BS: Bagels

Subject: BS: Bagels
From: Dazbo
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 09:53 AM

What's the point of bagels? What use is a bun with a hole through the middle - everything falls through it.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Scrump
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 09:58 AM

Ah, but you pay extra for the hole. Think of how less fattening it is for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 10:11 AM

I've tried to get into the spirit of bagels - people tell me they're delicious with this, that or the other on. I've tried various things but they just seem bland. Am I buying the wrong ones or am I doing something else wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Dazbo
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 10:12 AM

Perhaps you can buy the part of the bun removed to make a bagel like you can with polos.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Scrump
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 10:17 AM

I don't like the holes - they're the blandest part.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Gizmo
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 10:21 AM

Most bagels you buy in the shop need to be reheated before eaten. I highly recommend slicing them in half then put them in the toaster.

While they heat, I cut some goats cheese, and some spring onions, and find the jar of mayonnaise.

When cooked/burnt I then smother it with mayonnaise cheese and spring onions.

I don't buy the plain ones, I get the raisin and cinnamon ones.

The plain ones are pointless waste of space. Especially the bit in the middle.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: bobad
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 10:31 AM

There are bagels and then there are BAGELS. Any true connoisseur of the bagel knows that the holy grail of bagels is the Montreal bagel.
As a young lad I recall vendors displaying their bagels strung up through the holes.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 10:38 AM

For breakfast, I love cranberry bagels, toasted and spread with peanut butter.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 10:38 AM

Bagel bakers have a dilemma, whether to have a large hole or a small hole in their wares. Those who favor larger holes point out that it takes too much dough to fill the hole, whilst those, contrarywise, favoring small holes, contend that it takes too much dough to go around a larger hole. 'Tis a puzzlement.
BTW, there are only two types of real bagels, egg or plain...all the others are just fancy, circular breads for yuppies and gen-xers.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 10:40 AM

Quiz for you tennis afficienado folkies. Which tennis pros were known as the 'bagelboys?'

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: EBarnacle
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 11:35 AM

Not at all, the best traditional bagel makers are still Kossar's, on Grand Street on the Lower East Side in NYC. They make only plain, onion and garlic. They are most famous, of course, for their bialies and onion disks [aka plaetzels].

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: RangerSteve
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 12:26 PM

It's apparently very easy to make a bad bagel. I've found that the further you get from New York City, the worse they get, unless you can find a Jewish bagel store.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 12:32 PM

The concensus seems to suggest that the best bagels are made in the US.....What about those exceptional ones they make in Israel?

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 12:57 PM

If a bagel didn't have the hole, to lessen the distance that the heat must penetrate to cook evenly all the way through during both the boiling and the baking, it would be a mass of raw yeasty putty in the center¹ - - - or would have a such a hard shell² it would require paving tools to break it open - - -

unless it was made so thin that it would be a Tortilla.

It is quietly rumored that some "commercial producers" omit the boiling. A young Jewish classmate explained, many years ago, that one should not openly accuse them of this, as a sacrilege of this order would demand a public stoning - - - hence it should be left unsaid.

¹ A "chewy" center is favored by many, but in a mediocre bagel it's common to find the center almost completely uncooked. People who've never had a proper bagel may develop a liking for the raw yeast flavor and tile grout texture.

² An excessively hard "shell" renders the product unfit for much of anything other than crushing for use as road gravel. Some like at least a "skin," but in families where there are elders lacking teeth a separate cooking of "soft-shells" may be appropriate.

Most commercial bagels should just be called donuts.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Bill D
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 01:02 PM

I was informed the other day that real, traditional bagels are hard to find outside of New York, and that they are hard to chew.

I guess I prefer less traditional ones. Old teeth complain.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: fat B****rd
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 02:34 PM

Lox !! Are you still with us ?????

