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I've played with the smaller quoits (who says size matters?).
More frequently with horseshoes, though.
This really is quite amazing to me. Only two people on this whole board??? One would think that Trenton quoits might have spread farther via the great Trenton diaspora of the 1970s and 80s. Based on this though I would guess that they're still very much confined to the following towns:
Hamilton
Bordentown
Ewing
Lawrence
Hopewell
Morrisville, PA
found this thread through Google... anyway, Trenton quoits originated right across the street from the house I grew up in. They were designed lighter with a larger hole and closer hubs than traditional quoits. This was to encourage family play at the pits at the Trenton Fairgrounds. Anyone old enough to remember the race track (now Hamilton Lakes) and the buildings (now Grounds for sculpture and Rats(z?) restaurant) knows that they were actually in Hamilton. Remember Kings mall? Ghetto Shop Rite? PFO? All sitting on top of the birth place of Trenton Quoits. Which now only reside in a handful of fairly popular leagues in Hamilton pretty much, and Labor day picnics (BBQ for you non-Trentonians) in the areas surrounding Trenton.
Trenton Style Quoits born in Hamilton...just like the Mercer automobile and Anthrax scare.
badfish - cool post - I like learning new stuff. Been in Jersey 47 years and never heard of quoits. Growing up in a heavily Italian neighborhood in South Jersey (Washington Twp, about 15 miles SSE of Center City), our block party BBQ's always featured bocce, which I loved, as a kid and got pretty good at. It's now a fixture at our BBQ's. Also, growing up, it was Taylor Ham and my mom made it for us plenty of times - I usually just ate it plain on white bread. However, once I came up to Rutgers, everyone called it porkroll, and porkroll, egg and cheese on a hardroll sandwiches (with saltpepperketchup, of course) became a regular staple of my diet and still are. The Bagel Pantry in Metuchen makes a great porkroll-egg-and-cheese sandwich, although the best might still be from White Rose in Highland Park (in addition to late night drunken cheeseburgers and fries after a night out in New Brunswick).
So we've established that it's mostly the dyed in the wool hardcore Central and South Jersey folks that call it "Pork Roll." Now how many people on this board remember pitching "Trenton Quoits" at a backyard BBQ in the Trenton/Hamilton area while enjoying a nice grilled pork roll sandwich and a frosty Yuengling?
Played Trenton Quoits in Central NJ but never had a Yuengling until I came to Pennsylvania.
OK folks, gather round for a little history lesson. Quoits (pronounced K-W-A-T-E-S) are a very old game and can most recently trace their ancestry to the British Isles. As you can see by clicking on the link they are simply steel rings that are tossed or "pitched" onto steel pins sunk into the ground in a similar manner to horseshoes, which most people are familiar with. Quoits were widely played in early Colonial America as the British settlers brought the game with them. After the Revolution however, like many decidedly "British" things, quoits fell out of favor and took a backseat to horseshoes, which was considered to be a more "American" game, despite itself having roots in Europe.
I play horseshoes, ONLY, because I'm a patriot. I don't understand how any New Jersey patriot could play a Tory game like quoits. I'll bet they're all the same loyalists who want to change the name of Rutgers University, named after Revolutionary War hero Colonel Henry Rutgers, back to Queen's College, in honor of their beloved Queen of England! I'll bet if they had their way we'd have no more Taylor Ham on Kaiser Rolls, but little cucumber sandwiches and fish 'n' chips! They want us to trade in the New Jersey-born game of baseball for the British game of cricket!
OK, I'm just kidding, but thanks for the lesson about quoits, I never heard of it before, and I'm a life-long NJ'an. My first thought was "what a weird name for a game," but then I remembered the favorite backyard game of the state of Ohio - "cornhole". No game sounds weirder than "cornhole", and I'll just leave it at that! lol
Now how many people on this board remember pitching "Trenton Quoits" at a backyard BBQ in the Trenton/Hamilton area while enjoying a nice grilled pork roll sandwich and a frosty Yuengling?
Posting to let you know that quiots are still alive and well here in the area. All my buddies from Hamilton, Lawrence, and Robbinsville still play the game to this day. Actually, I can't really imagine having a bonfire in this area without having a game going on somewhere in the background.
Please don't rip me for this, but do they sell Taylor Ham at Pathmark or Shoprite or do I have to go to a local butcher?
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