If you follow my posts, but don't read my blogs, I understand. I actually don't write them for anyone but myself, but I thought that many of you who are not family would probably like to know what the obsession is with posting pictures of my Taylor Ham sandwiches.
We all have that one memory, don't we? The one that brings back a smile or a warm feeling that we haven't experienced since we were children. Not that we haven't had warm feelings and smiles all along the way, but that somewhat special time, that nostalgic time that we hold on to, because nothing in the present will bring it back. That is what Pork Roll is to me. Those of you who were not born or had family ties to the Garden State of New Jersey, will have little to no knowledge of what a pork roll sandwich is...but there are many deviations. There is just the meat, grilled with a little char, on a toasted and buttered Kaiser roll, and by kaiser roll, i don't mean those soft, preservative filled ones that you can buy on the grocery store shelf, I mean the bakery ones that have a crisp outer shell and tender bleached white dough in the middle. You place a stack of sliced pork roll in that and you have all that you need to satiate your apetite. However, there are those that like it different. My cousin, Jim Klak, posted that I did not have the egg and cheese in one of my latest postings, so I made one that way and posted it. Oh, and I ate it too and i hat to say it but Jim was on to something! But I still favor the plain, buttered kaiser, toasted, with the pork roll. and here is where the obsession takes root...
My sister, Georgette, was getting married to Edwin Stromenger back in 1973. I would have been 12 years old then. She was living in New Jersey while the rest of the family had moved almost a decade prior to Arizona. So we traveled to the great state of New Jersey for the wedding. I clearly remember one day, when it was just my father and I heading to my great-aunt Agnes' house on Lindbergh Boulevard in Bloomfield and we stopped short of her house to a little deli that was somewhere near the Garden State Parkway and Lindbergh. We sat at the counter and my father seemingly knew the owner of the establishment, we ordered. Both getting the Taylor Ham on a Kaiser. It was the last memory of Taylor Ham in New Jersey with my dad that I remember. There were several times in Arizona when my great-aunt Mary on my mother's side of the family would send a christmas care package with a roll in the packaging, but it wasn't the same. I mean it was the same, but different. and in fact one year, we had gone on a short trip and the package came and we had to toss it out because we feared that it had set too long without refrigeration. But back to the origination of my obsession. I lost my father in October of 1984. 12 plus years after my sister's wedding and 12 plus years after the last childhood memory of pork roll and dad. When I think of the ability to get pork roll today almost anywhere in the United States, dut to the wonderful world of the web, I know I can relive that memory with just a single bite of the sandwich, even though you cannot get a fresh baked Kaiser Roll to save you life. I honestly cannot eat pork roll without reliving something about my dad and New Jersey. A birthright of sorts I guess.
That's my memory and my reason for obsessing over the overly processed meat treat that few know. Recently I saw an interview with Jon Bon Jovi and he was discussing the Pork Roll phenomenom. he had expressed that many think of New Jersey in halves. the North and the South, one likes mustard on their pork roll and the others like ketsup. Well, Jon, I have never heard of such a travesty, but I guess there are those who just don't like the greasy, salty flavor or it all by itself. as for me...just give it to me like i described earlier. No need to doctor it up with any condiment! And for the record, Jim Klak, I have been doing the egg and cheese on occasion, and I admit, I kinda like it! I think it is because I can't find the right roll to put it on!
