Opinion: UNESCO, consider the bagel
By: SCOTT SIMON npr
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Opinion: UNESCO, consider the bagel
Bagels are displayed for sale at a Manhattan grocery store on Aug. 6, 2010, in New York City. Spencer Platt/Getty Images
An urbane French friend taunted me recently.
"UNESCO has declared the French Baguette on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage products ," he said. "But not the American bagel. This must upset you, n'est-ce pas ?"
N'est-ce yes .
I know the bagel is not American-born. But a lot of the best things about America aren't. That's our story, isn't it? The first written record of bagels comes from the Jewish community in Krakow, Poland in the early 1600s — but bagels are now ubiquitous across America, with bagel shops on streets and in shopping malls, and bagels — or at least pale, squishy facsimiles — in grocery and convenience stores.
I've had bagels in Sitka, Alaska; Des Moines, Iowa; Rockford, Ill., and Salt Lake City, Utah. A salt bagel, in fact, not a mile from Temple Square. And yea verily it was good. Especially when you slather enough cream cheese on it to douse a forest fire.
You can find bagels plain, sesame, garlic, cinnamon raisin, pumpernickel, onion and Everything, which, I believe, means bits and pieces of whatever the Roomba just sucked up from the bakery floor, scattered wantonly across the rounds of boiled dough.
And there's a miscellany of newer flavors to make you gasp and exclaim, "Only in America!" Asiago, cheddar-jalapeno, rainbow, and — I hardly dare speak its name — blueberry.
Fanny Singer, the great food writer, told us this week, "The recent efflorescence of excellent hipster-run bagel joints across the country speaks to the eternal zeitgeistiness of the bagel."
Efflorescence and zeitgeistiness in the same sentence. Only on NPR!
I just had a Sriracha bagel. I know it's not authentic. But the stomach doesn't care. And there is something authentically American about a Thai-chili paste seasoned bagel. It's tasty attestation that cultures from all over the world come to America, mix, mash, share and make something new together.
Mixing is the recipe for America. That's why I believe the American bagel belongs on the same UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list as French baguettes, Cuban rum and North African couscous.
"Very well then," as Walt Whitman wrote, "I contradict myself." As my wife and I tell our daughters in our Chinese-French-Irish-Jewish, and quintessentially American family, "You contain multitudes."
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Back in Toronto, Sunday brunch always featured bagels, and the Jewish bagel bakeries there did a great job with them whether Toronto style or Montreal style - delicious. However, when I came to Zhengzhou in China there were none to be found until a few years later an American franchise Dunkin' Donuts opened up and they had bagels, perhaps not the best bagels, but at least they were edible. Then we moved to Chengdu and finally Chongqing, and no bagels anywhere near us have been available, so I'm bagel-deprived. Even the Chinese-made donuts aren't good - yeast ones only, no cake donuts. Oh, for a Krispy Kreme....
Buzz,
Bagels are made with yeast. The thing is that they are actually dumplings. You are suppose to let them rise, make them into ring, boil them first till they rise to the top, put your flavoring on top and then bake them. They are far more complicated to make than a baguette. The French must have paid someone off to get that bland piece of dough named.
I'll take a good New York bagel any day over a stinkin' French Baguette. You can have a schmeer with lox on a French Baguette. n'est-ce pas that, you arrogant Frenchie.
I'll have both, thank you.
No prejudice on your part, eh Pat?
Unfortunately for my waistline, no.
Ah yes, the bagel as Ojibwe as strudel.
Kavika munching away on a bagel.
Buzz dreaming about fry bread.