NJ.com did a half-assed job of naming the five best Jersey shore foods so I’m just going to go ahead and make my own since it’s a topic I hold dear to my heart and have put quite a lot of thought to over the years.
**Disclaimer**: this is coming from a north Jersey Benny’s perspective. If you aren’t familiar with the term ‘Benny’ it’s the epithet that Jersey shore folk call all non shore folk. I know, dumb. It’s not hurtful in the least. The term ‘Swede’ is more offensive. Maybe if the group that came up with the term weren’t essentially nothing more than carnies with established residencies it would carry more of a punch.
Their list:
5. Sausage & Peppers
4. Kohr’s ice cream
3. Pizza (no specifics)
2. Crab cakes
1. Funnel Cakes.
My list:
5. Sausage & Peppers is a solid choice here and the only one I completely agree with. And I’m fine with no mention of any specific place either. They’re all the same and they’re everywhere. I think even the salt water taffy and airbrushed t-shirt stands sell sausage and pepper sandwiches on the boardwalk.
4. Orangeade and fresh squeezed lemonade. I think pulp is disgusting and vile and I still enjoy both of these drinks immensely.
3. Waffles N Ice Cream. Unfathomable that NJ.com mentions Kohr’s without mentioning Waffles N Ice Cream. I mean, come on, it’s on the goddamn sign and it’s delicious. They make the waffles right there in front of you. You are directly responsible for your steamy waffles creation. Vanilla over chocolate also.
2. Saw Mill slice and soda combo. I’m pretty sure this deal is no longer going on and the Saw Mill may not even still be in business, but a few years back, at the very end of the boardwalk was the best deal in all of Seaside: a truly enormous slice of pizza and a small plastic cup’s worth flat cola for somewhere between $1.50 and $2.50. Honorable mention to any pizza place that serves white slices with the ricotta spread out like sauce instead of in two or three giant disgusting clumps.
1. Midway cheese steaks. Blasphemy. Sheer blasphemy that the Midway cheese steak went unmentioned. I would eat three of them right now and I’m not even that hungry. The cheese comes from a paint can and is applied with a trowel. Can your favorite cheese steak claim that?
Because this never gets old….
