A Short History of the BagelFrom ancient Egypt to Lender's.
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008, at 7:00 AM ET
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StumbleUponThe '50s were a turning point. It was after World War II, and Americans were trying to get back to normalcy and reconcile the atrocities of the war. They were, for the first time, somewhat philo-Semitic. In addition, Jews were rapidly assimilating, moving to other parts of the city, expanding their culinary horizons, and sharing their own culinary traditions with the rest of New York.
In the early 1950s, Family Circle included a recipe for bageles (their spelling). The copy read: "Stumped for the Hors d'oeuvres Ideas? Here's a grand one from Fannie Engle. 'Split these tender little triumphs in halves and then quarters. Spread with sweet butter and place a small slice of smoked salmon on each. For variations, spread with cream cheese, anchovies or red caviar. (They're also delicious served as breakfast rolls.)' " Engle, who later wrote The Jewish Festival Cookbook, did not mention the Jewish Sunday morning ritual of lox, bagel, and cream cheese—an American concoction that was just taking off, spurred on most probably by Joseph Kraft's advertising blitz for Philadelphia Cream Cheese. It soon became an American alternative to the other Sunday trilogy of bacon, eggs, and toast. In 1951, the bagel made a big appearance in the Broadway comedy Bagel and Yox, introducing the word bagel into such mainstream magazines as Time. Balinska says that "one of the attractions of Bagel and Yox was the fact that freshly baked bagels and cream cheese were handed out to the audience during intermission."
At this historical moment, Murray Lender hit upon a method for mass distribution of bagels. His father, Harry, had come from Poland to New Haven, Conn., and had opened a wholesale bagel bakery in 1927, one of the few outside of New York. In this small, diverse town, ethnic communities intermingled, sampling one another's local specialties. After a while, Balinska explains, it became clear to the Lenders that the Jewish bagel was just as appetizing to the Irish and the Italians as it was to the Jews. The turning point came when Murray, having returned from the Korean War in 1956, bought a freezer. He and his father soon realized that they could deliver thawed bagels to retailers without marring their flavor. A subsequent innovation was the packaging of bagels in batches of six in polyethylene bags, making them even more durable. Soon, Lender's Bagels shared shelf space in supermarkets with household names like Pepperidge Farm and Wonder Bread. Over the next decade, supermarket sales did nothing but grow. And with the advent of the frozen-food aisle, frozen bagels became an affordable, convenient food that could be shipped to grocery stores in far-flung parts of the country that had never before seen one.
Bagelmania hit the ground running in this country with chains opening up all over the place, replacing, to a certain extent, the doughnut shops of the earlier part of the 20th century. (Today, America's most popular doughnut shop, Dunkin' Donuts, also sells bagels.) It is my suspicion that bagels became so popular because, unlike Mexican burritos or Chinese egg rolls, they don't taste ethnic. They weren't marketed as Jewish and weren't sold in kosher sections of grocery stores. To the bread- and sandwich-loving American population, the bagel was simply another bun with a bite—different enough to satisfy a craving for innovation, but not different enough to appear exotic.
So, it makes sense that today's bagel bakeries are not necessarily Jewish-owned or run. A Puerto Rican family owns H&H Bagels in New York. John Marx, a Cincinnatian of German background, bakes 36 different bagel varieties, including Cincinnati Red bagels, tropical fruit, and taco bagels. And the best bagel bakery in New York, according to many, is one owned by a Thai couple on the Upper West Side.
Bagels are clearly no longer specifically a Jewish food. At some point in the middle of the 20th century, their position from the Jewish bun to the American breakfast bread shifted. The exact moment is unclear, but one moment stands out in my mind. In 1998, when I was first filming my PBS television series, Jewish Cooking in America, Lender's, which by then had been bought and sold numerous times, was one of our sponsors. For this cooking show featuring kosher food, they sent us an underwriting spot depicting a perfectly toasted bagel with Swiss cheese and ham! Oy! I almost plotzed. To me, that moment was the ultimate assimilation of the bagel into American life.
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One aspect of the history of the bagel in North America you do not address is the significant differences in the type of bagel that evolved in different locales. As a native Montrealer who lived for a time in New York, this issue is one of great import. Montrealers are as a rule positively snobbish and xenophobic when it comes to bagels. We look down on the pudgy, dense and bland New York "bagel," which we (rightly) regard as vastly inferior to the skinnier, fluffier and slightly sweet-tasting Montreal bagel, boiled in water infused with a hint of honey and cooked as a rule in a wood-burning oven (unlike most New York bagels, you can actually thread Montreal bagels on a stick or a string, whereas in many New York bagels the centre -- yes, centre -- is scarcely more than a pinched pinhole).
We not only prefer these bagels; we are convinced that any New Yorker who had the privilege of trying one would automatically agree and forever renounce the imposter that has been foisted upon them.
--maximum668
(Find this post here – more about Montreal bagels here)
Next time you encounter one of those traif ham-on-bagel breakfast sandwiches on a deli menu (or, even worse, an actual bacon bagel, baked with bits of cloven-hoofed meat inside the dough, which I was offered for breakfast in Minnesota) consider the fact that bagels are the traditional bread served at Jewish funerals, along with other round foods such as eggs and lentils, representing the circle of life. This is not a casual food.
Having said that, however, I have to say that here in New York it is still hard to find a good bagel. Everybody loves H & H, but they're far too sweet and soft to stand up to lox: a bagel should be so hard and chewy it should make your jaw throb, even fresh out of the oven. Most of the bagels generally available are way too big and doughy. If you throw a bagel at someone, it should cause injury. At this point the best of a mediocre lot are the bagels sold at Kossar's Bialys on Grand St, Times Square Bagels on 44th (the reincarnation of the late lamented Columbia Bagels), and the mini-bagels at Brooklyn Bagel Company (the regular size are way too big and puffy). But you're probably better off boiling and baking your own.
--kalaresh
(Find this post here)
(11/18)