Taylor Ham Or Pork Roll?

What's more Jersey than a Taylor Ham/Pork Roll Egg and Cheese sandwich? Now you can have this amazing meat shipped to you, anywhere in the USA! While this is up there with Sauce/Gravy debate, we will leave the debating to you and the delicious meats to us!

The Creation of Taylor Ham

Pork roll, also known as Taylor Ham, was developed by John Taylor in Trenton in 1856. Taylor was a state Senator and well-known businessman from Hamilton Square, and he invented the cured meat with a mix of spices, salt, a sugar cure, and preservatives, and smoked it before packaging it.  He put it on the market as “Taylor’s Prepared Ham,” but later renamed it as the “Original Taylor Pork Roll”, after he was forced to take out the word ham because, according to sources, the cured meat in the tube-like casing did not meet the requirements to be considered “ham.” The definition of ham was, in fact, established by the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, and made John Taylor’s creation merely a “lunch meat.”

Rebranding to Pork Roll

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 other companies also produce pork rolls, but most true Jerseyans will call Taylor’s Provisions the originator.