08/01/2007

The Bagel Only Looks Like a Doughnut
By Tom Range, Sr.

Though originally having the reputation of being little more than an ethnic, or more specifically Jewish, delicacy the bagel has achieved universal recognition as its fostering culture, originally in East Coast cities, spread countrywide.  It also went international because as Americans traveled overseas for pleasure, business or on military assignments, their affinity for the bagel soon followed them.

One celebrity, songwriter Barry Manilow, even named his beagle, "Bagel."

A favored folktale for the origin of the bagel is that this bakery treat was created by an Austrian baker who fashioned leavened dough in the shape of a stirrup of a horse's saddle.  This confection was presented in 1683 to Jan Sobieski, King of Poland.  The king, a renowned horseman, had saved the people of Austria from an onslaught by Turkish invaders.  The Austrian word for stirrup is "beugel." 

The bagel, as it came to be known, travelled to America with the emigrants from the cities of Europe, many of them of Jewish heritage.  In the 1880s thousands of Eastern European Jews arrived in North America, bringing with them their taste for bagels.  Soon bagels became closely associated with major cities like New York, Chicago and Montreal and local bakeries began producing these bread products.  As the allure of the bagel spread so did the variety of their embellishments and their toppings.  At first the bagel, now doughnut-shaped, came either plain or with a poppy seed topping or with sesame seeds.  Bagels were often hawked on city streets with vendors using the bagel's hole-in-the-middle shape to their advantage by threading them onto dowels mounted on wicker baskets atop the pushcarts.

A marriage made in heaven occurred when the bagel was introduced to cream cheese.  Served with a "schmeer" of cream cheese, at first the "Philadelphia" brand and later in 1920 with "Breakstone," the bagel was taken to the next level. Soon tissue-thin slices of lox or Nova Scotia salmon (novy), spread between a sliced bagel lathered with a generous schmeer of Philadelphia was the ultimate "nosh." 

In 1907 a union just for bagel bakers was formed, the International Bakers Union, with 300 members.  In 1915 the Bagel Bakers Local #338 was formed in New York City.  Its membership was limited to sons of its members.  At the time, it was probably easier to get into medical school than to get an apprenticeship in one of the 36 union bagel shops in New York and neighboring New Jersey.

Before the introduction of bagel making machines in the 1960s, the bakers usually worked in teams of four.  Two formed the bagels, one baked and a "kettleman" was in charge of boiling the bagels.  The boiling process makes the bagel unique among other breads.  By being boiled before it is baked, it provides chewiness instead of brittle crumbs.  The yeasted dough was shaped into rings, allowed to rise, and then tossed into vigorously boiling water for a few seconds.  Then it was baked, with the prior boiling creating the chewy texture.  The four-man team earned 19 cents a box of bagels, each box containing 64 bagels.  An expert team could make 100 boxes a night.

Bagel making machines were introduced in the early 1960s.  Some models can form 2,100 bagels an hour that are introduced into the boiling-baking process, which can extend into about an hour for the completed process.  The boiling process takes about 30 seconds.  Urban legend has it that New York City water is the best in quality in which to boil the bagels, originating as it does in spring fed reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains and transported in New York City by a system of enclosed viaducts. 

Modern tastes dictated the introduction of flavoring and special treats into the dough. Now bagels can be found containing cinnamon, raisins, various cheeses, imbedded with apple slices, blueberries and, yes, even spinach bits.  But for the purist, a bagel with just butter or with cream cheese and lox is the ultimate.