HISTORY
The evolution of the bagel is inextricably tied with that of the Jewish-American experience, following a trajectory Balinska deems a “riches to rags to riches story.” Beginning in eastern Europe as the product of Jewish bakers, the bagel was a luxury item in the 17th century. As wheat became cheaper, the bagel became a widely consumed—and widely beloved—snack food. During her research, Balinska found that the bread had even become part of eastern European pop culture: “It becomes something that’s part of rhymes for children,” she says. “There’s stories told about bagels; there’s songs about bagels.”
Eventually, the bagel followed its community in the 20th century as Jews emigrated to the United States and Canada. In New York and Montréal, it became a mainstay of the cities’ Jewish communities, even as it remained largely unknown outside of them. That changed in the mid-20th century, when New Haven’s Lender brothers “made characters out of bagels” in order to sell them to a national audience (and industrialization made mass production possible). Today, the bagel has assimilated into mainstream American culture, even as some advocates attempt to return to its hand-crafted beginnings.
The bagel likely originated sometime in between the arrival of Jews in eastern Europe in the 9th century, when communities were invited to help populate towns, and 1610, which marks the first mention of bagels on record in a Krakow law regarding the consumption of bagels at circumcision ceremonies. Bagels were thus a distinctively Jewish food from their inception, partially because baking in general was a largely Jewish profession in eastern Europe at the time.
Thanks to their use of wheat flour rather than the much cheaper rye, bagels were initially considered a luxury item. By the 19th century, though, wheat prices had dropped to the point that the bagel simply became a popular snack: “The way that on a New York street corner you have pretzels being sold, in eastern Europe you had peddlers selling bagels on street corners,” Balinska says.
Eventually, the bagel moved to the other end of the class spectrum entirely and “became synonymous with people who were down on their luck.” Before we follow the bagel’s migration, along with much of the European poor, to the other side of the Atlantic, it’s worth noting that the bagel as it developed in the region looked quite different from what we find in supermarkets today: with a much bigger central hole and a much harder exterior, the bread would take a few tweaks before making a good base for a bacon, egg, and cheese.
Like so many other once-“ethnic” foods now considered mainstream, the bagel landed on American shores with the massive influx of southern and eastern European immigrants around the end of the 19th century. Jewish newcomers clustered in New York, so that’s where the country’s first bagel bakeries opened up, and where the oldest ones remain.
The bagel didn’t simply transplant to New York, though; it also evolved. According to Balinska, Brooklynites once called the eastern European bread the “cement doughnut” thanks to its density, which made it impossible to slice open and make into sandwiches. Over time, bakers made their bagels softer and the holes narrower to fit American palates, allowing for the proliferation of lox, cream cheese, and other customary toppings by the 1940s and 1950s.
Bagels were still far from the mainstream, however. Most bakeries weren’t storefronts, but wholesale businesses located in basements, and their product remained niche. Many New Yorkers had only heard of them through news coverage of strikes incited by the notoriously powerful bagel bakers’ union—to the point where Balinska found New York Times articles from as late as the 1950s explaining to readers what, exactly, a bagel is.
More Importanly! Bagel was different with Bialy. What's the different? Bagel was boiled efore we deep fried it not like Bialy.
So Here's a few Picture of Bagel
Source :
https://firstwefeast.com/eat/2015/09/an-illustrated-history-of-bagels
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2008/11/a_short_history_of_the_bagel.html
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