New York immigrants kneaded some dough…giving rise to the bagel and other iconic breads.

Boy, do I love bagels. Just thinking about them makes me want one right now. You know, a big, fat, chewy, lightly-browned New York bakery bagel. I crave every flavor: plain, poppy, sesame, garlic...anything and “everything.” I also enjoy the sourdough, pumpernickel, and cinnamon raisin versions. Blueberry bagels are good, too; have you tried those? I even like the green bagels they make on Saint Patrick’s Day.

So what’s my problem? I’ll tell you. I’m a historian. My research says that today’s bagels bear little resemblance to the original bagels made for 400 years, well into the 20th century...our parents’ and grandparents’ bagels.

To begin with, there’s the increase in size. The first New York bagels made on the Lower East Side weighed about 2 ounces. In the 1950s they grew to 3 ounces, and increased again in the 60s. By 2003, bagels had tripled from their original size to 6 ounces. Today we are consuming gigantic, puffed-up, Thanksgiving Parade balloon bagels. Their holes have shrunk into mere slits. Also, they are under-baked to provide a more tender crust and pillowy interior. The original Jewish bagel was dark brown, thickly crusted, and mega-chewy...anything but “pillowy” (mothers used them for their infant’s teething rings.) And deep browning added more flavor; cinnamon and blueberries were not required for a delectable bagel.

To get a taste of these traditional bagels we need to go back to Poland in the 17th century. Cue the time travel music.

Welcome to 1683 Poland (and Austria, and Germany.)

So here we are. There’s a Viennese baker paying tribute to King John III Sobieski of Poland by creating a roll. That’s right, a little bread. King John had protected all of Austria from the invading Turks...that’s well worth a treat. Since the King took pride in his horsemanship, the baker formed a dough ring to represent a stirrup. King John (reportedly) treasured his baked gift and shared it with his country. So that’s how the bagel came to Poland.

Or is it? If this 1683 story is true, how come the Krakow municipal records mention bagels in 1610?

And what about pretzels from Germany? Poland’s been eating them since the 14th century. They’re boiled before baking, like bagels. Could pretzels have been the inspiration for bagels?

See what a historian faces? I say Poland did indeed create the bagel, even if its origins are “shrouded in mystery.”

After all, it was the Polish immigrants who brought their bagel-making prowess to New York City in the 1880s. Many Polish Jews settled in the crowded Lower East Side and made their traditional foods. Bagels were sold by street peddlers who carried dozens of them threaded onto long dowels (as they still do today in Poland.) For many years, bagels were made by Jews for themselves. Since they contain no dairy, they’re pareve, or Kosher-allowable. Outsiders, like those on the other side of the Bowery, never tasted a bagel.

Denizens of the Lower East Side eventually moved to surrounding neighborhoods. If you’re a lover of things Polish, I suggest a trip to New York’s oldest and largest Polish neighborhood, Greenpoint in Brooklyn. There you’ll find bagel, bread and pastry shops galore, as well as pierogi and kielbasa restaurants, Polish import emporiums, and a church on every block. Many Greenpointers still speak Polish, even the youngin’s. It’s one of the city’s most interesting (and delicious) ethnic enclaves. (Select to enlarge:)

36 bagel makers formed the International Bagel Bakers Union in 1907, which would rise like yeasted dough to become one of the most powerful unions in the city, especially Local 338, started by 300 Manhattan members. The Union was a “closed shop”, so only sons of members were allowed to join. Getting a bagel apprenticeship was more competitive than gaining admission to medical school. The Union made sure that their members were always among the highest-paid workers in the food industry. 

Let’s make some bagels already 

Traditional hand-made bagels require the skills of a four-person team. The “mixer” forms the dough out of high-gluten flour, salt, yeast, New York City water and malt (these last two give New York bagels their distinctive flavor.) Then the “shaper” rolls the dough and forms it into rounds by hand. After three days of cold fermentation (only NYC bakers proof them so long) the “boiler” gives the rings a quick bath in hot water (which, in the Big Apple, contains malt syrup). This boiling creates dense texture and a shiny, chewy crust. The bagels are lined up on wooden planks, which the “baker” loads into the oven. The bagels cook on top of the wood until they’re half-baked, then the baker skillfully turns each plank over, flipping the bagels so they bake on the other side. Some bagel bakeries still use these traditional hand methods.

