National Bagel Day

In honor of National Bagel Day, I am re-posting my 1998 Chicago Tribune column, which also appeared on The Lounge in December 2015.

You can see the original here.  Remember, it was 1998.

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As a child I understood very well that bagels set me apart from other kids in the neighborhood. Oh, we all played the same games and went to the same schools, but their grandparents spoke English, they went to church on Sunday, and they didn't eat bagels. We, on the other hand, ate the things all the time: as snacks, as sandwiches, as breakfast. My mother made them herself--rolling, boiling, brushing and then baking the little rings to precisely the right resilience. They came in exactly two varieties--plain and rye. The rye ones were my mother's innovation, which she considered avant garde. They were small, dense, unadorned, and ours.

These days you can find bagel stores on almost everywhere. In fact, right down the block from my house you can find bagel shops three corners, selling bagels of every conceivable stripe and description. None of the places even faintly resembles a deli, but nonetheless, each has its own personality, in large part derived from the character of its workforce--though judging from appearances, most of them probably think that He-brew is an especially masculine cup of coffee. There are the prim, pleasant, middle-aged women who proudly serve Dutch apple bagels on one corner. Or you can visit the energetic teenagers who dole out chocolate chip bagels next door. If you're in the mood for some herb, you can score a few oregano-parmesan bagels from the hippies across the street.

 

I've long since made my peace with the inauthentic bagel outlets, and have even come to appreciate the modest virtues of shopping in a corporate-owned "bagel cafe." If nothing else, I've learned the importance of clear articulation, since terms I take for granted are too easily confused by novice bagel clerks. For example, one day I rushed into my favorite local joint and ordered "two pumpernickel." Easy enough, I thought as they shoved my bagels into a cute bakery bag. True, the bagels looked almost orange, lacking the rich, dark hue of true pumpernickel. But what did I expect from a bagel chain? And then there was that unexpected spicy smell. It was pleasant and strangely familiar, but not at all bagel-like. I dismissed it as having rubbed off, so to speak, from an adjacent bin.

 

It was only when I bit into the first one that I realized I was munching on, so help me, a pumpkin bagel. Pumpkin, pumpernickel--I guess it's a natural mistake.

 

I'm not really complaining. In America, no ethnic group can ever expect to maintain a monopoly on its cuisine. I'm sure that native Italians wince at some of the things that Americans dump on pizza, and I know Chinese restaurants here serve dishes that would be unrecognizable from Guangzhau to Beijing. Nobody even thinks to associate wieners with Vienna--and it's a good thing, too, since the Viennese would never tolerate ketchup and pickle relish.

 

But if the mainstreaming of bagels is not entirely an occasion for bitter lamentation, it still has to evoke at least a twinge of regret, as one more bit of ethnic flair is deracinated, homogenized and prepackaged for mass consumption.

 

Interestingly, it appears there is a crisis in the bagel industry. Stock prices have plunged by as much as 80 percent and one national chain has entered bankruptcy. Profits are falling and outlets are closing.

 

If you ask me, their problems all stem from hubris. I've got nothing against making big bucks on bagels, but there has to be a sense of proportion. They should never have started calling it the bagel "industry." Bagels should be sold in "a nice little business" where you can "make a comfortable living." And you shouldn't have national chains. Maybe a few "convenient locations" or even a "branch" or two, but that's it. Go any further and you're asking for trouble.

 

The bagel industry can probably recover from its spate of overexpansion, but somewhere along the line it is going to pay for fiddling with tradition. Bagel-meddlers can load almost anything into a bagel and still have it taste good, but they ought to give credit where credit is due. Bake what you must, but let's put an end to the precious preening. Stop touting "old-fashioned" blueberry and "classic" cranberry-orange!

 

It's not the flavors I object to, it's the adjectives. Bagels weren't invented by a bunch of MBAs, and there's never gong to be anything traditional about filling them with fruit. So if they have to overstuff somebody's heritage, all I can say is let `em eat crepes.

 

 

Comments

[Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King]

The best bagels I ever ate were from a strip mall deli in Allentown, PA. As we sat and ate our YUGE cream cheese laden chewy house baked creations, Al-Jazeera was playing on the flat screen and I could hear Arabic music. The women were dressed in some sort of Middle Eastern garb. They were not Jewish. Probably from one of T-Rump's favorite places. Those bagels take on special meaning today...

[BagelMeister]

Steve and Captain are conflating bagels and jews. Bagels have no connection to the jewish religion and are only linked by european ie ashkeknazi jews who evidently ate them in europe and introduced them here to American culture. No objection as they can be yugely yummy but to set the record staight, more than half the jews are Sephardic from the middle east and africa and Asia they have no begels in their culinary tradition.

[twbb]

Are you sure about that? I was under the impression that bagels started in specifically Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, and were brought over to Manhattan in the first few decades of the 20th century. Where, of course, they reached their pinnacle -- not sure why one would talk about bagels in a Chicago newspaper, that would be like talking about authentic Mexican food in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

[Captain Hruska Carswell, Continuance King]

twbb:

Good point. Lender's bakes something resembling a bagel in Central Illinois. Never could rap my head around that one...

[Alan Weinberger]

twbb:
You're correct. However, the bagel with cream cheese and lox is likely a 1930's creation by American Jews in response to the Eggs Benedict enjoyed by their gentile neighbors.