The inventor who revolutionized (and maybe ruined) the bagel dead at 94
The inventor who revolutionized (and maybe ruined) the bagel dead at 94
By Sarah Kaplan, Washington Post, September 22, 2015
(Comment by Buzz: These are NOT bagels, they are a travesty - a poor imitation)
Among a certain class of New York culinary snobs, the perfect bagel is the subject of fervent almost religious devotion. They deliver long-winded polemics about the benefits of their particular bagel shop on demand (or, more commonly, despite the lack thereof). They rhapsodize about the bagels of their youth, all blistered, crisp crust and chewy interior, hand-shaped, boiled and baked each morning. They wake up early to buy the first batch of the day. They abhor toasting.
These are the kind of people who might sniff at the accomplishments of Daniel Thompson, the math teacher turned inventor who developed the modern bagel machine.
But for those whose schnozes arent too high in the air to enjoy the smell of a more populist breakfast, Thompsons invention was a godsend. It made the niche New York specialty available across America, begetting a billion dollar industry and turning the bagel into a breakfast staple as far away as Kansas and California.
Thompson, who died in Palm Desert, Calif., this month at age 94, is remembered for fundamentally changing the art of bagel baking.
There was a kind of schism in bagel-making history: pre-Daniel Thompson and post-Daniel Thompson, Matthew Goodman, the author of Jewish Food: The World at Table, told the New York Times .
(Comment by Buzz: This isn't a bagel either, it's nothing but a round piece of bread with a soft crust and a hole in the middle.)
Which era were better off in is still up for debate. The machine may have democratized a delicious breakfast food, but it also homogenized a hallowed cultural heirloom.
Thompson, the son of a Jewish bakery owner in Los Angeless Boyle Heights neighborhood, knew and respected the traditional method of preparing the beloved baked good. Brought to the U.S. by Polish immigrants in the 19th century, the process required four men, time and finesse, according to the Los Angeles Times. For decades, bagels could be found only in cities with large Jewish populations, and even then, only by those who knew where to look.
Bagel-making knowledge was handed down from father to son and carefully protected by the Bagel Bakers Local 338. Michael Yoss, a bagel maker in Atlanta, told the New York Times in 1993 that his father ran a bakery in Brooklyn, but he never made a bagel because he couldnt get into the union, and they would have broken his legs if he made bagels without being in the union.
When members of the union struck in 1951, the dire New York Times headline read, Bagel Famine Threatens in City; Labor Dispute Puts Hole in Supply. A resolution was brokered by mediator Murray Nathan, who had honed his negotiating skills during the Great Lox Strike of 1947.
But Thompsons senior and junior both dreamed of a world in which bagel availability was not so capricious and tightly controlled. Meyer Thompson, Daniels father, was obsessed by the question of mechanization. But his endless tinkering was largely fruitless, turning out bagels that were too hard, too slow or too costly.
I was born to invent a bagel machine. My father was thinking about a bagel-making machine when I was conceived, Daniel Thompson often joked, according to The Bagel Bible: For Bagel Lovers, the Complete Guide to Bagel Noshing.
Like his father, Thompson was a tinkerer. His less controversial cultural legacy is a patent for the foldable ping-pong table, developed after too much time spent assembling and breaking down his unwieldy traditional table every time he wanted to play.
In the late 1950s, after serving in the Air Force and getting his degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, Thompson set his sights on his fathers long-held ambition. He soon came up with a viable model: a huge contraption that rolled, pressed and shaped dough into perfect circles.
(Comment by Buzz: Now THESE are bagels.)
By 1961, according to a history written by Thompson, he and his wife had established the Thompson Bagel Machine Manufacturing Corporation, and Thompson began shopping around for a buyer. Several bakeries turned him down, Thompson wrote, the bagel market was not large enough to justify the great expense.
But Murray Lender, the head of Lenders Bagels in New Haven, Conn., looked at Thompsons design and saw the future.
In 1964, with the help of Thompsons automated bagel making machine, Lenders began churning out hundreds of bagels an hour, freezing them and shipping them to supermarkets across the country. Local 338 swiftly sunk in the now-flooded bagel market, and their old-school techniques vanished with them. Bagels became almost as ubiquitous as Wonder Bread, and, critics say, just as tasteless.
Its kind of a tragic story, Goodman told the New York Times. What happened is that the bagel lost, both literally and metaphorically, its Jewish flavor.
The proliferation of the bagel machine necessitated some unfortunate changes in how the beloved baked good was made. The sticky bagel dough gummed up the works, forcing a transition to a drier dough that produced a lighter, more bread-like bagel. Efforts to replace the traditional boiling step with a steam bath during baking sounded the death knell of the hard, blistered crust.
Mass producers also shifted their recipes to suit the whims of the American consumer. When people were put off by the traditional bagels yeasty toughness, it became softer and blander. When people demanded flavors blueberry and cheddar cheese and, perish the thought, chocolate chip- they offered those too. And when Americans wanted bigger bagels, because, lets face it, Americans want bigger everything, it morphed into a fluffy behemoth.
Bagel stalwarts were appalled.
A real bagel has to be handmade, Abe Mosokowitz, a third-generation bagel baker in Queens, told the New York Times in 1989. . . . If its soft, its not a bagel. If you want a soft bagel, buy a roll.
Its an outrage, Nach Waxman, owner of a Manhattan cookbook store, fumed four years later. No crust, no character, no nothing.
