Rise of the Bagel

Rise of the Bagel

I love Friday mornings. It used to be that I looked forward to Fridays simply because they were the last work day of the week. Then I began working for an employer with the wonderful tradition of providing free bagels and cream cheese for the entire company every Friday morning. They were good bagels, too. Not only was this a great incentive to get to work on time, it put me in a proper frame of mind to be productive and happy for the rest of the day. Ever since then, I’ve carried this custom with me to other places I’ve worked, and even when“ work” means my home office, I make an effort to get a fresh bagel on Friday mornings. It’s just the right thing to do.

A Hole in the Story

There are, by actual count, umpteen bajillion Web sites that proudly recount the history of the bagel— that is to say, a lovely and plausible story that explains everything except the crucial points. The story says that bagels were invented in1683 by an anonymous Jewish baker in Austria. King Jan Sobieski( a. k. a. King John III) of Poland had just saved Austria from a Turkish invasion, and because of his legendary equestrian skills, bread in the shape of a stirrup( or bügel in German) was seen as an appropriate way to honor him. That’s wonderful and all, but the real mystery, which no one seems to have solved, is who came up with the idea to boil bagels before baking them, which is what gives them their characteristic texture both inside and out. ( Depending on who you ask, bagels should be boiled for anywhere from a few seconds to six minutes before baking; in my opinion, longer is better.) Equally mysterious is how cream cheese, and later, smoked salmon, came to be intimately associated with the bagel.

In any case, bagels were popular with Jewish immigrants to the United States at least as early as the1880 s. They slowly gained popularity, until in the1960 s mass- production techniques made them available to a national audience. Unfortunately, even as bagels were becoming a household word, their very nature was changing. The sacrifices in quality and authenticity that were made in order to produce and transport vast quantities of bagels across the country meant that what people were falling in love with was a far cry from what was found in New York delis. Only in the last decade or two have we started to see large commercial chains that make at least a reasonable effort to offer high- quality fresh bagels.

Joe’s Guide to Bagel Happiness

Let’s not mince words: the true bagel lover must be ruthless. This is serious business, separating the wheat from the chaff, and only those who are willing to take a stand and make sacrifices for what they believe in will emerge victorious. ( Did I actually just say that?) Here, then, are my guidelines for selecting a bagel you can be proud of.

1. Buy your bagels from experts. The best place to buy bagels, of course, is a Jewish bakery, preferably one that only sells bagels. Failing that, at least make sure your bagels are freshly baked, and don’t be embarrassed to ask if they were boiled first. It matters. A lot. All things being equal, I’d trust a mom- and- pop store to get my bagels right before I’d trust a chain, but there are a few exceptions.

2. Always eat your bagels on the same day they were baked. You may be able to keep a loaf of store- bought bread around for a week and still find it edible, but bagels have an extremely short shelf life. With each passing hour they get drier and harder. If your bagel is more than12 hours old, consider using it as a doorstop or a weapon, but not as food. For best results, eat bagels while they’re still warm from the oven.

3. Test your bagel for freshness. A well- made bagel is shiny and hard( but not crispy) on the outside, very soft and chewy on the inside. Squeeze the bagel lightly but firmly between your fingertips. It should squish almost all the way through. If you meet a lot of resistance, you’ve got an old bagel.

4. Do not eat bagels that have been frozen. If your bagel was frozen, chances are it was baked considerably longer ago than12 hours. Even if it went straight from the oven to the freezer this morning, freezing has the remarkable tendency to dry out foods. And moisture, remember, is the main thing that makes a good bagel. Sorry, Lender’s fans, but frozen bagels just don’t taste like the real thing.

5. Do not toast your bagels. I know a lot of people disagree with me here, but think about it: your bagel has already been boiled and baked. Do you really need to cook it a third time? Well, if it’s a day or two old( or if it was frozen), then of course you need to toast it, because that softens it on the inside even as it makes the outside crunchy. But it also dries it out further, and almost completely eliminates the chewy texture. Fresh bagels not only don’t need toasting, they suffer when toasted. If you’ve gotten into the toasting habit because all you ever ate were frozen bagels, see what a really fresh one tastes like without. You probably won’t want to go back.

6. Adorn your bagel lovingly with cream cheese. Or don’t. Toppings are a personal matter, and with all these other rules to remember I don’t want to burden you further. But please consider: a bagel is not merely a vehicle for transporting cream cheese into your mouth. Too much of any topping and you miss experiencing the True Bagel Essence.

To Bagel or Not to Bagel

The first time I ever saw a bagel, it was covered with lacquer and had a magnet on the back. I couldn’t comprehend what made it any different from a donut, and when I heard that it wasn’t sweet, I thought, “ Well, what’s the point then?” A few years later I tried a toasted frozen bagel and thought it was OK, but not particularly memorable. But eventually I found out what real bagels were supposed to taste like, and after that it was very hard to accept anything less. When I was living in Texas in the early1990 s, a nearby supermarket sold something they called“ bagels” that were actually dinner rolls with holes in the middle. I was mortified to think that this is what the local residents thought bagels were really like.

A few years ago on a trip to New York, Morgen and I made a pilgrimage to Hand H Bagels, considered by many to be the world’s finest bagel bakery. I had a fresh, warm blueberry bagel— no cream cheese, no nothing— and my mouth was happy all day. Some customers became so attached to Hand H that when they moved to other cities, they called and asked the store to FedEx fresh bagels to them. This has now become a major business for Hand H; for a mere US$50 you can have two dozen fresh bagels( the minimum quantity for mail order) on your doorstep tomorrow morning. Of course, even the world’s best bagels will suffer a bit on an overnight flight, but they’ll still beat supermarket bagels hands- down.