Nothing wrong with day-old bagels - if you toast them.
How about 5+ day old?
Or (crikey) 2 weeks old?
(the top right square in Tesco product images indicates expected shelf life)
Proper bagel constructions is eaten open-topped, with cream cheese, lox, a slice of tomato, capers, and a bit of red onion. Use of bagels in a sandwich is limited to fast food joints.
But I digress.
English muffins are slightly silimar to a crumpet.
Yeah, they’re visually reminiscent but pretty different.
I’ve always thought they were an attempt to copy a crumpet (hence the name).
Yep, there’s a longtime crumpet shop here. There’s not too much similar about the taste. English muffins have a lot more going on.
I’m of the opinion that no supermarket is willing to spend the time to do bagels right. With the only exception being some actually in New York (I remember a Price Chopper in Colonie that had a massive kosher section including a kosher bakery that made great bagels). They’re either too hard or they haven’t been boiled at all and wind up being more like a roll with a hole in them.
McDonald’s steak bagel sandwich was a pretty solid breakfast. It was discontinued for years but I think they recently brought it back.
agree, McD had steak with bagel, muffin and biscuit I loved them
This is why I think the muffins we have here in England are different from the English Muffins in the USA - the only thing muffins and crumpets really have in common here is their diameter.
Crumpets, here, are like a thick, somewhat-rubbery pancake with a very porous, bubbly texture.
Muffins, here, are somewhat dense white bread inside - like the heel of a white loaf.
I wish I’d tried one when I visited the US now. Is there somewhere special you have to get them?
My parents used to fry eggs to the definition of ‘over easy’ given above, but its far from the normal offering here. Usually 'you’ll take what you’re given and like it" is the default standard.
In answer to the OP, they are popular enough that most people know of them, and most supermarkets sell them, but I’d say they are far from a breakfast staple.
In my own personal case, I occasionally buy sweet (cinnamon) bagels, and I will just have them toasted with a little butter, just as a snack. I have never bought savory bagels with an intention of putting fillings inside.
Same here in Canada. Great with butter and maple syrup!
In Quebec City I was told the French word for that was “miroir”.
I can’t speak for all places in the USA yet even ten years out I would love a bagel from Forest Hills in Queens, NYC. Even the Bagel Shop out by my Mom on Long Island is good. Yet it, and likely most of them close at 1PM. That’ll have been over 8 hours since they started making them and they’ll have sold all they made by then.
Here in the UK most markets sell stuff like New York Bagels. Nuh uh, maybe if they got out a pen like Lionel Hutz and called them New, York Bagels that would be more accurate. And perhaps due to the Egg McMuffin what Americans would call English Muffins are catching on. The Waitrose near me sells a croissant that is very much donut like. I missed the “kronut” “cronut?” craze in the USA yet if they were like this it’d be worth standing in line for. Best get them early - they will be sold out way before closing time.
In my experience, you need to go to an actual bagel shop to get a decent bagel, meaning a shop that makes them fresh daily, where the bagels are what the customers are coming for. Those kinds of shops are usually sold out by like 11am and close soon after. So stay away even from nice cafes or breakfast-type restaurants because the bagels those places use will probably be like the terrible, mass-produced, preservative-pumped, bagels you get at a grocery store.
It’s pronounced “baggle.”
Cite: Britta, who lived in New York.
edit
and I see I got ninja’d by a few minutes on my previous post but the window to edit was already over
There’s a bagel chain in the UK called Bagel Factory. They usually occupy smaller units in train stations and shopping centres.
Good options you’ll find in most of America are a number of chains like Einstein Brothers, Panera, and Bruegger’s. Bigger cities might have local bakers as well, sometimes in places you might not expect. There’s a very good local shop inside the lobby of the Jewish community center where I am, for example.