A bagel (Polish: bajgiel; Yiddish: beygl; also spelled beigel) is a bread roll originating in the Jewish communities of Poland. Bagels are traditionally made from yeastedwheat dough that is shaped by hand into a torus or ring, briefly boiled in water, and then baked. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior.
Bagels are often topped with seeds baked on the outer crust—traditional choices include poppy and sesame seeds—or with salt grains. Different dough types include whole-grain and rye. 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.
The earliest known mention of a boiled-then-baked ring-shaped bread can be found in a 13th-century Syrian cookbook, where they are referred to as ka’ak. 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 Jewish community ordinances in Kraków, Poland in 1610.
Bagels are now a popular bread product in North America and Poland, especially in cities with a large Jewish population. Bagels are also sold (fresh or frozen, often in many flavors) in supermarkets.
The New York bagel contains malt, is cold-fermented for several days to develop the flavors and enhance the crust, and is boiled in salted water before baking in a standard oven. 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.
Different from the New York style, the Montreal-style bagel contains malt and sugar with no salt; it is boiled in honey-sweetened water before baking in a wood-fired oven. It is predominantly of the sesame “white” seeds variety (bagels in Toronto are similar to those made in New York in that they are less sweet, generally are coated with poppy seeds and are baked in a standard oven).
The St. Louis style bagel refers not to composition, but to a particular method of slicing the bagel. The St. Louis style bagels are sliced vertically multiple times, instead of the traditional single horizontal slice. The slices range from 3 to 6 mm (0.12 to 0.24 in) thick. This style of bagel was popularized by the St. Louis Bread Company, now known as Panera Bread. Generally, the bagels are sliced into eight pieces using a bread slicer, which produces characteristically precise cuts (the bagel is not torn or crushed while slicing). This particular method of preparation increases the surface area available for spreads (e.g., cream cheese, butter). However, it decreases the portability of the bagel and prevents formation of sandwiches.
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) is chewier and has a denser texture. In Austria, beigl (often also spelled beigerl or beugerl 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 Beiglreißen (lit. ‘ripping/tearing the beigl‘) at Easter where two people pull on opposite ends of a beigl until it breaks into two pieces. Tearing off the larger piece is meant to bring good luck. In Vienna, Eastern Lower Austria and Burgenland, beugerl has taken on the meaning of certain types of kipferl.
