Looking into the history of bagels led me to this article written by Ari Weinzweig for the Atlantic back in 2009. Here is the link to his article “The Secret History of Bagels“.
The earliest date we have for the 1st bagel is the beginning of the 14th century. German immigrants came to Poland for work bringing their German pretzels with them for food. That Pretzel morphed into the Bagel we know today, with the Poles calling them Obwarzanek!
Towards the end of the 14th century, Poland’s leader, Queen Jadwiga, a very cool person, decided to give up sweet deserts for Lent. Instead she ate bagels. Her bagels were made with wheat instead of rye, which was the common grain of the time. Her people loved them.
During that same period, for the first time, Jews were allowed to bake bread. Sounds crazy, but they were banned from baking bread, by the Christians, as the thinking was they would taint Communion. Some say that the 1st step was to allow Jews to boil bread, not bake it, and maybe that is where the Kettle bagel begins.
Bagels became the food of the working class, with the bagel shops became like the bars of today, where people would congregate. In the 1900’s, political change started, with many saying it began over bagels in morning, at the local Bagel Shop!
Bagel came to America and as all things American, the bagel changed. In the in 1930’s, machines were created to roll the bagels, ovens changed from stone to steel with modern temperature controls. Bagels were mass marketed by companies such as Lenders Bagels. Bagels became softer and sweeter, using steam instead of boiling water to set the crust. The chewy, crusty boiled Kettle Bagel, due to added labor costs, fell by the wayside.
Today, a select few Baker’s are still cooking the Kettle Bagel, every day. Bagels and More is proud to be Boiling Bagels for more than 20 years now.
As Ari says at the end of his article – Have a bagel and enjoy the day.
