I’m working with person who is argues that a “real” bagel can have chocolate chips.
I argue that chocolate-chip “bagels” have the same relevance to true bagels that Velveeta cheeze-like product have to, say, a true Cheddar.
With the single exception of cinnamon-rasin, I argue that if you can’t put lox on it, it’s not a bagel, it’s a chewy donut and leads inevitably to abominations such as <gag, retch> candy-cane “bagels” (peppermint flavored, red dyed dough braided in) or, even worse <choke> Froot Loop “bagels” (tutti-fruti bagels with crushed “Froot Loops” on top). I’ve actually seen these. The horror…
He argues that it’s chewey and bagel shaped, therefore it’s a bagel.
I respond “By your reasoning, birds have two legs, you have two legs, therefore you’re a turkey.”
(Engaging in a bit of jury-tampering, let me also point out that he proudly drowns his hot-dogs with ketchup.)
The specific question is: If it has chocolate chips, is it a bagel or a chewy donut? What do YOU think?
As a side question, is this a complete list of “real” bagels?:
Plain
Egg
Salt
Garlic
Onion
Poppy seed
Sesame seed
Rye
Wheat(maybe)
and, oddly, cinnamon-raisin
but it’s certainly strange. i’ve never heard of anything like that. I usually eat plain bagels with cream cheese, and occasionally butter and jam when the mood strikes me. chocolate plus bagel equals weird, but those other things you mentioned are abominations. candy cane? froot loops? bleh. i’ll pass.
I think the important distinction for a bagel is that the dough is boiled before it’s baked (that’s why they’re chewy). I figure you can put whatever you want in it, but if you think I’m gonna be eating a peppermint bagel, you might want to think again. I mean, I’d say they are bagels, but tacky. Like Velveeta, for example.
Hey, don’t forget potato bagels. With or without cracked peppercorn in it. Toast that puppy up, smear some garlic cream cheese on it, and I’d pay Einstein’s $10,000 for it just the same. Yum!!!
As for your question - yeah, anything that tries to make the bagel sweeter or more flavorful undeniably changes the character. Now it’s become more of a flavored bread item than an honest-to-YHWH bagel.
My criterion is: how good will kosher food taste on it?
For example: Would I put chopped liver on a peppermint bagel? Hell no. Ergo, it is not a bagel.
Would I do the same on a pumpernickel bagel? Yes, and even voluntarily convert to Orthodoxy for it. Ergo, it is a bagel.
That having been said, it’s pretty clear that Fenris’ list covers everything that should be considered a bagel. There are, however, exceptions to every rule, and cinnamon-raisin and asiago cheese bagels are those exceptions. You want blueberries, put 'em in your pancakes or waffles where they belong. Same with chocolate chips.
Chocolate chips have no business being in a bagel. Blueberries, however, are perfectly fine. It’s not like there’s a whole lot of a difference between a raisin and a blueberry anyway.
For the record, there are also marble bagels…a rye/pumpernickel combo that rocks if you can find them. But I suppose at the end of the day, it’s just a combination of two kinds that have already been named here.
Black Russian bagels. Really dark pumpernickel
with onion in it and sesame seeds on top. They
are made in the Bagel Stop in Bergenfield, New
Jersey and are in the top 5 of best things I
ever ate.
If someone wants to put pieces of broken glass into a bagel, it doesn’t cease to be a bagel. It just becomes nasty.
I tried an Orange/Mango bagel once. It was so disgustingly sticky that it couldn’t coexist in the same box or bag as any of the other bagels. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a bagel. It just means I’ll never buy one again.
If everything had to stay the way it was invented, you would be reading this message on a TRS-80 while your phone receiver was upside down on an acoustic coupler modem.
Do they do mail order? Bagels here on the Left Coast just don’t seem to cut it.
Oh, and cinnamon-raisin, chocolate-chip, and blueberry bagels are abominations before God Almighty. Let those who consume them along with their half-caf mochachinos hie their Beemer-driving butts to church to pray for their eternal souls.
I once ate at a Chinese restaurant that was so authentic, I was the only westerner in the place.
They had an aquarium where you could choose which fish you wanted them to cook for you.
I didn’t recognize the name of anything on the menu. I did my best to order something that didn’t sound too weird. I didn’t do a very good job. It was probably the best Chinese Food I had ever eaten, but I never would have known it.
I grew up on americanized Chinese food. That’s what I know. Egg Foo Young. Almond Chicken. Chow Mein for Heaven’s sake.(Which originally was no more than table scraps eaten by indigents)
Most of us didn’t grow up eating kosher. We never developed the jaw strength to enjoy a truly authentic bagel. If you know the difference, more power to you. But give us a break.
DavisMcDavis spanked this one on the rump with the comment about the boiling pryor to baking. Donuts are deep fried.
bagel (bâ´gel) noun
A glazed, ring-shaped roll with a tough, chewy texture, made from plain yeast dough that is dropped briefly into nearly boiling water and then baked.
[Yiddish beygl, from Middle High German *böugel, diminutive of bouc, ring, from Old High German boug.]
doughnut also donut (do´nùt´, -net) noun
A small ring-shaped cake made of rich, light dough that is fried in deep fat. Also called olicook.
I wouldn’t eat a bagel that wasn’t toasted first. In the future, I will skip the jalapeno-and-salsa cream cheese, though; too spicy to eat with hot coffee.
What the hell’s wrong with Einstein Brothers? (Please note that I was born a Texan, formerly a Methodist, who grew up in a small town in which there were no Jewish people at all. IOW, I came by my ignorance honestly.)
I bet that, years ago, people who had eaten plain bagels with plain cream cheese for years complained when they started making them with sesame seeds and poppy seeds and toasted onions and garlic and so forth. But those are acceptable now, aren’t they? I’ve also heard you can’t get a decent bagel outside of New York City because it’s the water that makes them so good. Having never been to NYC I cannot verify this.