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Back in the early-to-mid 1980s, Izzy's of Cincinatti tried an expansion. They opened a store on Broad at High St. in Columbus across from Ohio's capital building. This was where I learned how they took a commercial block of Philly cream cheese and sliced it 1/4" thick all the way down. Whatever bagel you ordered to-go was toasted, one of these slices inserted in-between, then it was wrapped in wax paper and foil. A few minutes later, on the bus to college when I opened the wrappers, the cream cheese would be melted, making a sloppy but satisfying mess when I bit down on the crunchy, steamy-hot bagel that was still soft on the inside.

My favorite bagel is an egg bagel, toasted well but not burnt, still soft on the inside, with a green olive cream cheese.

I like plain or everything bagels (I guess I don't like the middle ground when it comes to bagels), with a little cream cheese (I agree -- just a schmear) and slices of tomato, red onion and cucumber.

My rule is that if I have to toast it, I should select another vehicle for my butter. But then, I live in NYC and have the luxury of fresh, hot bagels at every turn.

I whole-heartedly agree. A fresh warm bagel needs nothing other than one's favorite cream cheese (and I'm a purist, so that's it for me except for maybe when tomatoes are in season). Same goes for the nova, thought I have a hard time finding anywhere that slices it thin enough for my tastes.

Agree completely - fresh bagels don't need toasting.

For me, it's usually scallion cream cheese. However, my favorite Bagel place in NJ shut down this year - couldn't survive with the seasonal business at the shore I guess - and I am still going through withdrawal for their bacon-horseradish and spinach-garlic cream cheeses.

One other thing - Bagels are supposed to be savory things, not sweet. Blueberry bagels are an

(I'm also a purist about pizza, which must not use pineapple.)

toasted with a thin slice of liverwurst melted swiss and good brown spicy mustard. that said, I havent had a bagel in years, they only make pseudo bagels in my area of the south.

Forget the salmon and cheese - have a proper East London beigel loaded with thickly sliced hot salt beef and hot, sweet mustard.

We do not have such great bagels in the is area. Although I can find them in my travels. I like my bagel with cream cheese. Hubby likes his with butter. I am a fish and bagel person I also like a little whitefish or nova.
When I want a bagel I make them.

Thank you all: Inspired by this post, I sent my 14-year-old to Zabar's to pick up 1) sliced Nova, 2) sesame seed bagels, and 3) a red onion. Just added cream cheese from our fridge, and.... Heaven.

Awww man, after reading this I left to walk over to Russ & Daughters...but as luck would have it, they're closed today! I'll have to make do with drooling over your descriptions. I completely concur with you on the toasted part! :) As for just a schmear? yes! It's scary how much cream cheese they pile on at Murray's...

I'm frighteningly particular about the way I eat my bagels, so I was oh so pleased to see this post ;-).

When I lived in NYC and would stop at a REAL bagel place on the way to work, I'd get a whole poppy, uncut, no schmear, steaming warm from the oven. Then I'd break off bites and fold them inside out, so the crust was on the inside and the fluffy dough was on the outside. Why? I don't know, I just did. But that only works with NY bagels.

Here, in CA, I do have to toast my bagels. I'm down to half a bagel, so which half I toast depends on my mood and the bagel formation on a particular day (if you think I'm kidding, ask my husband . . . he's such a good man that he asks me each morning which half I'd like). Then I put a shmear of cream cheese on the plate next to the toasted half bagel and pull off a bite at a time, spreading the cream cheese on the bite just before popping it in my mouth. Why? Because I find if I shmear the whole half while it's warm, it just sort of melts into the bagel.

I'm not as neurotic as I sound. I swear.

Dee - i want a 14 year old who will do bagel runs to Zabars for me. Is he on loan? :-D

Thanx Ed and all the commenters for all the interesting bagel experiences shared here.
I live in the midwest, and can rarely experience a real NY bagel. I have to travel to some remote bakery to find a barely passable excuse for a wonderful classic. I simply refuse to have another Dunkin Donut or supermarket blah. How I long for a FRESH PLAIN or POPPY SEED w/creme cheese and properly sliced LOX !!!! Fellow foodies do weep for me :-(

Ed, your rules, as printed in the NYTimes, are dead-on. Bagels in this country were ruined first by Bagel Nosh, which introduced the concept that a bagel could be a sandwich bread, and it's been downhill ever since.

