Leaving Jersey was painful - for one reason. The food is hard to replicate...

These are not just foods. They are New Jersey. Although you may be able to replacte them somehow wherever you might be, it's just not the same, and the moment you move away or travel somewhere without them, you understand exactly what you used to have.

 

Taylor Ham/TaylorPork Roll - Call it pork roll or call it Taylor Ham depending on which side of the great divide you live on, but either way you can find the real thing outside of New Jersey in supermarkets, but it's just not the same. Breakfast sandwiches everywhere else are fine. They are not this.

Tomato pie - Not pizza. Not a variation of pizza. Tomato pie is its own thing, served at room temperature with the sauce on top of the cheese, and Trenton does it better than anywhere on earth. Out-of-staters do not understand it. That is their loss.

The boardwalk slice - Manco and Manco in Ocean City, Maruca's in Seaside, or Mack's in Wildweood, the boardwalk pizza of your youth cooked in a deck oven and eaten folded in half while walking. No plate. No fork. Perfect.

Kohr Brothers frozen custard - Softer, richer and more specific than soft serve. The orange and vanilla swirl on a sugar cone is a Shore summer in one bite. It exists elsewhere in name only.

Italian hot dog - A Newark original. Half a round of pizza bread stuffed with a hot dog, peppers, onions and potatoes. It sounds simple. It is extraordinary. Try explaining it to someone from Ohio.

Disco fries - French fries covered in brown gravy and melted mozzarella, available at any diner at 2 a.m. New Jersey invented the concept of making fries into a full emotional experience.

Sausage sandwiches at the Feast - Every Italian street festival in South Jersey runs on these. Peppers, onions, a good roll, grease that gets on your shirt no matter how careful you are. They may also be available elsewhere, but, fore me, there is no substitute.

Funnel cake - Yes it exists elsewhere. No it does not taste the same. The boardwalk air is part of the recipe.

Steel's fudge and Johnson's Popcorn - Not foods so much as institutions. If you grew up going to Ocean City you know exactly what these smell like from half a block away.

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