9 New Jersey Foods That Horrify the Rest of the Country

Picture a New Jersey cook cramming a fried hot dog, fried potatoes, peppers, and onions into a torn round of pizza bread.

That’s lunch in Newark.

The rest of the country takes one look and orders a salad instead.

These are the New Jersey foods that horrify the rest of the country.

1. Disco Fries

New Jersey turned a plate of fries into a late-night ritual the rest of the country still doesn’t understand.

Disco fries start with french fries, then come brown gravy and a blanket of melted mozzarella.

That’s it.

The Tick Tock Diner in Clifton put them on the menu by name back in the 1970s, when crowds spilling out of dance clubs needed something to soak up the night.

Order them at 2 a.m. off the Parkway, and nobody blinks.

Outsiders see gravy and cheese drowning good fries and lose their nerve.

Their loss.

2. Pork Roll (or Taylor Ham)

No New Jersey food starts more arguments than the pink disc searing on a diner griddle.

Half the state calls it Taylor ham, and the other half calls it pork roll.

Both sides will die on that hill.

John Taylor started curing the salty, smoky pork in Trenton back in 1856, and New Jersey has argued over the name ever since.

North of I-78, it’s Taylor ham.

Everywhere south, it’s pork roll.

You can barely find pork roll past the state line, so a pork roll, egg and cheese stays a Jersey birthright.

Out-of-staters take one look and call it Spam, which is a low blow.

It’s not Spam.

3. Sloppy Joe

Order a sloppy joe at a New Jersey deli, and put the lunchroom version out of your mind.

There’s no ground beef in a Jersey joe.

A Jersey joe stacks two cold cuts, Swiss cheese, coleslaw, and Russian dressing between three thin slices of rye.

The Town Hall Deli in South Orange built the first Jersey sloppy joe after the Maplewood mayor tasted a layered sandwich at a Havana bar in the 1930s.

It’s a cold, neat tower, not a saucy mess.

Newcomers stare at the plate, then at the menu, sure the counter mixed up their order.

It didn’t.

4. Italian Hot Dog

Newark took a hot dog and buried it under lunch, and outsiders still flinch at the sight.

An Italian hot dog is a deep-fried hot dog crammed into a torn round of pizza bread.

On top go sauteed peppers, onions, and thick wheels of fried potato.

Jimmy Buff’s started slinging them in Newark in 1932, feeding the card-game crowds of the old North Ward.

You need both hands.

Everyone else calls it too much and reaches for a plain frank instead.

5. Ripper

Clifton fries its hot dogs until they split open, and New Jerseyans wouldn’t have it any other way.

Rutt’s Hut has run its fryers since 1928, dropping hot dogs into scorching oil until the casing cracks and curls.

That split is the ripper.

You can order it “In-and-Out” for a quick dip, a “Weller” for well-done, or a “Cremator” if you want it charred black.

Then you smother it in the house relish, a mustardy tangle of pickle and cabbage.

Purists elsewhere clutch their steamed buns.

Let them.

6. Trenton Tomato Pie

Trenton has built its pizza upside down for more than a century.

Trenton natives are convinced everyone else got the order wrong.

On a tomato pie, the cheese goes down first.

Tomatoes go on top.

Papa's Tomato Pies opened in Trenton in 1912 and still runs as the oldest family-owned pizzeria in the country.

DeLorenzo's made its name on the same trick.

You taste the bright, slightly acidic tomatoes first, before you even reach the cheese.

Call it a regular pizza to a Trenton native, and you'll earn a lecture.

7. Fat Sandwich

Rutgers students in New Brunswick dared a food truck to pile a whole meal onto one roll.

The fat sandwich came next.

Picture chicken fingers, mozzarella sticks, french fries, and marinara stuffed inside a single sub roll.

That combo, the Fat Darrell, took Maxim magazine's title for best sandwich in the nation in 2004.

A single fat sandwich runs past 1,700 calories.

The grease trucks that made it famous fed hungry crowds deep into the night for decades.

Outsiders read the ingredient list and lose their appetite.

Everything fits.

8. Scrapple

South Jersey fries a breakfast meat that makes visitors set the fork down and ask questions.

Scrapple is pork scraps and cornmeal, cooked into a loaf, sliced, and fried crisp.

The Pennsylvania Dutch made it first, and it crossed the Delaware into South Jersey more than a century ago.

Diners near the river have served it ever since, next to eggs and home fries.

Fried right, the outside crackles while the middle stays tender.

Tell a newcomer what's in it, and they slow way down.

So don't tell them yet.

9. Texas Wiener

Paterson cooks named their hot dog after Texas, and out-of-staters still can't square the name with the map.

A Texas wiener is a deep-fried hot dog under a ladle of Greek chili.

Nothing about it is Texan.

Paterson vendors started serving them in the 1920s, spooning on a chili built from a Greek meat sauce heavy with cinnamon and cumin.

Order it "all the way," and mustard and chopped raw onions pile on under the chili.