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Bee
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 02:39 PM

I made egg bagels once. It was an onerous process, with the boiling, etc., but they were exceptionally good.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: RangerSteve
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 03:05 PM

Georgiansilver - I'm sure the Israeli bagels are exceptional, but we're being practical here. A trip to Israel for bagels is a little bit extravagant.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 03:20 PM

Yes O.K would grant you that Steve but do people travel all over the US trying bagels to decide which are best?

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 03:25 PM

Bagels. I love 'em!

During the four+ years I worked at Boeing (sometimes referred to as Bill's Little Kite Factory), I discovered the hard way (Tums, Rolaids, Mylanta) not to get involved with the food service they had contracted. So I was "brown-bagging" it.

When I was making my lunches the night before (I had to drive thirty miles up the road and clock in at 7:00 a.m.—and that's just unnatural!), I discovered a number of happy combinations. One was that I got one of these small pre-cooked canned hams. I would split a couple of bagels, lather the bottom part with some good mustard and put a nice, thick slice of ham on it, then maybe add a slice of cheese, or a slice of onion, or both, and top it with the other half. Yummo!!

The fellow sitting at the drawing table next to mine was of the Jewish persuasion. When I noticed what I was eating, he commented, "Ham on a bagel!?? Firth, God's gonna get you for that!"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Rasener
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 03:26 PM

I love bagels. I slice them in half and put them in the toaster.
When they are done, I slap flora on them whilst they are stil hot and let soke into the bagel.
Then I put Marmite on (Not too much - just enough to give it a nice flavour). They are lovely like that.

Another lovely one is to put the flora on, then put a slice of grilled bacon on then cold baked beans, then grilled tomatoes and finally a fried egg. It is a meal in a million.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Maryrrf
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 04:04 PM

I agree with RangerSteve - I have never found really good bagels outside of New York City or the immediate vicinity. I don't really know why, just that they don't seem to taste the same, or have the same consistency and texture.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Bee
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 05:47 PM

Villan, here I would expect flora in this context to be, say, lettuce and other edible vegetation, but such things wouldn't soak in, so, is flora some kind of foreign margarine?

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 05:51 PM

Flora is a low fat margarine.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 05:59 PM

It used to be that the only place worth getting bagels was in Brooklyn. There are now several good bagel bakeries in Maine now, my favorite being Mr. Bagel, and I have to admit to being partial to sesame or poppy bagels, with lox spread.

I get them split and toasted unless they are fresh out of the oven. At home I mist them with water, and set the oven for 350 and take them out when the oven cycles off.

Charley Noble, who likes a slight crust

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Bee
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 06:13 PM

For a brief and blissful interlude, there was a little cafe in Halifax which served very good bagels, and had hired a very good young lunch hour chef who had no idea how much smoked Nova Scotia salmon is worth. He would slather your lightly toasted bagel with cream cheese, apply about an inch and a half of thinly sliced salmon, artfully apply a few sweet onion slices and sell it for the same price as a tomato sandwich. I ate there about three times a week until the owner realised what was up with the popularity of that bit of bagelry.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: bobad
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 06:45 PM

You NY bagel enthusiasts aren't listening to me, here's another opinion:

Montreal Vs. New York City I: The Bagel
"'Do you want a cinnamon-raisin bagel?' That's not a bagel, that's a doughnut made of bread!" - Lea DeLaria

New York is a great city. It has great theatre (translation: theater), great music, great food, and has at least 99% less French people than Montreal. New York City, however, knows bupkis about bagels.
New York is a great city. It has great theatre(translation: theater), great music, great food, and has at least 99% less French people than Montreal. New York City, however, knows bupkis about bagels. While New York bagels are basically circular bread, Montreal bagels are ethereal rounds of sweet and chewy dough. Montreal bagels contain no salt and are boiled, prior to baking, in honey-sweetened water. Most New York style bagels contain salt, are boiled in plain water, and some can't even claim that. If you've never had a Montreal style bagel, then you've never eaten a bagel. If you're dying to try a real Montreal bagel, then you really need to board a plane and get your butt to Montreal, since there is nothing that compares to getting them right as they come out of the oven, still so warm that they have to be put in paper bags, since plastic bags would melt. Remember to buy a few extra for the car ride home. If that really isn't an option, you can order them online from the best bagel place in all the land, St. Viateur.

http://www.tarflies.com/article.php?_f=detail&id=708&tarfly=64cbfd2d31ccb6ee5c5ff85f5555f6fc

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 07:31 PM

"Most commercial bagels should just be called donuts."
True, TRue, TRUE!

