Kesher Talk

Ladies and gentlemen: the bagel. Living in Austin for 10 years taught me to appreciate real bagels when I can find them. As a New Yorker, Ed Levine understands one of my pet peeves:

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.

All else is not a bagel.

Ed gets that

the large doughy orbs that many New Yorkers have come to think of, incorrectly, as "good bagels"

are not. A real bagel is small and chewy, with a hard crust. A real bagel is not made with dried fruit, jalapenos, nuts, curry spices, or other ethnically syncretic abominations. Coated with poppy seeds, onion, garlic, or salt, or made with pumpernickel flour - authentic Ashkenazic flavors - yes. Maybe even sesame seeds. But anything else is a muffin, not a bagel.

(via Oxblog, properly brought-up young men all well-versed in true native foodways of New York)

UPDATE: Ilyka responds with her own memories of inappropriate bagels.

UPDATE: Gary agrees for the most part, although in his view the author doesn't understand the fine distinctions between Nova and lox.

posted by Judith @ 1/04/2004 01:49:00 PM