Bagel

A bagel (; ; also spelled beigel) is a bread roll originating in the Jewish communities of Poland. The basic roll-with-a-hole design, hundreds of years old, allows even cooking and baking of the dough; it also allows groups of bagels to be gathered on a string or dowel for handling, transportation, and retail display.

Bagel-like bread known as obwarzanek was common earlier in Poland as seen in royal family accounts from 1394. Bagels have been widely associated with Ashkenazi Jews since the 17th century; they were first mentioned in 1610 in Jewish community ordinances in Kraków, Poland.

Bagels are now a popular bread product in North America and Poland, especially in cities with a large Jewish population. An early mention of a boiled-then-baked ring-shaped bread can be found in a 13th-century Syrian cookbook.

The bagel may have been brought to Kraków by Bona Sforza, a woman from Bari, Italy, who became the Queen of Poland and Grand Duchess of Lithuania as the second wife of Sigismund the Old from 1518 to 1548. Linguist Leo Rosten notes in The Joys of Yiddish, that the first known mention of the Polish word derived from the Yiddish word in the "Community Regulations" occurs in Kraków in 1610, and that the food was given as a gift to women in childbirth.

In the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries, the became a staple of Polish cuisine. The name derives from the Yiddish word , from the German dialect word , meaning "ring" or "bracelet".

In the Brick Lane district and surrounding area of London, England, bagels (locally spelled "beigels") have been sold since the middle of the 19th century. They were often displayed in the windows of bakeries on vertical wooden dowels, up to a metre in length, on racks.

thumb|right|Bagels with [[cream cheese and lox (cured salmon) are considered a traditional part of American Jewish cuisine (colloquially known as "lox and a schmear").]]

Bagels were brought to the United States by immigrant Polish Jews, with a thriving business developing in New York City that was controlled for decades by Bagel Bakers Local 338. They had contracts with nearly all bagel bakeries in and around the city for its workers, who prepared all their bagels by hand. Murray also invented pre-slicing the bagel.

Around 1900, the "bagel brunch" became popular in New York City. The bagel brunch consists of a bagel topped with lox, cream cheese, capers, tomato, and red onion.

In Japan, the first kosher bagels were brought by from New York in 1989. BagelK created green tea, chocolate, maple-nut, and banana-nut flavors for the market in Japan. Some Japanese bagels, such as those sold by , are soft and sweet; others, such as Einstein Bros. bagels sold by Costco in Japan, are the same as in the U.S.

Size change over time

Bagels in the U.S. have increased in size over time. Starting at around , by 1915, the average bagel weighed ; the size began to increase further in the 1960s. Most bagel recipes call for the addition of a sweetener to the dough, often barley malt (syrup or crystals), honey, high fructose corn syrup, or sugar, with or without eggs, milk or butter. In commercial bagel production, the steam bagel process requires less labor, since bagels need only be directly handled once, at the shaping stage. Thereafter, the bagels need never be removed from their pans as they are refrigerated and then steam-baked. The steam bagel results in a fluffier, softer, less chewy product more akin to a finger roll that happens to be shaped like a bagel. The dough used is intentionally more alkaline to aid browning, because the steam injection process uses neutral water steam instead of an alkaline solution bath.

Bagels can be frozen for up to six months.

Quality

According to a 2012 Consumer Reports article, the ideal bagel should have a slightly crispy crust, a distinct "pull" when a piece is separated from the whole by biting or pinching, a chewy inside, and the flavor of bread freshly baked. The taste may be complemented by additions cooked on the bagel, such as onion, garlic, sesame seeds, or poppy seeds. The appeal of a bagel may change upon being toasted. Toasting can have the effect of bringing or removing desirable chewiness, softening the crust, and moderating off-flavors.

Traditionally New Yorkers do not toast bagels; they argue that if a bagel is well made and fresh it should never be toasted. Some New York City bagel shops, like Murray's in Chelsea and Ess-a-Bagel at 21st and Third Avenue, have had no-toasting policies.

A typical bagel has , 1.0–4.5 grams of fat, 330–660 milligrams of sodium, and 2–5 grams of fiber. Gluten-free bagels have much more fat, often 9 grams, because of ingredients in the dough to supplant the wheat flour of the original. The resulting bagel has a fluffy interior and a chewy crust. According to CNN, Brooklynites believe New York bagels are the best due to the quality of the local water. According to Brooklyn Water Bagels CEO Steven Fassberg, the characteristics of a New York bagel are the result of the recipe formula and preparation method. The St. Louis style bagels are sliced vertically multiple times, instead of the traditional single horizontal slice. This style of bagel was popularized by the St. Louis Bread Company, now known as Panera Bread.