Answer to "Who were the Bagel Boys in Tennis": Eddie Dibbs and Harold Solomon, a couple of Jewish players on the tour in the early/mid 1970s, often as a doubles team.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: frogprince
Date: 06 Feb 07 - 08:53 PM

"lightly toasted bagel with cream cheese, apply about an inch and a half of thinly sliced salmon, artfully apply a few sweet onion slices"

You mean there are other ways besides that to eat bagels? (said Dean, drooling): )

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 05:06 PM

Screw Montreal and their bagels! Awful stuff. They do not compare to the great taste of New York bagels. The crap in Montreal is more cake-like. Honey-sweetened water? Give me a break!   That is not the way to make a bagel.

Salt helps strengthen the dough and bring out the flavor.

Montreal bagels are basically good for plugging up the holes in the pavement.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 05:15 PM

I like bacon bagels, but I'm never sure whether it's OK asking for them.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: bobad
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 05:27 PM

"Screw Montreal and their bagels!"

OK Ron, them's fighting words - this calls for a showdown - uh I think it's already been done, I'll look for the results and post them as soon as I find them.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 05:35 PM

Just to clarify - what EXACTLY has already been done - the showdown or the, um, reproductive act involving Montreal and its bagels?

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 05:36 PM

I used to frequent the Brick Lane Market of a Sunday morning, in east London. We'd get off the tube at Whitechapel, walk down the road to Grodzinski's bakery and get bagels fresh out of the oven. The lady would slice them and slap in so much butter it was running down your arm before you got to the beginning of the market. I remember them as being soft and chewy, with a yeasty flavour that was only enhanced by the pound or so of melted butter. Two would last half the length of the market and discourage me from buying more tutt than strictly necessary. Taking money out of my purse would have meant putting the bagel down, something I was very loth to do!

Alas, Grodzinski's is no more and I've never had a bagel that good since.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Scrump
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 05:53 PM

LTS - there's a good bagel shop in Middlesex St nearby. I forget the name for the moment. Maybe a Google would find it?

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 05:53 PM

Darned good bagels available in Seattle. It depends more on who made them and where you buy them than it does on the plot of land they come from (e.g. New York, Chicago, or Flathead Lake, Montana. . . .)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 06:22 PM

Methinks the 'right' bagel, like the 'right' hot dog, or Pizza, or sausage, is just a matter of what you tasted first or grew up with. ANYTHING can be improved on, and chewey or hard or flavored is just subjective.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: bobad
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 06:33 PM

OK Ron theses are from unselected Google hits, you are in tough.

"I'm curious if the Montreal bagels are more like what the NY bagels used to be, and is now in contrast better because the NY bagels these days have evolved into tasteless fluffy doughy things?

Or are Montreal bagels different from even the good old fashion NY bagels?"

"Montreal bagels are a different creature altogether. First off, they are thinner, more bialy than bagel. Second, a Montreal bagel comes coated in sesames as a default. Plain is not the status quo, and if you want it naked you must specify. Also, they are chewier and sweeter, almost to the point where, if you bought one hot and fresh from, say, Fairmount Bagels (St. Urbain and Fairmount), it's almost dessert-like. Because of its more interesting texture (denser, twistier dough) and the ubiquitous sesame seed, a Montreal bagel is much better eaten plain than a New York bagel. If you ask me, and both can be loved for their unique virtues. I would choose Fairmount for enjoying au natural and H&H for slathering in shmear."

