Bagel History

In 1610, the community of Cracow Poland, states that "beygls" will be given as gifts to women in childbirth.


History of the Bagel: The Hole Story According to legend, the world's first bagel was produced in 1783 as a tribute to Jan Sobieski, King of Poland. The king, a renowned horseman, had just saved the people of Austria from an onslaught by Turkish invaders. In gratitude, a local baker shaped yeast dough into the shape of stirrup to honor him and called it the Austrian word for stirrup, beugel. The roll soon became a hit throughout Eastern Europe. Over time, its shape evolved into a circle with a hole in the center and its named was converted to its modern form, bagel.

1683 -- According to legend the first bagels rolled into the world in 1683 when a Viennese baker wanted to pay tribute to Jan Sobieski, the King of Poland. King Jan had just saved the people of Austria from an onslaught of Turkish invaders. The King was a great horseman, and the baker decided to shape the yeast dough into an uneven circle resembling a stirrup (or 'beugal'). (Other German variations of the word are: 'beigel', meaning 'ring', and 'bugel', meaning bracelet.)

1872 -- Cream cheese is invented. In 1880, Philadelphia Cream Cheese was started, and in 1920, Breakstone Cream Cheese

1880's -- Thousands of Eastern European Jews immigrated to the United States. They brought with them a desire for bagels. Soon bagels became closely associated with New York and Chicago, both cities with large Jewish populations.

1907 -- A union just for bagel bakers is formed, the International Bakers Union, joining together 300 bakers. Only sons of union members could be apprenticed to learn the secrets of bagel baking in order to safeguard the culinary art.

1935 -- The first Bagel Boss opened, bringing high quality New York bagels to Long Island.

1960s -- Bagel production skyrocketed as machines capable of producing 200 to 400 bagels per hour were popularized.

1987 -- Bagels made their way into mainstream America, sold around the country in grocery stores and listed as standard items on fast food menus.

1988 -- Americans were eating an average of one bagel per month.

1993 -- America's consumption of bagels doubled to an average of one bagel every two weeks

The history of the bagel, the familiar breakfast food that only looks like a doughnut
A common breakfast among commuters, bagels stand alone as the only bread that is boiled before it is baked, providing chewiness instead of brittle crumbs. Yeast dough is shaped into rings, allowed to rise, then briefly tossed into vigorously boiling water for a few seconds. Then it is baked, where the prior boiling creates a chewy texture. Those that like a bit of gloss on the crust can brush them with sugar water, the traditional method, or egg, a more modern method abhorred by purists.

The origin of the bagel is up for debate, although it seems to have early taken a foothold in Poland. The first printed mention occurs in Krakow, in 1610 in a list of community regulations that stipulate that bagels are to be given to pregnant women. (Interestingly, given the bagel's association as a 'Jewish' food, there is no mention of religion in this regulation-apparently Christian women ate bagels as well). Others support the theory that an Austrian baker created a stirrup (or 'beugal') made out of dough to give to the King of Poland in 1683, in thanks for his help in defeating the Turks, and in honor of his great horsemanship. (Other German variations of the word are: 'beigel', meaning 'ring', and 'bugel', meaning bracelet.)

Despite being popular in Europe among the Jewish residents, it is in America that the bagel becomes widely popular, especially in Chicago and New York. The next bagel breakthrough came in 1872, with the making of cream cheese. In 1880, Philadelphia Cream Cheese was started, and in 1920, Breakstone Cream Cheese. In 1907, a union just for bagel bakers is formed, the International Bakers Union, joining together 300 bakers. Despite New York City's claims for having the best bagels, residents of Montreal would disagree, citing their wood-fired ovens and honey flavored boiling water makes for a superior product.



As the bread has spread across the nation, so have variations. Where once they were served plain, or in such traditions flavors as pumpernickel, onion, or sesame seed, they are now available as apple, blueberry, spinach, the very non-kosher ham and cheese, or the incomprehensible 'everything'.

Why have they become so popular? Ease of eating, a greater degree of portability than toast, and a more satisfying chew than ordinary sandwich bread. Plain, they offer a non-sweet alternative to doughnuts (man, was I disappointed in my first bagel-what a terrible doughnut!) Their heartiness makes them more filling than a croissant, and without any type of topping (i.e. cream cheese, butter, or jelly), they are a reasonable 200 calories.


