"Disco Fries"

[Lilija]

Wildwood and Seaside Heights are two different, unique boardwalks. One north/centeral, one wwwwaaay south.

I guess I live in "north" Jersey, but when I think about North Jersey, it doesn't feel like it. There's a lot more state, above me, and it gets a lot different, "over the bridge". By car, it takes roughly 2.5 hours to drive down to Cape May. Heading north, it takes roughly 2 hours to get to the northern reaches, up by the NY border, rt 17 places like Mahwah, etc. That, to me is North. If you look at the map, I live a shade south of where NJ dents in. I consider myself "the Shore" because if I threw a rock out of my bedroom window, it would land in the bay.

That said, I've had gravy-cheese fries north, way north up in the hills, up by the north end of the Water Gap, around here, south "down the shore", and even way way south, vacationing in Wildwood. So, I would say it's pretty widespread across the state, you just have to frequent the right dives, or know what to ask for, to see them. I've seen them called "Disco Fries" on the menu" about 50% of the time, and I notice these things, because I'm nit-picky like that. Plus, I always wondered, myself wtf a disco fry was, and if they were national.

Edited July 31, 2006 by Lilija (log)

[rlibkind]

I've always thought of the nebulous North Jersey-South Jersey dividing line as between those neighborhoods whyere you could get a hoagie, and those where you could get a sub; alternatively, those neighborhoods where a cheesesteak is easier to come by than an Italian hot dog are in South Jersey, while the reverse would be a North Jersey neighborhood. Alas, the nationalization of regional foods is making this demarcation less reliable.

[ghostrider]

I thought Jersey had 5 regions - North, Central, South, Western, & the Shore - but then I didn't grow up here.

[MarketStEl]

Wildwood and Seaside Heights are two different, unique boardwalks.  One north/centeral, one wwwwaaay south. 

I guess I live in "north" Jersey, but when I think about North Jersey, it doesn't feel like it.  There's a lot more state, above me, and it gets a lot different, "over the bridge".  By car, it takes roughly 2.5 hours to drive down to Cape May. Heading north, it takes roughly 2 hours to get to the northern reaches, up by the NY border, rt 17 places like Mahwah, etc.  That, to me is North.  If you look at the map, I live a shade south of where NJ dents in. I consider myself "the Shore" because if I threw a rock out of my bedroom window, it would land in the bay.

(Edited to add: I assume that "the bridge" is the one that carries the Garden State Parkway over whatever that river or inlet is just inland of Sandy Hook. Yes, "the shore"--north or south--is different from the rest of Jersey, but even it can be split into north and south.)

Actually, the more pertinent determinant may be:

What network TV stations does your local cable system carry? Channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13, or Channels 3, 6, 10, 12, 17, 29 and 57? Or a mix of both?

(Confidential to ghostrider: That First Citizen of Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin, once remarked that New Jersey was "a keg tapped at both ends." The statement remains true to this day.)

That said, I've had gravy-cheese fries north, way north up in the hills, up by the north end of the Water Gap,  around here, south "down the shore", and even way way south, vacationing in Wildwood.  So, I would say it's pretty widespread across the state, you just have to frequent the right dives, or know what to ask for, to see them.  I've seen them called "Disco Fries" on the menu" about 50% of the time, and I notice these things, because I'm nit-picky like that.  Plus, I always wondered, myself wtf a disco fry was, and if they were national.

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Have you noticed any geographic imbalance in the distribution of the term? For instance, did the places you had them in Cape May County call them disco fries?

I can assure you, they're definitely not national, regardless what you call them. I doubt anyone in Greater Kansas City would even contemplate the thought of this combo. Fries with barbecue sauce, however, would be just fine there--that is, if you would rather have that than soft white bread as your surplus sauce collection vehicle.

Edited July 31, 2006 by MarketStEl (log)

[Lilija]

My husband and I were pondering on which menus we've actually seen the reference, and we decided that our old "regular" diner actually listed them as such. This diner being the Yellow Rose, right in Keyport NJ. I've seen them listed as disco fries, literally more around here, and up north. I have, however seen fries on menus, even down on the Wildwood boardwalk offered with cheese, or gravy, or both, not calling them disco fries. I'm thinking the dish itself is throughout NJ, but the listing is more like an old fashioned term, that some diners and menus still hang on to, and the rest of us just kinda know about.

I had no idea that if I ordered such a thing in Kansas, I would get stared at. I mean, I've been all over the world, and it's never occurred to me. I don't make it a habit to eat gravy, cheese, and french fries, when I travel, though. (I was also stunned, some years ago, when I found out that not everyone knows of the wonderous breakfast staple, pork roll.)

