# Bagels are meh... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 5, 2018, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833 "2018-09-05T20:54:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2018, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/41 "2018-09-06T22:00:56Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > I’m surprised nobody has yet mentioned the famous line: > “A bagel is a donut that’s been dipped in cement.” > > This description is both funny and completely accurate. From the Spike Jones version of “Yes, we Have no Bananas” from 1950, but I’m sure the joke is a lot older than that. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2018, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/42 "2018-09-06T22:09:05Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > If by “the New York area” you are being expansive and including Montreal, I agree. Otherwise, you are sadly mistaken. There are good bagels in LA also. Where I live Noah’s (the West Coast version of Einstein’s) is barely acceptable. The rest are awful. Rolls with a hole. The deli in the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco has good bialys, so I’d suspect that the store who supplies them would have good bagels also, but it is a bit far for me. Any food that becomes excessively popular goes to hell. I saw that happen with Cajun food - dishes sold as Cajun were 98% crap compared to what I ate in SW Louisiana before it became popular. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2018, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/43 "2018-09-06T22:51:10Z")
I’ve been to NYC many times and eaten bagels there at reputable shops. I’ve also eaten bagels here in Portland, most of which are sub-par, but some of which are every bit as good. I’ve also made them myself and had NY transplants tell me they’re excellent. You bagel snobs do know that there are people outside of NYC who can follow recipes, right? You must also be aware that people from NY actually move elsewhere and set up shop, right? And that whole notion about NYC water has been debunked many times over. When bagels are crap, it’s because of failure in the process, just like any other baked goods. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/44 "2018-09-07T00:36:35Z")
Those of us who enjoy the occasional bagel are hardly “snobs” on the subject. We are delighted to come across a good bagel in Chicago or Los Angeles or wherever, and will snarf it down with the best cream cheese and lox the city offers. That said, I have NEVER met a person who baked his own bagel. You got any plans for next Sunday morning? I make a VERY good Bloody Mary. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/45 "2018-09-07T01:39:40Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > It’s not just that. Malt syrup in the boiling water produces a shiny, brown, slightly crunchy crust. > > Another thing about bagels is that they must be fresh to be any good. They go stale faster than any other type of bread. A day-old Kaiser roll is fine, but a day-old bagel is like a lump of lead. A two-day-old bagel is like a brick. This is probably why many store-bought bagels are so unbagely; the manufacturers add things like fats to keep them from going stale as quickly, which also keeps them from being real bagels. I make bagels at home, and they double-rise, then are boiled, and then baked just long enough to brown them a little. I use malt extract in the sponge to help feed the yeast, but I hadn’t thought about putting malt syrup in the water to brown…I’ll give that a try! ---
**Author:** ![blob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blob/32/489_2.png) [@blob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blob)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/46 "2018-09-07T01:42:34Z")
aren’t they boiled in lye (or somesuch)? Guess who’s headed to the german bakery because of you all? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/47 "2018-09-07T01:50:56Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I’ve been to NYC many times and eaten bagels there at reputable shops. I’ve also eaten bagels here in Portland, most of which are sub-par, but some of which are every bit as good. I’ve also made them myself and had NY transplants tell me they’re excellent. You bagel snobs do know that there are people outside of NYC who can follow recipes, right? You must also be aware that people from NY actually move elsewhere and set up shop, right? And that whole notion about NYC water has been debunked many times over. When bagels are crap, it’s because of failure in the process, just like any other baked goods. I can buy that someone from NY could open a decent bagel shop, but around here most of the franchises got bought by people who must have no idea of what a good bagel looks like, since theirs are consistently bad. However since most of their customers don’t know what a good bagel looks like either, and uses them as sandwich bread, they stay in business. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/48 "2018-09-07T02:13:47Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > I make bagels at home, and they double-rise, then are boiled, and then baked just long enough to brown them a little. I use malt extract in the sponge to help feed the yeast, but I hadn’t thought about putting malt syrup in the water to brown…I’ll give that a try! Are you using non-diastatic malt? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/49 "2018-09-07T02:26:40Z")
A salt bagel with jalapeño/cheddar cream cheese is the fucking bomb. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/50 "2018-09-07T02:27:52Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Are you using non-diastatic malt? No, diastatic…non-diastatic won’t do anything useful for the yeast beasties. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/51 "2018-09-07T02:39:46Z")
> [@blob](#): > > aren’t they boiled in lye (or somesuch)? > > Guess who’s headed to the german bakery because of you all? Bakers do typically boil bagels in lye, but I don’t really like having lye around the house. I use baking soda instead, or if I’m feeling particularly ambitious, I will bake the baking soda to dry it out and make it more alkaline. But that’s a little too much work for me. One thing I should add is, I’m never 100% sure that I’m making the bagels right (at least per the recipe). Because I use such a yeasty dough, they come out of the oven as dense yeast rolls, and the family all lines up to eat them with butter. By the next day, however, all that gluten comes into play and they become incredibly dense, and really have to be toasted. Like I said, I’m not sure how it’s how they are supposed to come out, but we do like them. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/52 "2018-09-07T03:34:12Z")
You should use non-diastatic malt syrup in the boiling water. Diastatic malt has enzymes that convert starch to sugar. You don’t want that in the water bath. As for lye - that’s a trick that pretzel makers use to produce a shiny brown surface. I don’t know what effect it would have if you put lye in the bagel water. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/53 "2018-09-07T05:19:22Z")
I don’t really know great bagels, though the egregiously bad examples are obvious to me - but I do know one thing that bears on this discussion, and **Maserschmidt** just mentioned it (somewhat obliquely): Possessing a recipe for anything, even the finest and most detailed recipe describing all the “secrets of the pros” or what have you, doesn’t make me an expert judge of the results. If I make a recipe that’s new to me and by luck I get it pretty much right, I can usually figure out how it was supposed to turn out, and maybe even see ways to do it better next time. But if I don’t get it anywhere close to right the first time, I might never figure out where I went wrong - in fact, I might not even recognize that anything WAS wrong. I could easily think “Well, I guess that’s how it’s done”, when in fact I had missed the mark completely. I think that happens sometimes with bagels, when people decide to make them but have no access to hands-on training with someone who knows how, and/or have no great bagels nearby to emulate. (I also think perhaps some baking factories put out a round piece of bread with a hole in it and call it a bagel just because it’s faster and cheaper that way.) ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/54 "2018-09-07T22:49:28Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > You should use non-diastatic malt syrup in the boiling water. Diastatic malt has enzymes that convert starch to sugar. You don’t want that in the water bath. > > As for lye - that’s a trick that pretzel makers use to produce a shiny brown surface. I don’t know what effect it would have if you put lye in the bagel water. Not sure who you’re addressing the malt comment to, but I think all those points are implicit in the prior posts. Lye has the same effect on bagels. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2018, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/55 "2018-09-07T22:51:51Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > If by “the New York area” you are being expansive and including Montreal, I agree. Otherwise, you are sadly mistaken. I would say Montreal bagels are better than New York bagels. ---
**Author:** ![blob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blob/32/489_2.png) [@blob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blob)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2018, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833/56 "2018-09-08T00:57:16Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Bakers do typically boil bagels in lye, but I don’t really like having lye around the house. Yes, it seems pretty scary stuff. It isn’t something that I’d want to use. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bagels-are-meh/820833.md?page=2)