Now comes the most essential act: the hot bagels are rushed to the customers. Time is of the essence. A bagel is at its peak within one hour of leaving the oven. You can just pull it apart and eat it as is. Wait another 3 or 4 hours and a bagel is still edible, but best for sandwiches. After that point, a bagel begins to dry out and the outer crust hardens. It will need to be toasted, but a toasted bagel is not the same as one hot from the oven. Traditional bagels have an incredibly short shelf life. Your best bet is to find an old-fashioned shop where the bagels are displayed by flavor in bins or baskets, and are constantly being restocked with hot-out-of-the-oven product. 

Amazingly, bagels remained primarily a Jewish food well into the 1950s. In 1946 The New York Times had to define them for its readers: “Bagels are small hard Jewish rolls with holes in the center.” This was news to most people. But bagel ignorance was not to last, due to two important events.

First, David Thompson invented the automatic bagel machine in the 1960s, which shaped and boiled bagels four times faster than humans. Next, Polish immigrant Harry Lender bought the first machine, then many more.

Lender and his son Murray are responsible for introducing bagels to a national audience. By shipping six-packs of bagels to supermarkets across the country (pre-sliced for convenience), and launching a huge advertising campaign, the humble Lower East Side bagel was suddenly available everywhere. Lender became the biggest bagel producer in the world. To compete, smaller bakeries created “artisinal” bagels: bigger, puffier, flavored, colored and sweetened. (Select to enlarge:)

In New York, the bagel is still considered a Jewish bread. Across the country, they’re known as a New York food. Outside the U.S., they symbolize America, like hot dogs and pizza. It’s another example of how a lowly edible from a small ethnic enclave can become a world-famous, iconic New York (and American) food. As eats expert Ed Levine says, “No city is as closely identified with a breadstuff as New York is with the bagel.”

What about those other bagelly things?

I assume you mean flagels and bialys. Flagels are just flattened bagels, for those who prefer thinner food (they still have the same calories as bagels.) But bialys are another thing entirely. They are small, flat rolls which are not boiled before baking, and instead of a hole have an indentation which is filled with onions or garlic. Like bagels, they are best eaten warm...in fact, you should only eat a warm bialy; a cold one is quite forgettable. If you live in New York, you are lucky to have access to the last remaining bialy bakery: Kossar’s, which has been creating bialys in the same location on Grand Street for over 85 years. When the neon “Hot Bialys” sign is lit, rush in and grab a true NYC treat.

So what can you put on a bagel?

Just about anything. The classic New York style is a “schmear” (that’s cream cheese) with some nice lox (cured salmon) as well. You can supersize that into the full “bagel brunch,” which adds capers, red onion, and maybe a tomato. Much of what you’d find in a Jewish Appetizing store is prime bagel fodder: smoked fish, salads, flavored cream cheeses, and more.

And speaking of cream cheese, we need to discuss the city of Philadelphia, right? No way! Philadelphia Cream Cheese was made in New York by dairy farmer William Lawrence, who hired Alvah L. Reynolds to sell it to New York City’s retailers. Reynolds wrapped it in foil and stamped it “Philadelphia,” to capitalize on that other city’s reputation for high-quality dairy products. By 1880, Reynolds was selling more than Lawrence could produce, and soon expanded. Eventually the business was sold to Kraft.

There’s always someone who wants a bagel sandwich, maybe with mayo. That’s where New Yorker Richard Hellmann comes in. In 1905 the German immigrant and his wife began creating mayonnaise from scratch for their Columbus Avenue deli. People loved it, so the couple began putting it in jars adorned with blue ribbons and selling Hellmann’s Mayonnaise in supermarkets. Ka-boom! Hellmann quit the deli business and built the largest mayonnaise factory in the world in Long Island City. Today, Hellmann’s makes over 40% of all the mayo consumed in America, and each jar still has a blue ribbon (printed on the label.)

Or maybe you’d like some mustard? You’ve come to the right city again! In 1862 New Yorker Charles J. Gulden began experimenting by mixing mustard powder with various vinegars in his small factory on Elizabeth Street. He came up with the spicy brown mustard bearing his name, which won numerous international awards. Gulden’s Mustard remains a top seller today.

The staff of life

Bread is the most universal of dietary staples in the Western world. Baking bread is an ancient art over 12,000 years old, pre-dating agriculture. The Egyptians first isolated yeast for widespread use. The Greeks invented the front-loaded oven, turning bread baking into a commercial trade. More than 30 bakeries were uncovered in the ashes of Pompeii. Native American tribes in the New World, including the Lenape people on the Island of “Mannahatta,” grew maize, which they dried, boiled and pulverized into cornmeal, the mainstay of their diet. They sifted out the fine corn flour and kneaded it into dough, baking flat hot cakes in fire ashes.