"The Bridge" is what people around here call the Rt. 9 bridge, Parkway bridge, train trestle, and the really pretty new bridge that lands in Perth Amboy. They all go parallel over the eastern end of the Raritan River, connecting our localized versions of what delineates north and south Jersey. The local feeling is that the people "over the bridge" are different, and somehow considered tourists, when they visit "The Shore". When you go "over the bridge" it's understood that you're heading to north NJ. The areas south of this imaginary line are more beachy-town, and more suburbanized, and that's where the shore pretty much starts, where you can go, sit on the beach, on the NJ shore. You're still in Raritan Bay, though. You sit on the beach in my town, and you can see the NY skyline, and it's gorgeous. South of Sandy Hook, you're out of the bay, and you hit open ocean, so when you sit on the beach down there, you're getting waves. My area is the northern end of "the Shore".

I know all this clarification of what north and south NJ is, has little to do with the thread, but I see the terms thrown around constantly, and I like to kind of reason through them and get clear about it. I wish I had some answers on the history of the term, though. Diner and local food history is great.

[MarketStEl]

Well, the Shore as a whole is something of a world apart from the rest of the state, but as I noted above, there are Shore points that tend to attract more New Yorkers during the summer than Philadelphians, and other Shore points where the opposite is true. I don't think the term "shoobie" is used that often up on your end of the Shore--correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's a Philly daytripper phenomenon. (The term comes from the working-class Philadelphians who would take the trains of the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines down for the day and pack their lunches in shoe boxes.) So even at the Shore, there's a "north/south" split.

As for the Québecois trekking all the way down to Wildwood...well, I don't think the fries have anything to do with that, for obviously they could get "Jersey poutine" anywhere along the shore.

Oh, BTW, and I realize you wouldn't know this, but if I were from Kansas City, Kansas, I would have said so. (Within metropolitan KC, when someone uses the city name without a state appended to it, they're referring to the older and larger of the two, which is the one in Missouri.) Indeed, Kansas Citians don't know from pork roll either, but I can assure you that there are also foodstuffs indigenous to the Kansas City area that are unknown to coastal denizens, such as the Valomilk candy bar.

Speaking of pork roll, why do Jerseyites often refer to it as "Taylor ham"? I know that the Taylor Packing Company in Trenton is one of the oldest and largest producers of pork roll, but it's really not ham.

[KatieLoeb]

My husband and I were pondering on which menus we've actually seen the reference, and we decided that our old "regular" diner actually listed them as such. This diner being the Yellow Rose, right in Keyport NJ. I've seen them listed as disco fries, literally more around here, and up north.

Lilija:

Do you suppose you could ask the diner owner(s) near you where they got the term from?? Obviously, somebody originated it or knows its origin.

I want answers dammit!! This is really irritating me that we can't seem to pin down a proper etymology for "disco fries".

[ghostrider]

I think we need some longtime Jersey residents to tell us whether the cheese-gravy concoction predates the disco era. I'm assuming that it does, and then someone named the dish after noting the appetites of the after-hours disco crowd, but I have no factual basis for these assumptions.

[Lilija]

I would love to ask someone, next time I'm in a diner with the listing, I'll definitely ask. My beloved Yellow Rose closed down under shady circumstances, last December.

I've been living in NJ most of my life, but I don't predate the disco era...maybe I'll ask my dad, he was born and raised here.

[rooftop1000]

Mac's diner rt 23 Butler NJ has Disco Fries on the menu.

Listed as Gravy and Mozz. I just got gravy on the side with mine.

tracey

[Josefinajoisey]

If North Jersey is north of Route 80 or Route 4, that would mean that Hudson County is Central Jersey? I think not. But then, to anyone that lives north of Route 4, Hudson County is somewhere near Perth Amboy, right?

Tommmmmy.......Satch fries....yeah, baby........You've just jolted a piece of memory loose out of my swiss cheese brain.

[rooftop1000]

If North Jersey is north of Route 80 or Route 4, that would mean that Hudson County is Central Jersey?  I think not.  But then, to anyone that lives north of Route 4, Hudson County is somewhere near Perth Amboy, right? 

Tommmmmy.......Satch fries....yeah, baby........You've just jolted a piece of memory loose out of my swiss cheese brain.

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Where is Hudson County? ...or whats in Hudson County?

Perth Amboy is near Staten Island right?

tracey

[Meredith380]

Route 80 is not a cut off line for North Jersey; Morris and Hudson and parts of Union are south of 80 and are all considered North Jersey.

Next time I'm in a diner I'll ask about Disco Fries. I've noticed most diners that use the term Disco Fries also refer to an open faced grilled cheese with tomato and bacon as a "Happy Waitress".

[Josefinajoisey]

Hudson County is comprised of big cities/towns like Jersey City, Bayonne, Kearny, Weehawken, Union City, etc. It hugs the Hudson River across from Manhattan. Inner city, high population (Union City is the most densely populated area in the most densely populated state..NJ)

It's northern neighbor is Bergen County, which routinely ranks as one of the most expensive places to live, and is the most North/eastern county in NJ.

There's a Montague/Capulet feeling about these two counties which is way too complicated to go into on this forum.

Suffice it to say that it doesn't effect the culinary options. They are both great places!