New Jersey Devils to serve Taylor ham breakfast sandwiches this season

A night out at a hockey game conjures images of hot dogs, popcorn and beer. But the New Jersey Devils have put something else on the menu this season: breakfast.

The Devils announced this week that they’ll be selling Taylor ham, egg and cheese sandwiches — New Jersey’s iconic breakfast staple — at the “Downtown Diner” stands near Sections 1 and 118 at the Prudential Center. The sandwich was available for a limited time in previous seasons but will now become a fixture at all games.

Most notably, the Devils might have also picked their side in the biggest food debate in the Garden State.

For the uninitiated, Taylor Ham is a processed meat disc that’s available throughout New Jersey and neighboring states. It was created in 1856 by a man named John Taylor and was originally called “Taylor’s Prepared Ham.” But the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 changed the definition of “ham,” forcing the product to be rechristened “Taylor Pork Roll” — a somewhat less appetizing, yet entirely accurate, description.

The current labels on the Taylor Provisions Company’s best-selling product still call it “Taylor Pork Roll.”

What should it be called?

Like Bruce Springsteen albums and not pumping one’s own gas (an actual law in the state), the decades-long debate over processed meat has come to define the state’s culture. Many in North Jersey, where the Devils play, still call it Taylor ham. Other parts of the state prefer pork roll.

In the end, they’re interchangeable. If you go to any deli or diner and ask for either, you’ll be served fried meat discs. But don’t tell a Taylor ham lover that “pork roll” is just as valid, and vice versa.

The Devils, it turns out, are trying to have it both ways.

At their official arena cuisine tasting event this week, the product was called “Taylor Ham, Egg and Cheese Sandwich” on the menu. But the description of the item was: “Made from scratch shaved pork roll, fried egg, American cheese on a freshly baked Kaiser roll.”

So, there you go: “Taylor ham, made from pork roll.” Will that be enough to satisfy those on either side of this debate? Or will this rivalry eventually eclipse the one between Devils fans and invading Rangers fans as the most intense one inside The Rock?

One thing they might all be able to agree on: Breakfast at hockey games rocks.