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A bagel (; ; also spelled beigel) is a bread roll originating in the Jewish communities of Poland. Bagels are traditionally made from wheat 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 . 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 1610 in Jewish community ordinances in Kraków, Poland.
Bagels are now a popular bread product in North America and Poland, especially in cities with a large Jews population. Bagels are also sold (fresh or frozen, often in many flavors) in supermarkets.
In the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries, the bajgiel became a staple of Polish cuisine. The name derives from the Yiddish word , from the German dialect word beugel, meaning "ring" or "bracelet".
In the Brick Lane district and surrounding area of London, England, bagels (locally spelled "beigels") have been sold since the middle of the 19th century. They were often displayed in the windows of bakeries on vertical wooden dowels, up to a metre in length, on racks.
Bagels were brought to the United States by immigrant Polish Jews, with a thriving business developing in New York City that was controlled for decades by Bagel Bakers Local 338. They had contracts with nearly all bagel bakeries in and around the city for its workers, who prepared all their bagels by hand.
The bagel came into more general use throughout North America in the last quarter of the 20th century with automation. Daniel Thompson started work on the first commercially viable bagel machine in 1958; bagel baker Harry Lender, his son, Murray Lender, and Florence Sender leased this technology and pioneered automated production and distribution of frozen bagels in the 1960s. Murray also invented pre-slicing the bagel.
Around 1900, the "bagel brunch" became popular in New York City. The bagel brunch consists of a bagel topped with lox, cream cheese, , tomato, and red onion. This and similar combinations of toppings have remained associated with bagels into the 21st century in the United States.
In Japan, the first kosher bagels were brought by from New York in 1989. BagelK created green tea, chocolate, maple-nut, and banana-nut flavors for the market in Japan. Some Japanese bagels, such as those sold by , are soft and sweet; others, such as Einstein Bros. bagels sold by Costco in Japan, are the same as in the U.S.
Bagels are traditionally made by:
This production method gives bagels their distinctive taste, chewy texture, and shiny appearance.
In recent years, a variant has emerged, producing what is sometimes called the steam bagel. To make a steam bagel, the boiling is skipped, and the bagels are instead baked in an oven equipped with a steam injection system. In commercial bagel production, the steam bagel process requires less labor, since bagels need only be directly handled once, at the shaping stage. Thereafter, the bagels need never be removed from their pans as they are refrigerated and then steam-baked. The steam bagel results in a fluffier, softer, less chewy product more akin to a Bread roll that happens to be shaped like a bagel. The dough used is intentionally more alkaline to aid browning, because the steam injection process uses neutral water steam instead of an alkaline solution bath.
Bagels can be frozen for up to six months.
Traditionally New Yorkers do not toast bagels; they argue that if a bagel is well made and fresh it should never be toasted. Some New York City bagel shops, like Murray's in Chelsea and Ess-a-Bagel at 21st and Third Avenue, have had no-toasting policies. Toasting of bagels in New York City is considered a bastardization and sacrilege. Former New York Times food critic Mimi Sheraton called the practice of eating toasted bagels obscene.
A typical bagel has , 1.0–4.5 grams of fat, 330–660 milligrams of sodium, and 2–5 grams of fiber. Gluten-free bagels have much more fat, often 9 grams, because of ingredients in the dough to supplant the wheat flour of the original.
In Austria, beigl (often also spelled beigerl or beugerl in its diminutive form) are a traditional 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 () 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.
A flat bagel, known as a 'flagel', can be found in a few locations in and around New York City, Long Island, and Toronto. According to a review attributed to New York's Village Voice food critic Robert Seitsema, the flagel was first created by Brooklyn 'Tasty Bagels' Delicatessen in the early 1990s.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> AIB website data: Bagels 2008, from Baking Management, p. 10, March 2009, Statistics from Information Resources, retrieved 2009-03-23 from American Institute of Baking website: Bagels 2008 updated to March 10, 2009;
Further, AIB-provided statistics for the 52-week period ending May 18, 2008, for refrigerated/frozen supermarket bagel sales for the top 10 brand names totaled US$50,737,860, based on 36,719,977 unit package sales.Baking Management (2008)
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> AIB website data: Bagels 2008, from Redbook, July 2008, p. 20, Statistics from Information Resources. retrieved 2009-03-23 from ''American Institute of Baking website: Bagels 2008 updated to March 10, 2009
The AIB reported US$626.9 million fresh bagel US supermarket sales (excluding Wal-Mart) for the 52 weeks ending 11 April 2012. AIB International,
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Bagels 2012. Data obtained from SymphonyIRI Group from scanner data from Supermarkets, Drugstores, and Mass Merchandisers (does not includeWal-Mart). Fresh/frozen supermarket sales (excluding Wal-Mart) for the 52 weeks ending 13 May 2012 was US$592.7 million. The average price for a bag of fresh bagels was $3.27; for frozen it was $1.23.
In Italy, taralli and are breads similar to bagels.
In Turkey, a salty and fattier form is called açma. The ring-shaped simit is sometimes marketed today as a Turkish bagel. Archival sources show that the simit has been produced in Istanbul since 1525.Sahillioğlu, Halil. "Osmanlılarda Narh Müessesesi ve 1525 Yılı Sonunda İstanbul’da Fiyatlar". Belgelerle Türk Tarihi 2 The (Kasım 1967): 56 Based on Üsküdar court records (Şer’iyye Sicili) dated 1593,Ünsal, Artun. Susamlı Halkanın Tılsımı.The İstanbul: YKY, 2010: 45 the weight and price of simit was standardized for the first time. Noted 17th-century traveler Evliya Çelebi wrote that there were 70 simit bakeries in Istanbul during the 1630s. Evliya Çelebi Seyahatnâmesi Kitap I. The (Robert Dankoff, Seyit Ali Kahraman, Yücel Dağlı). İstanbul: YKY, 2006: 231
Jean Brindesi's early 19th-century oil paintings about Istanbul daily life show simit sellers on the streets.Jean Brindesi, Illustrations de Elbicei atika. Musée des anciens costumes turcs d'Istanbul, Paris: Lemercier, 1855 Warwick Goble made an illustration of the simit sellers of Istanbul in 1906. Simit is very similar to the twisted sesame-sprinkled bagels pictured being sold in early 20th century Poland. Simit are also sold on the street in baskets or carts, as bagels were then.
The Uyghur people of Xinjiang, China enjoy girdeh nan (from Persian language, meaning round bread), a type of naan, the local bread.Allen, Thomas B. (March 1996). "Xinjiang". National Geographic Magazine, pp. 36–37
Another bagel-like type of bread is the traditional German Dortmunder Salzkuchen from the 19th century.
Ka'ak al-Quds (better known in English as the Jerusalem bagel) is an oblong ring bread, usually topped with sesame seeds, with its origins in Jerusalem. Unlike the bagel, it is not boiled prior to baking.
In tennis, a "bagel" refers to a player winning a set 6–0; winning a match 6–0, 6–0, 6–0 is called a "triple bagel".
" Bublichki or " Bagelach is a title of a famous Russian and Yiddish song written in Odesa in the 1920s. The Barry Sisters together with the Ziggy Elman made it popular in the US in 1939. Today it belongs to the repertoire of klezmer, jazz and pop musicians.
The term "bageling" refers to when a Jew uses a Jewish word or phrase in a conversation, or in the vicinity of a stranger who is also clearly Jewish, in order to inform them that they are also Jewish.
The bagel is a major plot device in the 2022 science-fiction film Everything Everywhere All at Once.
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