"Montreal bagels are worth defending though, as I do think they're better than anything I've had in NYC. They're pretty different though, which can make comparison tricky."

"It's all about the bagel spot on Fairmount, which oddly enough is called "Fairmount Bagels"...
I personally enjoy the bagels in both cities. They are completely different. In NY you got those massive, thick bagels with the whole brick of creme cheese in there, which is totally different than Montreal bagels. "


"new york style bagels? those poofy things? pffttt! what you want are montreal style bagels. they are the bomb!
• Posted by: heather on Sep 18, 2003, 1:52 PM "

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 06:36 PM

"Flora is a low fat margarine."

How can you have a 'low-fat' fat?

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: bobad
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 06:43 PM

"How can you have a 'low-fat' fat?"

Cut it with water.

And Bill, you are being too rational on this topic, everyone knows that matters of taste are based on anything but reason.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 06:54 PM

Bodad: I guess--from seeing yur first post--that Montreal bagels must be bad for the digestions and repeat on you---since you had that symptom there.

            Now for something truly bad---try Dunkin Donuts alleged bagels.   

          Myself--I find them harsh on the tummy---but given options I would take a Poppy Seed one so I can then test positive for narcotics. Actually, I do like the flavor. But, give me a good croissant anytime---hard to find a good one---just like a good bagel.

          As to tennis. What do you think they call a 6-0 score where I play--for the losers?   Perhaps it is universal---I know not.

          As to the holes. Dunkin donuts has figured out what to do with their donut holes. You have to admit that blob they call Munchkins was a great advertising ploy.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: artbrooks
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 07:27 PM

The Einstein chain does a decent bagel...except their bagel sandwich includes capers (yetch!) as well as lox and cream cheese (which they call a "schmeer"). Onion bagels, of course, lightly toasted, with some onion on top, eaten open-faced.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 07:30 PM

"And Bill, you are being too rational on this topic,"

of course....my TASTE is to be rational! ;^)

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 08:45 PM

Ah, yes, bagels mit schmeer. To die for--hopefully not.
Schmeer is also a Yiddish colloquialism for a tip or graft, as in, "I told you we'd get a better table if you schmeered the head waiter."

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: bobad
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 08:49 PM

A little vigorish never hurt anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 09:47 PM

You fail to give us a source for your findings. My guess that it appears in stories about Montreal.

Montreal bagels suck. Lets not mince words. They are pretenders to the throne. People in Montreal must be used to bad food if they think their bagels can compare to the real thing. Is it the cold weather that causes this problem?? I had them from the Farimont when I was in Montreal for the Folk Alliance a couple of years ago. They tasted like stale cake. Awful stuff.   A good bagel from a proper bagel shop in NYC beats them hands down. Even H&H, which has become more of chain store, still makes a decent bagel.

And don't get me started on that dogfood you call "smoked meat". It is a cross between deli and BBQ and tastes like... well, I won't use those words.

Other than that... I love Montreal.

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: EBarnacle
Date: 07 Feb 07 - 11:04 PM

Charley, Jennifer has taken me to Mr. Bagel. Close but no cigar. They were initially hideous but improved significantly about 10 or 15 years ago when they brought in a bagel baker from NY. Maybe it's the water?

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Scrump
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 08:11 AM

I remember! The bagel shop I'm thinking of is Kossoff's, 91 Middlesex Street - delicious bagels there.

[drool]

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 08:56 AM

I've just been past there. I often get a salt beef beigel there. I say beigel (prounounced b-eye-gl) as that's the traditional East End spelling (although sometimes the second e was dropped). We also have platzels although I wouldn't have said they had anything to do with onions, more of a beigel with poppyseeds but less sweet?

Subject: RE: BS: Bagels
From: Lox
Date: 08 Feb 07 - 09:06 AM

Eh what? what's all this then?

Harrumph!

You're bringing back memories of JennyO

O heartbreak!

Hiya Fat B*****d