Love your write-ups and your wit. It is always a pleasure reading about food in New Jersey. Loved your article, “What your N.J. diner order says about you.” Keep making my mouth water and smile at the same time. Stay well and keep writing like you do. – David of South River, a Star-Ledger subscriber for 40 years
Jeremy Schneider’s worldview as a food and culture writer is simple — one thing we all have in common is everyone likes to eat.
Hard to argue with that assessment. I don’t like to eat – I love it.
What sparks debate is whether you agree with his evaluation of the food he tasted and wrote about.
“I get it,” Schneider explains. “I’m always giving my opinion, which is just an opinion. We all have them.” From his Jersey City apartment, he receives plenty of emails from folks who don’t agree with him. Food, he believes, is the great unifier — whether you tell him he’s right or wrong, Schneider eats up the dialogue.
For him, food in New Jersey is more than sustenance. “It’s our lifeblood. It is so essential. It is so important. It’s a sense of pride. It’s our history, it’s our culture.”
From heated debates over the best pizza to the eternal Taylor ham versus pork roll dispute, food is an occupational hazard for Schneider.
He devours reader feedback, especially when he’s getting tips on new places to try, or insight on foods he should reconsider. He says for his adventurous palette there are a few better places in the country — heck, the world — to try cuisine from every corner of the planet.
“You name a type of food, and we have it here,” he says, “and I’ve written about it.”
He told me he just tried medium-rare, skewered chicken from a yakitori truck in Hoboken, a street food found in Japan.
“I was very scared to eat it, but I’m a food writer, and my curiosity won out.”
What he does recommend usually ends up in a list. Indian. Sushi. Ramen. Tacos. You name it, he says.
You may have recently read about New Jersey’s top 43 burgers for 2024, which he teamed up with Pete Genovese, the state’s dean of greasy spoons and side-street eateries.
Schneider’s also our man on the street trying new fast-food fads, “so you don’t have to.”
“Look, I can eat high-end cuisine, but I can also appreciate fast food. And don’t get me started on hot dogs,” he says, telling me it’s on his Top 10 list of favorite foods. He mentioned the legendary Rutt’s Hut in Clifton more than once during my interview.
Schneider wants everyone to know he’s a Jersey boy. “I don’t like to say this too loud, but I was born in New York,” he whispers. His family moved to Montclair when he was 3, eventually graduating from Montclair High. “That was forever ago,” the 34-year-old Schneider says. He went to journalism school at the University of Maryland.
He exudes Jersey-tude. (Let’s make a T-shirt with that on it.) “I’m proud to be from New Jersey,” he says, in case that was in question. He gets quite philosophical about it:
“After I came back from Maryland, I thought, ‘Oh, wow, this is a special place.’ The conversations we’re having; the things we take pride in; just this Napoleon Complex that we have in New Jersey,” he says, “it informs so much of who we are and what we have — the best pizza, the best bagels, the best beaches, we have the best traffic, the best corrupt politicians…”
His parents live in Cedar Grove now, his younger sister moved to Cleveland years ago — they often get on a call to compare notes on new foods they’ve tried. Yeah, even in his spare time, it’s all about food. “I make some really good steaks,” he says. His favorite TV series, “The Bear.”
After reading about all his advice on where to eat and how to spend your summers down the Shore, would you believe he started off as a sportswriter for our high school report?
“I grew up reading The Star-Ledger. Mike Garafolo covering the New York Giants made me want to be a sportswriter. I was really lucky to get to do that for many years right out of college,” he says. Garafolo, now with NFL Network, left the Ledger in 2012.
Schneider was hired by the Mountainside-based Dorf Feature Service, which The Star-Ledger used for high school sports coverage. For a few years, he covered basketball teams from Union County, fondly remembering the championship seasons that featured some David and Goliath matchups.
“I loved my time in sports, but I feel like I’m even more connected with New Jersey and our readers and the culture now doing what I do,” Schneider says. He joined NJ Advance Media, which provides content for The Star-Ledger and NJ.com, a decade ago to write about general features. He became a full-time food writer in 2019.
This spring, he’s been back in Union County, eating his way through Elizabeth for the past month. The state’s fourth most populous city, he says, is a great example of what New Jersey is all about. A constant flow of new residents — from around the world, especially Latin America — rubbing shoulders with the old.
“It’s very much like all of New Jersey. This is a very diverse and rapidly changing area with a smorgasbord of food options,” he says, noting he’s covered Santillo’s pizzeria and Italian resto Spirito’s extensively over the years, but that these are now closed. (Al Santillo promises a comeback early next year.)
“It’s kind of a metaphor for New Jersey in general. It’s always evolving, ever-shifting, always looking different, and it makes it exciting.”
And pizza…Tread carefully if you’re up for a debate. You could probably melt mozzarella from his fiery passion when he talks Jersey pizza. “You can debate over New York or New Jersey pizza, but New Jersey will always win. I just did a piece on Connecticut pizza, and it doesn’t even have a place at the table.”
Like all our food and culture writers who crisscross the Garden State, Schneider has become one of our newsroom’s best tour guides, too. Or is it “fun” guide?
During our conversation, I sensed an authentic and sincere appreciation of where we live. You could see that enthusiasm in the Emmy-nominated video series “NJ All Day” he and our colleague, videographer Dwayne Uzoaru, produced for a couple years after the pandemic.
What else is exciting? Ranking New Jersey’s beaches, an ongoing project for the past four years.
“It’s such a fun assignment for me,” he says. “I get to just drive down the entire Jersey Shore and see how beautiful it is but also just how different it is. Asbury Park has a completely different vibe than Belmar, which is obviously different than Atlantic City…We take such pride in our beaches here.”
You can bet he’ll tell us what he ate there, too.
Jeremy Schneider would love to hear about your favorite food joint and what parts of New Jersey he should visit next. Find him at jschneider@njadvancemedia.com. He’s also active on Instagram @jeremyishungryagain and on X (Twitter) @J_Schneider.
Online newspaper webinar
Thanks to those of you who attended our walk through of how to get best out of The Star-Ledger online newspaper (eNewsSL.nj.com or via the app).
We are hosting two more webinars on June 18 and June 26 for those who’re looking for guidance on how to register or how use the online paper. We went over how to print games, where to find archives of past issues and how to tap into content that didn’t make it in print, such as sports stories and special sections.
Sign up by emailing webinar@advancelocal.com with “SLO webinar” in the subject line.
Reminder: To encourage you to check out what’s happening inside the digital pages of The Star-Ledger online, you’ll be entered to win a $500 Visa gift card every day you login from today through June 29.
Enrique Lavín is theeditor of online newspapers.Call 732-902-4454 or email him at elavin@njadvancemedia.com
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