Last Saturday as we were leaving Shabbot services Mel and his wife and David and his wife asked Missy and me if we’d like to go out to lunch with them. Missy asked where they were going and Mel said either Chinese food or bagels. Missy said that the only good Chinese food was at our house when I cooked. I told everyone that I had to decline since my back had endured all it could for one day. (You see I’d had a series of epidural spinal injections two days prior.) I was however interested in where they thought they could get a good bagel in Jacksonville? The name Panera’s came up and Mel asked if I thought he could get a lox and cream cheese sandwich on a bagel. I knew the answer was no, because Panera’s doesn’t carry lox. Then came a quick discussion of the difference between lox and smoked salmon and the difference between Nova Scotia and pacific salmons. It’s an interesting topic but not for this article about bagels, the seed of which was planted with the initial mention of the bagel.

I’ve read many different histories of the bagel and there are two things on which they all seem to agree, the year it was invented and the ethnic background of the inventor.

The year agreed upon was 1683 and the inventor was a local Jewish baker, whose name remains unknown. Legend has it that in 1683 in Vienna, Austria, a local Jewish baker wanted to thank the king of Poland for protecting his lantzmon, (countrymen) from Turkish invaders. He shaped his dough into an uneven circle resembling a stirrup. The Austrian word for stirrup is ‘beugel’. Additionally the German word ‘beigel’ means ring while ‘bugel’ means bracelet.

And so, we have a believable legend about a nameless Jewish baker. The facts are clear. A perfect bagel is never a perfect circle. For those of you who may not know this, the bagel is the only bread which is boiled first and then baked which is what gives it its perfect golden hard crust and soft textured inside. So not only does the theory of the history of the bagel hold water, the bagel itself holds water.

Nearly two hundred years later, in 1872, cream cheese was invented and the East European bagel found its perfect mate in America. The joy over this union was so great that it is still celebrated today by both Jews and non-Jews. (I wonder who the matchmaker might have been?)
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At the turn of the last century, during the 1880’s thousands of Eastern European Jews came to America. The love of the bagel came with them along with the knowledge of how to make them. This must have been a real secret because when the Bagel Bakers Union was formed, in 1907, its bylaws stated that only sons of members could apprentice and apply for membership.

The majority of these immigrants settled in both New York and Chicago and so the eternal conflict began. “Where is the best bagel made?”
It’s interesting to note that the same conflict goes on about pizza thus making the controversy not an entirely Jewish thing.

Since I was born and raised in New York City, I don’t know anything about Chicago bagels except for the fact that I’m sure they can’t be that good. So let us move on to the New York Bagel.

New York is made up of five counties. The Bronx, (Bronx County), Brooklyn, (King’s County), Queens, (Queens County), Staten Island, (Richmond County), and Manhattan.

I’m not sure if people on Staten Island ever heard of a bagel, or for that matter if there are actually any inhabitants there at all. Folks who live in Queens may brag about their bagels but they know, deep down inside, that they came from Brooklyn, Manhattan and The Bronx originally and are just copies of the real thing. When it comes to Manhattan, or “The City” as most people call it, there are two kinds of people who live there. Those who can afford the rent and those who are trying to afford the rent. Those who can afford the rent most likely look down on bagels as common and therefore don’t eat them, (although they go great with pat?). Those who are trying to afford it don’t have enough money left over to buy bagels. Therefore, I’ll take Manhattan off the list of great contenders, even though some outsiders like my wife, (from Connecticut), swears that the best bagels made on earth come from Ess-a-Bagel on First Avenue and Twenty-First Street, in “The City”. I rate them very, very good. It’s not surprising that the owners come from a long line of Austrian bakers. Their bagels are hand rolled. I also happen to think that Einstein Brothers Bagel Shop bakes a very good bagel, as well. (Mel and I both would settle for those bagels and wish that one of these families would open a bakery in Jacksonville, Florida.) But I’m getting off track here.

Let us see what goes into a bagel that sets The Bronx Bagel totally apart from all others. It’s a pretty basic recipe, flour and water, a little yeast and a pinch of salt. In days gone by bakers would grind their own flour but that practice no longer exists and today they all use commercial flour. So the difference cannot be in the flour. Well that leaves the water and that is the ingredient that makes all the difference.

The water supply for The Bronx comes from the Neversink Reservoir outside of Ellenville, New York which is deep in the heart of the Catskill mountains also known as The Jewish Alps. What could be better water than that for making what is historically a Jewish bread, The Bagel?

