisions in 1939}, as they scrambled to trademark the new name, pork roll, for its cured, smoked creation. It would prevent other companies from competing with the product, and make Taylor’s ham the only pork roll on the market. Of course, the trademark didn’t work and, soon, versions of Taylor Provisions’ creations began popping up across New Jersey. Now, Case Pork Company, Mercer Meats, Thumann’s, and Kohler Provisions, among others, also produce pork rolls.
Basically, because of the competing companies, you can have a pork roll that
is not Taylor ham, but you cannot have a Taylor ham that isn’t pork roll.
For now, the answer of what to call the deliciously salty breakfast sandwich meat is still up in the air because we know better than to say “both are correct”!
But, if there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s this: New Jersey is, without a doubt, the Taylor ham/pork roll capital of the United States and, probably, the world!
