The Story of The Bagel
I was walking down the street with my girlfriend yesterday. When we passed a lunch spot that specialises in bagels. We looked out of curiosity at the menu. The range of bagels that they offered were simple. You had the classic salmon, cream cheese bagel and one with roasted chicken. The surprising part where the prices though, €12 for a bagel with scrambled egg and bacon.
So we asked each other "what is so special about a bagel? It is literally a bread with a hole in it right?"
Time to open the interwebs and see what it's all about
The Bagel
Unique in its form and unlike any other piece fo bread. For me the bagel was synonymous with American culture, through the lens of film. The early 1900's backdrop of Brooklyn's iconic architecture with a small bagel shop tucked in.
In Paris you get a baguette, In New York they eat bagels.
But what is the bagel?
A definition of terms, then. A bagel is a round bread made of simple, elegant ingredients: high-gluten flour, salt, water, yeast and malt. Its dough is boiled, then baked, and the result should be a rich caramel color; it should not be pale and blond. A bagel should weigh four ounces or less and should make a slight cracking sound when you bite into it instead of a whoosh. A bagel should be eaten warm and, ideally, should be no more than four or five hours old when consumed. Ed Levine
The history of the bagel
The bagel's known history goes back at least a good six centuries, and, in practice, probably more than that. To fully understand the bagel we must go full circle and look towards the knowledge of Maria Balinska, the author of The Bagel: the Surprising History of a Modest Bread
Poland
Balinska first suggests the possibility that they came to Poland via Germany as part of a migration flow during the 14th century. At the time, pretzels were making their way out of their original home in the monasteries and being made into readily available feast day bread.
The German immigrants that were encouraged to come and build the Polish economy. The Germans per tradition brought their own bread, the pretzel. Slowly over time the German breads started transforming into a round hole with a hole in the middle, they called it "Obwarzanek"
The Queen Has Arrived
The early bagel, Obwarzanek gained ground when then Queen Jadwiga, the first female monarch of Poland
known for her charity chose to eat obwarzanek during Lent in favour of the more richly flavoured breads and pastries. This choice of ostentatious behaviour is along the lines of Marie Antoinette. Hameau de la Reine, a small village built for her majesty, where Marie Antoinette could "play" like a peasant.
At length I remembered the last resort of a great princess who, when told that the peasants had no bread, replied: "Then let them eat brioches."
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Queen Jadwiga although known for being down-to-earth. It wasn't unfortunately that cheap to produce an obwarzanek as white flour was a luxurious ingredient. Obwarzanek was primarily the province of princes, nobles, and men and women of means, but generally not for the poor. In today's standard it would be like saying "I am extreme conscious of the environment" while eating avocado non-stop. The perspective of consciousness is relative to one's own environment anyway
The Jewish Narrative
During the big stream of migration from Germany to Poland a lot of jews came into Poland. At that time jews were prohibited from baking bread. Due to the religious connection of bread, Jesus and the church. This holy trifecta caused the jews to be prohibited from selling bread commercially. But everything changed.. when the Golden Liberty arrived.
The Golden Liberty
The Golden Liberty or the Nobles' Democracy was a democracy that was in all its elements modern and has therefore many similarities with modern European / American society.
The szlachta citizens of the Commonwealth praised the right of resistance, the social contract, the liberty of the individual, the principle of government by consent, the value of self-reliance, all widespread concepts found in the modern, liberal democracies.
In today's society it wouldn't be considered as an equal society since you could only enjoy said privileges if you were nobility. But it was equal in the sense that all nobles could enjoy these privileges apart from economic status. In its purest, it was a libertarian system to enhance the noble individual out of the constraints of religion, ethnic group and linguistic origins.
Finally the Jews could bake their own bread. With the breakthrough moment in 1264, when the Polish Prince Boleslaw the Pious said "Jews may freely buy and sell and touch bread like Christians."
A symbol of poverty
The Polish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote in his 1969 memoir during a trip from Warsaw to Radzymin
"Sidewalk peddlers sold loaves of bread, baskets of bagels and rolls, smoked herring, hot peas, brown beans, apples, pears and plums."
While the bagel is now considered a street food back then it was more of a drastic way to earn a living if you had no other way. You would often find poor Jews on the street selling bagels.
With the rise of Jewish bakeries, it would become a hotspot for the Jewish community to discuss political ideas, dreams and visions. Ideas that were not even legal at that time such as socialism, communism, Zionism and anarchism. Predominantly left wing focused since the bakers worked in terrible conditions. Long hours, dark basements and physical straining work were the driving force between starting an union
After WWII
After the war many Eastern Europeans migrated to the U.S. to find a better life. They brought things with them that were local to them. Such as pastrami, blintzes and... bagels. These food have became synonymous with Jewish culture in the U.S. But it isn't truly Jewish but merely a reflection of the environment that the Jews grew up in.
Modernity
The past 100 years the bagel has lost its identity. When it moved out of its "home", New York Lower East Side, they became softer and sweeter, almost like a donut. Artisanal handicraft got eliminated by a faster machine, bagels were steamed rather than boiled and baked in a steel oven in favour of stone ovens. The bagel got the efficiency treatment for capital gains. Luckily there are still a lot of original bakers that you find in New York that stick to their artisanal craft
Eater has a list with the best bagel bakeries in NYC