The state Legislature has more important items to worry about than deciding if Taylor Ham or pork roll should be the state's official sandwich. Watch video
President Obama got an appreciative chuckle on Sunday when he told a stadium full of soon-to-be Rutgers grads and guests the real motivation behind his commencement speech.
"I come here for a simple reason, to finally settle this pork roll versus Taylor Ham question," the commander-in-chief joked early into his address, the first delivered by a sitting president at the 250-year-old state university.
"I'm just kidding. There's not much I'm afraid to take on in my final year of office, but I know better than to get in the middle of that debate."
He was wise. Too bad we can't say the same about our state Legislature, which placed itself squarely in the middle of that longstanding but ultimately totally inane discussion last month.
Assemblyman Tim Eustace (D-Bergen) has introduced two competing bills, honoring either the pork roll or Taylor Ham as the foundation for the state's official sandwich. Bizarrely, he took the nonsense a step further, creating an online survey to solicit his constituents' opinions on the pressing question.
The salty pork roll vs. Taylor Ham debate
Now, we like to sink our teeth into a juicy processed meat product sandwich as well as the next guy. But come on, don't our lawmakers have anything better to chew on at the highest levels of state government?
Things like preventing our infrastructure from falling further into decay and ruin? Helping families facing the worst poverty levels in generations?Cutting through the rhetoric and dealing - finally - with the public employees' pension crisis?
Get a handle on all those urgent problems and then maybe the Legislature will have the luxury to tackle the merits of Taylor Ham versus pork roll. Emphasis on "maybe."
Not that we're not proud of our state's iconic meat. Indeed, our affection goes back more than a century and a half.
State Sen. John Taylor sold the first pork roll right here in Trenton in 1856. Butcher George Washington Case offered his own version in 1870, setting in motion a rivalry that has simmered ever since.
How much do the city's residents love their most infamous product?
Pork roll is uniquely ours. It says New Jersey the way lobster roll says Maine; the way crayfish says Louisiana.
Consider that we are blessed with not just one but two opportunities to indulge: The Trenton Pork Roll Festival takes place this year on May 28 at Trenton Social, and the Third Annual Pork Roll Festival kicks off the same day in Mill Hill Park.
Even with all that, our lawmakers have to use their governing time more judiciously. As one sage posted plaintively on NJ.com, "Our state is in financial ruin and the state legislators are using their time to debate this?"
