Posted by Erin Zimmer, March 10, 2008 at 6:00 PM
According to the New Yorker this week, the everything bagel was created 30 years ago, when then teenager David Gussin was sweeping up burnt seed scraps at a Queens, New York, bagel shop. He saved them in a bin, and voilà—another flukelike creation story. But was Gussin really first? According to Seth Godin, an author on marketing tactics and theories, he was already making them in 1977, not "around 1980," as Gussin claimed in the piece.
Godin said in an email just now that Gussin's seed-sweeping story is "crazy." He clarified, "you add the seeds when the bagels are on the wet burlap...the burnt seeds in the oven get pretty incinerated and you wouldn't want to use em." Godin thought back to his creation moment—he just sprinkled and tossed the seeds on top. "Lo and behold, it was good." But since Godin's bagel shop was in Buffalo, not the Bronx, it's been overlooked by the bagel elite.
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Posted by Raphael, February 25, 2008 at 8:00 AM
This is not a Bagel-Ful
Channeling the spirit of Uncrustables and Hot Pockets, in April Kraft will launch Bagel-Fuls, frozen bagels which come prestuffed with Philadelphia cream cheese. Bagel-Fuls are part of the segment called "hand-held breakfast sandwiches."
"Consumers are not spending a lot of time cooking these days," said Chitra Ebenezer, the director of marketing for the new brand. "Breakfast is one meal occasion they really struggle with."
And struggle I do. The constant battle to keep cream cheese stocked in my fridge has left me a cold and bitter person. The daily time-suck of visiting a bagel store so that someone else can cut and schmear my bagel has exhausted me to the point of tears.
Kraft, in its benevolent kindness, has heard my pleas, but I still have some questions.
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Posted by Ed Levine, September 13, 2007 at 6:35 AM
Anytime people gather to discuss one of the most pressing issues of the day—what is the most proper and delicious way to eat a bagel—heated (pun intended) arguments ensue. So I have decided that we are going to settle it once and for all, right here on Serious Eats, with the first and probably last Serious Eats Bagel Debate. As you are about to hear, there are many subtle nuances to this freighted issue.
First let's define our terms.
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Posted by Lia Bulaong, April 5, 2007 at 2:15 PM
Rodrigo Piwonka put an avocado-filled toasted bagel into an empty CD spindle, and voilà, a bagel to go! It's the perfect solution if you love complicated bagels but not the wrapping up, or the potential mess of transporting them in your bag. [via Kung Fu Grippe]
Posted by Adam Kuban, April 4, 2007 at 3:00 PM
From PRNewswire.com:
Denver area pizza lovers have a 'hole' lot [Groan —Ed.] to be excited about as Einstein Bros. Bagels cooks up new pizza bagels for its hometown customers.... Einstein Bros. is now offering five Pizza Bagel flavors in 28 Front Range restaurants.
When I was a kid, my sister (who was around 7 at the time) came up with this idea—using Lender's frozen bagels, some Chef Boyardee pizza sauce, and whatever mozzarella we had on hand. She submitted the idea to a local TV station's "create an afterschool snack" contest.
And never heard from the station.
Hey, I thought it was a great idea at the time. These days, you couldn't get me near a hybrid pizza bagel. It just takes the best of two respected traditions and ruins them.
To this I say, Oy vey AND mamma mia! [via "Eater" Ben]
Posted by Adam Roberts, March 13, 2007 at 6:00 AM
Photo credit: iStockphoto.com
If you chopped my arm off with an axe, you might be surprised to see that the stump that remained had a giant hole in it. That’s because my body is made of bagels. I am 70 percent water, 30 percent bagels. No week passes in my life without the consumption of at least one or more bagels. If I go for more than a week without a bagel, my hair falls out, my eyes turn black, and I start chanting strange Kabbalic verses that’d make Madonna’s head spin. Luckily, I live in New York City, so unless someone kidnaps me and ties me to a chair and feeds me a constant stream of ham and mayonnaise to un-Jew me, I will never be without a bagel. And thank God, because bagels are my favorite day food. (As opposed to my favorite night food, which is pasta. But that’s another subject.)
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Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 13, 2007 at 10:34 AM
Shuna Fish Lydon, on Jewish Comfort Food: "It is my ultimate opinion that there are no real bagels in the Bay Area. I have tried and retried them all. I've been cajoled by hopeful and starry eyed non-Jews as well as other deperate New York Jews. Nope, they do not exist here. Just because bread is round does not mean it's a bagel. When a bagel is a bagel, every gram of your being knows it. It's taste and texture, the smell of your grandmother's kitchen. It's whipped butter, freshly sliced red onions, and too much cream cheese."
(A friend of mine who grew up in the Bay Area but lives in Brooklyn brings a sack of bagels home for his parents every time he flies home, per their standing request. They're not Jewish either, they just really like New York bagels!)
Posted by Nathalie Jordi, January 19, 2007 at 4:05 PM
I wasn't sure that the bagel could be improved, but amazingly, the mini versions at delicious:days look better than behemoths. My logic fails me here. How could less bagel be a good thing? Just look at them...