Other bagel styles

Other bagel styles can be found elsewhere; Chicago-style bagels are baked with steam. American chef John Mitzewich has a recipe for what he calls San Francisco-style bagels which yields bagels flatter than New York-style bagels, characterized by a rough-textured crust. The traditional London bagel (or beigel as it is sometimes spelled and pronounced) is sweeter, chewier and has a denser texture.

In Austria, (often also spelled or in its diminutive form) are a traditional Lenten food. The rings are made from a yeasted dough, rolled out very thin and briefly boiled in salted water before topped with salt and caraway seeds and then baked. Depending on the region, they are sometimes baked to a very hard consistency, making them relatively brittle. Connected with it is the tradition of () at Easter where two people pull on opposite ends of a until it breaks into two pieces. Tearing off the larger piece is meant to bring good luck. In Vienna, Eastern Lower Austria and Burgenland, has taken on the meaning of certain types of kipferl.

Non-traditional doughs and types

While normally and traditionally made of yeasted wheat, in the late 20th century variations on the bagel flourished. Non-traditional versions that change the dough recipe include pumpernickel, rye, sourdough, bran, whole wheat, and multigrain. Other variations change the flavor of the dough, often using blueberry, salt, onion, garlic, egg, cinnamon, raisin, chocolate chip, cheese, or some combination of the above. Green bagels are sometimes created for St. Patrick's Day.

A flat bagel, known as a 'flagel', can be found in a few locations in and around New York City, Long Island, and Toronto. According to a review attributed to New York's Village Voice food critic Robert Seitsema, the flagel was first created by Brooklyn's 'Tasty Bagels' deli in the early 1990s.

Large scale commercial sales

United States supermarket sales

thumb|right|Mass-produced steamed bagel purchased from a grocery store.

According to the American Institute of Baking (AIB), 2008 supermarket sales (52-week period ending January 27, 2009) of the top eight leading commercial fresh (not frozen) bagel brands in the United States:

totaled to US$430,185,378 based on 142,669,901 package unit sales.
the top eight leading brand names for the above were (by order of sales): Thomas', Sara Lee, private label brands, Pepperidge Farm, Thomas Mini Squares, Lender's Bagels (Pinnacle Foods), Weight Watchers and The Alternative Bagel (Western Bagel).

The AIB reported US$626.9 million fresh bagel US supermarket sales (excluding Wal-Mart) for the 52 weeks ending 11 April 2012. Fresh/frozen supermarket sales (excluding Wal-Mart) for the 52 weeks ending 13 May 2012 was US$592.7 million. and sometimes also with milk.

In Italy, taralli and ' are breads similar to bagels.

In Turkey, a salty and fattier form is called açma. The ring-shaped simit is sometimes marketed today as a Turkish bagel. Archival sources show that the simit has been produced in Istanbul since 1525. Based on Üsküdar court records (Şer’iyye Sicili) dated 1593, the weight and price of simit was standardized for the first time. Noted 17th-century traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote that there were 70 simit bakeries in Istanbul during the 1630s.

Jean Brindesi's early 19th-century oil paintings about Istanbul daily life show simit sellers on the streets. Warwick Goble made an illustration of the simit sellers of Istanbul in 1906. Simit is very similar to the twisted sesame-sprinkled bagels pictured being sold in early 20th century Poland. Simit are also sold on the street in baskets or carts, as bagels were then.

The Uyghurs of Xinjiang, China enjoy girdeh nan (from Persian, meaning round bread), a type of nan, the local bread.

Another bagel-like type of bread is the traditional German Dortmunder Salzkuchen from the 19th century.

Ka'ak al-Quds (better known in English as the Jerusalem bagel) is an oblong ring bread, usually topped with sesame seeds, with its origins in Jerusalem. Unlike the bagel, it is not boiled prior to baking.

Cultural references

"Bagel" is also a Yeshivish term for sleeping 12 hours straight—e.g., "I slept a bagel last night." There are various opinions as to the origins of this term. It may be a reference to the fact that bagel dough has to "rest" for at least 12 hours between mixing and baking

"Bublichki or "Bagelach is a title of a famous Russian and Yiddish song written in Odesa in the 1920s. The Barry Sisters together with the Ziggy Elman Orchestra made it popular in the US in 1939. Today it belongs to the repertoire of klezmer, jazz and pop musicians.

The term "bageling" refers to when a Jew uses a Jewish word or phrase in a conversation, or in the vicinity of a stranger who is also clearly Jewish, in order to inform them that they are also Jewish.

The bagel is a major plot device in the 2022 science-fiction film Everything Everywhere All at Once.