A North American Debut
When the Eastern European Jewish immigrants arrived in North America at the turn of the century, they brought the bagel with them. Many settled in Canada, giving cities like Toronto and Montreal their reputation for having superb bagels. The American bagel industry established formal roots in New York between 1910 and 1915 with the formation of Bagel Bakers Local #338. This exclusive group of 300 craftsmen with "bagels in their blood" limited its members to sons of its members. At the time, it was probably easier to get into medical school than to get an apprenticeship in one of the 36 union bagel shops in New York City and New Jersey.

Professional bagel baking required know-how and backbreaking labor. Bagel makers' sons apprenticed for months to learn the trade. Men were paid by the piece and usually worked in teams of four. Two made the bagels, one baked, and a "kettleman" was in charge of boiling the bagels. The men earned 19 cents a box, and each box typically contained 64 bagels. It was not unusual for a team to make a hundred boxes a night.

With the rising of the yeast in countless bakeries, the popularity of the bagel rose far beyond the boundaries of ethnic neighborhoods. In the late 1950's and 1960's, bakers from New York and New Jersey began moving to other parts of the country. One such veteran who opened a bagel bakery in a suburb of Washington, D.C., in 1966, remembers his skeptical landlord nervously questioning, "Who's gonna spend seven cents for one of those things?"

Prepackaged bagels first became available in grocery stores in the 1950's. With the introduction of frozen bagels in the 1960's, consumers had access to bagels even if they didn't live near a bagel bakery.

Bagel-making machines, a boon to commercial bakers, were also introduced in the early 1960's. The machines form bagels by extruding the dough through the ring shape. Inventor Dan Thompson says, "I was born to invent a bagel machine. My father was thinking about a bagel-making machine when I was conceived." That may not be far from the truth, because Dan's father had a wholesale bakery in Winnipeg, Canada, and was already working on a bagel-making machine back in 1926. But it was far too complicated, too slow, and too costly to manufacture and wasn't commercially feasible.

There were as many as fifty unsuccessful attempts to produce a bagel-making machine in the early twentieth century. The Thompson Bagel Machine Corporation developed the first viable model, despite "doubting Thompsons" who insisted that no machine would ever replace the human hand in forming bagels. Most of the early machines were leased by bakers who paid by the dozen on the time meter. Now most are purchased. Popular with "Mom and Pop" bagel bakeries is the single-bank Thompson model with a dough divider that forms 175 dozen (2,100) bagels an hour. Large-scale production companies use multiples of the double-bank machine, each of which produces 400 dozen (4,800) bagels hourly.


The Father of the Bagel was probably an unknown Viennese baker, who wanted to pay tribute to the King of Poland. In 1683, King Jan had just saved the people of Austria from an onslaught of Turkish invaders. As the King was an avid and accomplished horseman, the baker decided to shape the yeast dough into an uneven circle resembling a stirrup.

Purists tend to favour this theory for two reasons. First, the traditional hand-rolled bagel remains less than perfect in shape. Instead of the symmetry of a doughnut, good bagels skew into a "stirrup-like" shape. Second, the Austrian word for "stirrup" is beugel.

The Canadian history of the bagel is much clearer. When Vincenzo Piazza brought the "Montreal-style" bagel to Ottawa in 1984, he was the first to have a wood-burning oven and hand-rolled bagels. It takes a roller over three months of training to reach the necessary speed of rolling 40 bagels every three minutes.

Over the years, the "traditional" bagel flavours, sesame seed, poppy seed, and plain, have been joined by almost a dozen other varieties, from cinnamon and raisin to Muesli. But the essence of the bagel remains the same, and fresh, hot bagels have become a daily staple for thousands of people in the Ottawa region.




The History of Bagels
1880s -- Hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews emigrated to America, bringing with them a love for bagels. New York City vendors used the bagel's hole-in-the-middle shape to their merchandising advantage by threading them onto dowels and selling them on street corners throughout the city.

1907 -- The International Bagel Bakers Union was founded in New York City. Only sons of union members could be apprenticed to learn the secrets of bagel baking in order to safeguard the culinary art.

1927 -- Polish baker Harry Lender opened the first bagel plant outside New York City in New Haven, Conn. The bagel's popularity began to spread in the United States.

1960s -- Bagel production skyrocketed as machines capable of producing 200 to 400 bagels per hour were popularized and the tradition of hand-forming bagels virtually vanished.

1987 -- Bagels made their way into mainstream America, sold around the country in grocery stores and listed as standard items on fast food menus.

1988 -- Americans were eating an average of one bagel per month.

1993 -- American bagel consumption doubled to an average of one bagel every two weeks.

1997 -- Schnucks' Nancy Anne Bakery introduced 17 bagels reformulated to match the special tastes and texture desires of Midwesterners, along with six cream cheese spreads, four types of bagel melts and eight bagel sandwiches.


