Here's an excerpt from a paper we wrote which rated bagels available on the west coast of North America from San Diego to Vancouver:

A proper bagel is fresh, large and has the correct texture. That is, it has a hard crust and a very chewy inside and eating one should pose a threat to your dental work. This is normally achieved by boiling the bagels prior to baking and by using high gluten flour. "State of the art" bagelries inject steam into the oven to get a similar but inferior effect which is considerably cheaper to produce. The best bagels are still produced by hand and boiled before baking. If you don't see armies of people doing hand work in the kitchen, go somewhere else.

Traditionally, bagels can be plain (or water), egg, garlic, salt, onion, rye, poppy seed, or sesame seed. Non-Jewish flavors introduced recently include cinnamon-raisin, whole wheat, pizza, cheese, jalapeno, apple-raisin, bran, and blueberry. These "designer flavors" are to be detested!

Bagel prices range from about $3.00 per dozen to about $6.00 per dozen. It is theoretically possible to buy less than a dozen but why would you? Price is not necessarily an indicator of quality. If you buy more than you can eat today (several dozen, for example) ask for free freezer bags. Bagels will keep for weeks in the freezer unless eaten. Thirty seconds in the microwave will restore them to life and you can then toast them (or not). Never put warm bagels into freezer bags because moisture will condense on the inside of the bag and the bagels will become wet.

Bagels can be eaten whole (especially if they are still warm from the oven) or they can be sliced in half horizontally. Slicing them vertically is considered bad form and is a sure sign of a novice. If you have sliced the bagel correctly, you should be able to make a sandwich out of the two halves. After toasting, they should be slathered with butter, margarine, or (preferably) cream cheese. Don't spread hummus, peanut butter or jelly on them or you'll be drummed out of the corps.

What the ratings mean:

One bagel - round bread, only the shape is correct

Two bagels - What you find in Safeway's in-store bakery

Three bagels - Beginning to approximate a real bagel. Typical of automated factories.

Four bagels - Close but definitely lacking in flavor, texture or size

Five bagels - A culinary masterpiece ready for the Olympic bagel competition

Only west coast bagels have been considered in this study. In Chicago, Miami, and (especially) New York the ratings extend to six, seven or even eight bagels.

Our daughter brought us genuine, honest-to-God, New York bagels. We cut one in half and put it in our toaster oven. Now when our toaster oven is finished, it not only turns off and opens, but the rack moves out and up towards you as if it is proudly serving its results to you. However, it could not lift this bagel! Our toaster oven developed a hernia and we had to take it to the small appliance hospital for treatment. It is expected to recover but let this be a lesson.

Bev and Jerry