It’s National Bagel Day! Bagels originated in the Jewish communities of Poland and were brought to the United States by immigrants. The “roll-with-a-hole” design is hundreds of years old and allows for even cooking and baking of the dough.
For many years, New York City’s bagel shops were controlled by the Bagel Bakers Local 338 trade union. It was established by 300 bagel bakers in Manhattan, establishing standards for hand-making bagels and mandating that new spots in the union go only to sons of existing members. All of the members were Jewish and meetings were conducted in Yiddish. The union’s monopoly broke up only in the 1960s, due to the invention of the automatic baking machine.
There are different styles of bagels. New York-style bagels contain malt, are cold-fermented for several days to develop the flavors and enhance the crust, and are boiled in salted water before baking in a standard oven. If you find yourself in a New York City bagel shop, don’t ask for your bagel toasted! It’s considered sacrilege, as most New Yorkers feel that if a bagel is well-made and fresh, it shouldn’t need toasting. There are also Montreal-style bagels, which are smaller, thinner, sweeter, and denser. They’re boiled in honey-sweetened water before being baked in a wood-fired oven. St. Louis also has its own style of bagels, though it’s not about how they’re made but rather how they’re cut. St. Louis-style bagels are sliced vertically multiple times, instead of in half horizontally.
The world’s largest bagel weighed 868 pounds and was made by Bruegger’s Bagels and displayed at the New York State Fair in 2004.