Bagels: The Hole Story
The word bagel is thought to derive from the Yiddish word bugel, and from the German word bugel, which means a round loaf of bread. It is also often listed as a derivative of the German word buegel, meaning stirrup, and referring to a legend that the bakers of Vienna commemorated John III's victory over the Turks in 1683 by molding their bread into the shape of stirrups, because the liberated Austrians had clung to the victorious king's stirrups as he rode by.

Bagels were brought to America by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe as a breakfast staple. Today bagels are no longer an "ethnic" food as millions of Americans embrace the breads as a healthful breakfast choice or snack.

A typical bagel has less than 200 calories, and is low in fat & cholesterol. Basic ingredients generally include only flour, water, yeast & malt.

True bagels are kettled in boiling water just prior to baking. So doing gelantinizes the gluten in the dough mass, sealing the surface, and retaining the full flavor & goodness of the recipe inside during a slow hearth baking. The result is a shiny, deep amber, chewy crust, and a delicious, tightly textured inner mass.

Recipe is only part of what is needed to make a perfect bagel. Proper equipment and procedures are required as well. Yet without skilled, caring bakers, the first two requirements, though fulfilled, would yield nothing. Finally, the hand of the Master Baker, like the maestro of a symphony orchestra, is needed to synchronize all the parts. Only then is the perfect bagel produced.

Bagels, mind you, are not designed to be long lived. To put before the customer the ultimate bagel, it is best that they be produced in small batches on an ongoing basis.

So, its best to buy bagels fresh and, if not eating them that day, to freeze them. Toast them just out of the freezer, or leave them at room temperature, uncovered to thaw for about an hour, and they'll be almost as good as fresh from the oven.

Compiled from the Dictionary of American Food and Drink.


The bagel is a curious item, shaped like a ring doughnut, but made entirely of bread. Its simple shape belies its versatility, and there are countless variations on this basic theme.
History
Cut to Poland, 400 years ago, where no one was having a lot of fun. Nor were they enjoying a lot of bagels. The country was a sitting duck for the Russians and Swedes, who kept invading and then messing around with the elections of the Polish kings. The Polish were annoyed and took out their frustrations on the Cossacks1. The Cossacks, in turn, shared their concerns with the Jews2.
But the greatest deeds are done in the darkest times, and it was in Poland around this time that an unsung hero rolled malt, salt, yeast, flour, and water into a sort of proto-bagel, a distant, chewier ancestor of the multitudinous bagels we know of today.
Early in its history, this bagel became popular as a gift for women undergoing the pangs of childbirth. 'Bite the bagel' husbands would tell their wives. Back then, of course, every bagel was a hand-rolled bagel, and every hand-rolled bagel was a plain bagel not the torus-shaped springboard of infinite possibilities that we take for granted today. If you were to suggest to a Polish bagelsmith of the 1600s that he add poppy-seed or raisins to the dough of a bagel made by human hands, he would probably think you had flipped. The resulting dough would just be too hard to mix.
Even when the Industrial Revolution brought coal-fire hearths and mechanical mixers, the 'plain bagel barrier' was considered as difficult to shatter as the speed of sound. But in the early 1960s, with the advent of bigger, more cost-efficient ovens, it suddenly became feasible to add poppy seeds, onions, sesame, and garlic to the bagel. Somewhere in New York, a bagelmaker realised that this new technology could allow salt bagels to efficiently serve as the platform for any of these extras.
It took decades for bagelologists to realise the range of possibilities that had been sprung open by the ability to add things like poppy seed, although the full potential of the bagel would prove to be as dizzying as opium3, allowing for everything from jalapeno chiles to chocolate chips to find its way into the tasty torus. Empires have risen and fallen. The bagel has only become more varied in its many forms.
Purchasing Bagels
There are few places in the UK to obtain these savoury wonders. Usually they are purchased in pre-packed plastic bags from supermarkets. These are inevitably tough and highly dense.
If you are financially unchallenged then you can always make your way to the modern home of the bagel, New York. The bagels there come in all possible varieties and are remarkably cheap. They even deliver!
Flavours and Fillings
Bagels can be flavoured with almost anything. They can be coated in many varieties of seed from poppy to sunflower seeds and can also be stuffed with a multifarious collection of dried fruit, nuts, herbs and other delicacies.
Bagels can be eaten as they come but are often turned into a sandwich-type meal with fillings of cheese and pickle, cream cheese, and tuna and mayonnaise.