I rest my case. I’ve left out Brooklyn because that’s where the main fight is and since Mel comes from there I’m going to let him make his case. Before he starts I just want to bring you back to a time when a small boy and his father would set out on Sunday morning for their shopping. First the newspaper. Next the appetizing store for cream cheese, lox, smoked whitefish and maybe some pickled herring. Last stop was for the fresh hot bagels in a thick paper bag so they would remain hot until we got home and set out breakfast for the whole family. Mmmmm, that was a good life!

Elliot, who am I to disagree with your wisdom, you obviously have a degree in bagelology amongst your other degrees. But then again bagels are close to my heart as well. I agree that water makes the difference and that’s why I think that the best bagels to be found in New York come from Long Island. I think there’s a bit more pollution in the water which gives it a Yiddishe Tam, like smoked white fish from the Hudson river.

When I hear or think of a bagel I get some very warm and happy memory moments. I remember Sunday nights, sitting around the TV, in Brooklyn eating bagels, lox and cream cheese with my Mom and Dad as we watched the Adventures of Sky King and then the Roy Rogers Show. I remember the schmaltz and cream herring and smoked white fish that would be available to us and the cream cheese with scallions and even a glass of cold borscht with sour cream. I remember the sad feeling as the show ended that it was time for me to prepare for bed and that the weekend was over.

Money was not an issue for our family, we had none, so I remember my Dad picking up a quarter pound of lox and spreading tiny pieces over the cream butter and cream cheese and making the sandwich, he drinking it with coffee and me with milk. I knew no other way of having a bagel and lox sandwich… you have it with the tiny pieces of lox and cream cheese and that’s the way I served it to my wife and two sons.

Back during the early eighties I had a customer/friend visiting from the west coast and suggested that we have N.Y. bagels with cream cheese and lox for breakfast. He asked if we had Capers? The only caper I had was a kippa which we both laughed about. So off I went out shopping for the bagels and reliving my early memories. When I returned I cut the bagels and placed everything on a tray for us to eat. I had purchased a half a pound of lox as I thought that was what I should do to be a good host. I snipped pieces off for my wife and kids and watched awestruck as our guest picked up the one third of a pound that was left and put it on his bagel. Ah, I had much to learn about eating lox with my bagel. I questioned him as to the amount of lox on the bagel and he told me that’s what his parent’s dished out in their home. I immediately understood the difference between the have and the have nots. If I hadn’t met him I would never know we didn’t have. Today an eighth of a pound satisfies me. By the way my favorite bagel is a heavily salted one, which has been impossible to find in Jacksonville. My darling wife of 40 years likes a good pumpernickel or marble bagel.

During the late seventies I was doing a lot of traveling and would travel and sell in the South. I’d stop in Atlanta 4 times a year. I remember the first time I asked the waitress for a bagel and she said… “did you say Baaaaagel”? I said yes. She said, “What y’all gonna’ do with the Baaaagel”? I said, I’m going to get it toasted, but a little butter on it and cream cheese and I’m going to eat it”. “Where are ya’ll from?”, she said, “New York? Y’all eat dogs in New York?” She thought I said beagle and I just laughed and laughed and enjoyed telling her about a bagel. She said “we don’t have none”. I said “how about an English Muffin?”

The more I traveled the more I began to appreciate the taste of a New York bagel. What I took for granted as part of life became a delicacy to me. There would be talk with salesmen that had been traveling for a while about how we really missed a good bagel and exchanged our thoughts on our favorites. One time while I was in Hot Springs Arkansas I had bagels served to the trade show and even shared bagels with lox and cream cheese and stories with my customers.

I‘ve had bagels all over the world, including Hong Kong and the only thing I can say, is that there is no bagel like a New York Bagel…Elliot did I ever tell you the story of a blonde that goes into a New York restaurant and notices one of those peel and win stickers on the coffee cup?

She removes it and begins to get very excited shouting that she won a motor home. “I won a motor home!!!” The waitress says “that’s impossible the most you could win is a free dinner during the early bird”.

The waitress excuses herself and calls over the manager at which point she’s dancing around singing she won a motorhome. The manager asks to see the peel and win as he says we have no such prize. She hands it to him and he reads it back…..
“Win a bagel”

We’ll as a Jewish ex-camper with a beautiful wife, she should live to 150, that specializes in making reservations, I’d rather have the bagel!!!

Elliot, you know the best knishes in New York came from Brooklyn and still do…Eat your heart out, (in good health of course), Bronx Boy.

This article has been about bagels, but it is sealed with a knish!

Shalom,
El & Mel

We’d like to thank; Bagel Boss, Ess-a-bagel and Einstein Bros. For their on-line histories of the bagel. For more information about bagels, including how to get them shipped fresh please go to;
www.bagelboss.com or www.ess-a-bagel.com