When I was a little girl in Michigan in the 1960s, we used to drive 90 miles to Detroit, to get bags and bags of bagels from a great bagel bakery right next to Dexter-Davison's. We'd get them fresh out of the oven, and they'd steam up the windows of our station wagon--and each of us kids got to eat a fresh, warm bagel on the trip home. Those were bagels that knew how to fight back when bitten!

Here in NYC, there are only a few bageliers who get it right, one of them being the late, lamented Columbia Bagels at 110th and B'way. H&H bagels are an abomination.

I like a plain or egg bagel, myself, lightly toasted, with a shmear, a slice of very ripe tomato, and a pile of Nova. That's tastes like Sunday to me!

Could only get plain bagels 20 years ago in N. Westchester-Connecticut border. Things have changed. Good bagels now. Stew Leonards has a wonderful, inexpensive bagel (12 for $5) Good bialys, too. NYC bagels are not always what they're cracked up to be and I'm not happy to be spending 90 cents each for them. Costco bakery products are generally pretty good but their bagels.....just horrible! Sped54

I agree with you completely and have been eating my bagels according to your rules my entire life. I will not eat just any bagel either. I would rather wait for the right one then waste calories on things that are bagels in name only.

I have to say, I too am curious about the English bagel which sounds delicious. It's funny that this intense bagel topic came up - I was supposed to be in NYC this weekend and we were planning on Murray's Bagels as soon as we got there. I'll just keep dreaming of them...

I never knew untoasted bagels were so amazing until I moved to New York. As a girl from Ohio, I grew up with frozen Lender's (sorry). The light and crispy exterior and the chewy, almost stretchy, interior of a true bagel...it was an epiphany. The thought of making one into a sandwich is sacrilege -- and I'm a sandwich girl! A decent cream cheese "schmear" eaten open-faced is all you need.

It's true what annien says about it being a shondeh re: discussing this topic when the objects of desire are out of reach due to the holidays! I'm pretty sure my LI bagel haunt (Bagel Boss in Plainview) is closed till after Yom Kippur. While I agree with Ed, I have my own bagel ritual. I like a sesame or sourdough bagel (haven't found any good organic bagels...yet...and have no kitchen at the moment to bake my own though I have done non-organic in the past), cut in half, toasted, buttered (organic), schmear of cream cheese (organic) on each half, shredded nova on each side, chopped scallions or onions (organic & local when possible) on each side, and I'm a very happy camper. But I will say...buying warm good bagels late at night & not being able to wait...I'll rip pieces off one of them & scoop into a container of scallion or veg cream cheese purchased at the bagel store. It's all good! My boyfriend thinks I'm nuts but then again, he's a big honkin' wad of cream cheese kinda guy who'd be happy with sushi sized pieces of lox if he'd have the chutzpah (and cash) to ask for it at the counter :) .

I've found that the "boiled then baked" requirement is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a great bagel. I've seen waaaaaaay too many places that claim they boil and bake their bagels that still can't put a good crunch on them.

Also, texture is only half the battle and I think it gets over emphasized because it's easier to discern for most people than flavor. Even in NYC the bagels can be rather flat, even among the oft-recommended luminaries like Ess A Bagel, H&H, and Kossar's.

We hooked up with a amateur Jewish bread baker here in Portland who had been making bagels, rye, challah, and pumperknickel and selling them at the Portland Farmer's Market. He uses a starter and a lot of malt in his recipe which gives it this great aroma and a nice tangy-sweet balance. They're smaller, denser, and crunchier than most of what you get in NY. And honestly, I think their texture is best after a rest of a few hours. They don't lose their crunch even after a day's rest in a paper bag. Oh, and they're all hand-rolled, boiled in malted water, and baked.

We've now got our down-stairs baking and prep kitchen done, so now it's just a matter of seeing if we can translate his old school, artisan technique into a 100 dozen a day.

Ed, email me in a couple weeks and I'll FedEx you a dozen.