Bagels are NOT MEANT to be toasted. In New York there are places that won’t toast a bagel for you even if you ask them to. Those are also the places that make the best, most authentic bagels BTW.
Nothing, if you don’t mind eating faux bagels.
(yes, I’m a bagel snob … so sue me! :))
I agree with the OP, except that I don’t understand why an exception is being made for the cinammon-raisin bagel. As others have said, if you can’t eat it with lox and cream cheese, it’s not a bagel.
It seems to me that the difference between doughnuts and bagels is in the preperation, not the ingredients (as in “boiled or fried”). That said, the only bagels I buy are onion. Toasted or not, don’t care. But it has to be onion, with regular plain cream cheese. The more the better.
My dear sir,
It is obvious to me that you have no idea of the long tradition of cinammmon-raisin bagels as a near-religous object to the Jewish people. The cinammon reminds of the sweetness of life and the raisins, of the fruits of our labors in Pharoah’s vinyards.
In addition, since boiling raisins only makes them a bit jucier, it fits the other half of the definition of a bagel.
(Aargh. I can’t go through with it. I made all that stuff up. The truth is…sob…it’s just that my mom likes them. I admit it! They’re not real bagels. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?)
Fenris, hanging his head in shame.
I worked in a GREAT deli in Haslett, Michigan(now with other sites in the Lansing area) and I developed the idea that a “real” bagel was fairly plain. Seeds and such on top were ok(I love a salt bagel) but blueberries, raisins, and other sweet stuff were not really authentic. This deli did have some like that because customers wanted them, but I didn’t eat them. And you may have jelly on top but cream cheese or butter(in a pinch) are the best. And a real bagel MUST be boiled, not steamed as in some of the chains. We had our bagels boiled!
But then that would reduce the bagel to nothing more than a “lox delivery system”.
A good bagel should stand on its own, and could be eaten…dare I say…plain, with nothing on it. In that sense, a properly made cinammon-raisin would qualify, especially for those of us who don’t enjoy lox.
Cool! I didn’t realize there was such serious Orthodox Bagelry! Once again, I’m a heretic. I once even ate a toasted Cran-Razz not-bagel with butter, washed down with decaf.
BTW, there is only one correct PB&J sandwich possible. It must be Jif and Smuckers Grape Jelly on Wonderbread. And do not cut off the crusts! Anything else is just a sad, New Age, crystal-rubbing, blasphemous rip-off of the true PB&J sandwich.
(Insert smiley here to inform readers that I am being sarcastic in a fun way)
Thank you! Now I feel fancy. : )
So you were lying? :eek: What is this message board coming to?
rundogrun, I am not saying that ever bagel needs to have lox and cream cheese on it, but the lox and cream cheese combination is the acid test for bagelity. And if you don’t enjoy lox, I believe that operant conditioning can take care of that little problem.
I hashed this out in college with some other Northeastern refugees. Our conclusions.
Every bagel with fruit in it is a glorfied donut, Except for cinnamon-raisin. Of course, C-R can hardly be considered a true bagel… but on the virtue of its long association with true bagels, we dubbed it:
The Bagel-in-law.
Or, (and I just thought of this) the Statutory Bagel.
“Savory bagels” (ie, vegetable, cheese, ::shudder:: jalapeno) are marginally less offensive, but a disturbing trend, nevertheless.
Anyone who steams a bagel should simply be ashamed of themselves. Especially if they’re serving them to goyim who don’t know any better.
What is authentic?
Pasta was brought to Italy from the Orient. So should we say that the only authentic way to eat pasta is in the original oriental manner?
The nature of humans is to find new ways to do things.
Blueberries in MY bagel do not in any way infringe on your plain bagel. In fact, by expanding the market and appealing to those of us who don’t know better, strange bagels mean more bagel shops. It means that when you are in Oklahoma, you have a choice other than a Lenders bagel from the freezer case.
Ummm…IMHO…Lender’s bagels of any variety should never be considered bagels. They do, however, make a mighty fine hockey puck.
You all can’t forget about the bagel’s first cousin, the bialy, a truer member of the bagel family than that barely tolerated, offbeat kinsman, tne cinnamon rasin (and I cannot consider blueberry, jalapeno, or ::shudder:: chocolate chip to be members of the family, just imposters trying to horn in on the bagel’s noble lineage).
For those who don’t know, the bialy is similar to a bagel, but it has an indentation on top (like the bagel’s hole, only going about half-way through), with onions baked into the indentiation. Without question, the bialy superbly passes the lox delivery system test.
Besides, lox delivery is not the only purpose to bagels and their kin. There is also the delivery of whitefish salad! MMMMMMMM . . . . Whitefish Salad.
If it is not being used for the delivery of lox or whitefish salad (optionally with one or more of the limited number of acceptable condiments: cream cheese, onions, tomatos, and capers), a bagel or bialy is not being used for its highest and truest purpose.
Bialys and lox or whitefish salad… ye gads, I always figured I was missing something! Bialys never did anything for me plain! Billdo, I thank thee from the bottom of my heart for enlightening me at long last as to the true purpose of a bialy. I thought it was some sort of Jewish penance device.
I’m reminded of a bit of doggerel regarding the city of Boston that got revised because of several Jewish families adopting the familial name of an old Boston clan. The original ran more or less thus:
And this is the city of Boston
The town of the bean and the cod
Where the Lodges speak only to Cabots
And the Cabots speak only to God.
The hazy, alcohol-influenced memory I command brings this factoid forth; that several Jewish families, seeking a standing within the old WASP community that counted itself among the founders of Beantown, changed their name to Cabot…
…where the Lodges don’t speak to the Cabots
For the Cabots are Jewish, by God!
So it kinda reminds me of these variations on the theme of the bagel, trying to claim the heritage while not being of that heritage.
Ah, who the hell knows? I’m soused on half a 12 of Eureka Red and it makes sense to me now. Tomorrow morning I’ll probably be ashamed I wrote this. Enjoy anyway if you’re so inclined.