Asked what he thought of newer bagel flavors, Waxman seethed: This kind of perversity should be prohibited by law.
But proponents argue that men like Thompson and Lender were not the villainous enablers of bagel decline. In 2012, when Lender died at age 81, Brooklyn-based writer Lily Rothman noted that his companys frozen toroids opened the door for the proliferation of bagel shops, bringing the hand-made bagel to cities that had never heard of such a thing fifty years ago.
Thompson is survived by his wife, Ada; a daughter, Leslie; and two sons, who now oversee the bagel machine business. In the history posted on the companys website, Thompson radiates pride in his children, touting Steves management skills and Craigs computer genius.
In the end, Thompson was a bagel lover who passed on his trade to his sons. Just like the bagel makers of yore.
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For me now, bagels are just a memory. In Toronto, on Sunday morning, I would line up at the bagel bakery to purchase a dozen wood-fired bagels, sometimes from the Montreal Bagel Bakery for ones that were chewyer, sometimes from the regular one. At the deli I would get fresh sliced lox, smelly cheese slices, delicious home-made cream cheese and herring in cream sauce for a delicious family brunch to which we added egg salad and sliced tomatoes. Even the memory, writing this, has made me smile.
The change happened in 1964 ? Its quite possible I have never experienced what you might call "the real thing" . Call me a Philistine if you must but I claim ignorance .
My sister is Jewish. She lives in Boston. Fresh, real bagels...
Petey, real bagels are still being produced in special small local bakeries in the bigger cities. They are made in a wood-fired oven, like good pizza.
Unfortunately the article you linked is on the NYT. For some strange reason I have not been able to open the NYT - same with some other major media, such as the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company). I would appreciate it if you would copy the text and then send it to me in a message, or just post the whole thing here as a comment.
I apologize to you since a while ago you sided with someone I was fighting on NT so I got pissed and defriended you. Please forgive me for that and accept my new FR.
Buzz, you know that Enoch and I re-invented the bagel. How dare these imposters try to take credit for it.
Jay's Diner and Chief Chef Boiling Water Goldstein are the toast of the bagel world. Enoch and I stay in the background. Adulation is good, but can be overwhelming.
''Kosher Winnebagel''....and your welcome.
Fun article Buzz, thanks.
When I was 18 I spent the summer as a waiter at a Muskoka area summer camp called
Camp Winnebago. I was the only waiter who was friendly to the chef, so I got to eat steaks while the others ate hamburger. They didn't serve bagels though - although it was a Jewish camp.
I have never experienced a real bagel, such as described here! They sound marvelous! I'm afraid that we often buy the Sara Lee brand, (pretty much all that is available), and really don't see them in bakeries.
Thanks, Buzz, for such a great article!
Petey,
Since I know where you grew up, you have to have had the real thing. OY!
Marsha,
You have to have a real bagel. I hear they won't let you into heaven if you don't, (or is it that eating a real bagel is heaven on earth?)
Great article Buzz and so true! There is nothing like a real bagel. I am lucky that I have more than one really good bagel stores right by me... but a smear of cream cheese and some lox... OMG my mouth is watering!
Break fast is tonight. Jews everywhere will be munching out on bagels....
It's good to be in NY! LOL!
(btw, sesame bagels are my favorite)
Thank you Feronia - just read them. Toronto had only two good bagel bakeries, both on Bathurst Street. Both used wood-fired ovens. As I said before, one baked them Montreal Style and the other regular. However, that was up to 9 years ago. I don't know what might have changed since.
Is this part of a schmear campaign?
In any event, it's seedy and full of holes.
I really have no idea what a real bagel could possibly taste like! We need some different bakeries!
Dowser,
I will gladly send a dozen a variety but depending on shipping, they'll likely arrive somewhat stale.
I'd like mine with extra seeds please !
Walking distance to my home is my friend Irwin's bakery and deli.
His staff hand makes all there baked goods.
His Shabbat Challah (egg twist bread) is truly a taste of the world to come.
His Bialishtoken Bagel (Bialy) is the stuff of legend.
His prices are considerably higher than the stiff available at chain super markets.
Our community makes sure he stays in business.
The same is true for our local Kosher Butcher, freshfish monger and sheynat shmitah green grocer.
We old goatspay up for quality. Family businesses all.
It isn't clear whenthese merchants transit to the world to come who will take over, and who will pay the difference to keep alive these traditions.
Tastes change, and economic pressures for lower prices pressure small family enterprises.
Time marchers on. We cannot un-ring bells.
That said, as Rabbi Dr. Gershon Weiner (one of my professors in Jerusalem) used to say, "Not everything that is good is new. Not everything that is new is good".
For now, when our grandchildren have sleep overs with us, Sunday morning after morning Services, we walk home from the Congregation passing by Irwin's for bagelach, Irv's for lox (smoked salmon) and Donny's for fresh whipped cream cheese.
As long as we are around, we want our grandchildren to have the joy of experiencingthat upon which we grow up and thrived.
In my day, we schmired grivenes (spiced rendered chicken fat) instead of creamed cheese on our bagels and bialys. That is now history.
Chocolate egg creams (milk, chocolate syrup and seltzer (sparking water) and gogel mogels (honey milk and egg smoothies) were the breakfast beverages of choice to go with the fresh baked goods and fish.
As my Aunt Muriel used to tell us, " Eat slowly, savor every taste, and always play with your food"!
Words of wisdom which stand the test of time.
Enosh (getting all Verklempt with nostalgia).