The Dutch settlers who the Lenape met in the 1620s also made flat hot cakes: pancakes, to be exact, and waffles, oelykoecks (doughnuts), crullers, pretzels and koekjes (cookies.) They established the New York baking industry in New Amsterdam, incorporating the Native American’s maize into some baked goods. Their wheat, rye and buckwheat grew 8 feet high in Mannahatta’s fertile fields.

Grain also grew abundantly in the Hudson Valley and Long Island, and was shipped to the city to be milled into flour. Flour milling became one of the city’s biggest industries in the 18th and 19th centuries. The river shores of Manhattan and Brooklyn were lined with gigantic flour mills. When the Erie Canal opened in 1825, the price for midwest wheat dropped from $100 a barrel to $6. Nearly all of America’s grain was funneled down the Hudson River. With that, New York became the granary, and bread basket, to the world.

Let’s have a Food Parade!

When the Constitution was ratified in 1788, New Yorkers decided to celebrate. How? By throwing a ginormous food party, what else? On July 23, 1788, a huge Federal procession celebrating the formation of the United States was held in the city. Everyone got the day off and crammed the parade route. 6,000 masters, journeyman and apprentices marched, representing the major food industries. As cannons boomed and onlookers cheered, the Master Bread Bakers in white aprons carried their implements down Broadway, waving a huge flag emblazoned with two ovens. Then followed a wagon hauling a massive, 10-foot long “Federal” loaf of bread, inscribed with the states which ratified the Constitution. The Grain Merchants, Flour Inspectors, Butchers, Brewers, Chocolate Makers, and even Alexander Hamilton followed, each with huge flags and wagon displays. The day-long event concluded with a gigantic feast at Nicholas Bayard’s farm on lower Broadway, where the 6,000 marchers sat at ten 440-foot-long tables and devoured a thousand-pound bullock (steer), mutton, hams, lambs, beer, and, of course, that 10-foot loaf of bread. It was all a spectacular success (burp).

Your friendly neighborhood baker

Baking bread at home, especially in a tiny apartment kitchen, is a long, arduous task. So most New Yorkers have always bought their bread from local bakeries and markets. The city’s initial bakery was opened on Pearl Street, and many others followed. New Amsterdam’s first laws of any kind regulated baked goods. The size, quality and price of bread were established by the City Council. When the cost of wheat rose, bakers still had to maintain the price and quality, leading to much unrest and many bakery strikes.

There were 12 bakeries in the city by 1800. By 1850 there were 476. In 1890 there were 5,778 bakeries in New York, due to the arrival of millions of immigrants. With so many cultures in the mix, bread quality and diversity improved. The most successful bakeries were run by Germans, Italians, Jews and the Irish, but old timers can’t forget the Danish pumpernickel, Norwegian grisle, or the Swedish limpa.

One of the most memorable bakeries was Fleischmann’s Vienna Model Bakery, next to Grace Church on Broadway and 10th Street. It was run by Austrian immigrant Louis Fleischmann (whose brothers were the first to market dry yeast...you know, those little yellow packets.) Louis was not only famous for his kaiser rolls, but also infamous for originating another New York tradition: the breadline. Read all about this determined humanitarian by selecting below: (there’s another link at the end of this chapter)

Brooklyn boasted an abundance of ethnic bakeries. Henry S. Levy’s bakeshop was on Thames Street in Williamsburg, boosted by a sourdough starter he had smuggled from Russia in 1888. Levy’s became famous for their ryes and pumpernickels, and also their memorable “You don’t have to be Jewish...” ads, photographed by Howard Zeiff for Doyle, Dane Bernbach (see below). Moses Pechter on Pacific Street specialized in dark heavy ryes, kaiser rolls and bagels. Over in Manhattan, milling giant Hecker’s opened up a new “state-of-the-art” bakery where the bread was “untouched by human hands.” While on the Lower East Side Elias Gottfried fermented his hand-crafted rye bread for 13 hours in wooden troughs. (Select to enlarge:)

In 1874, Englishman Samuel Bath Thomas arrived in the city and opened a bakery on West 20th Street in Chelsea. He added yeast to a traditional crumpet batter, making a fluffier, more bread-like item, filled with the “nooks and crannies” everybody loves. Thomas’ English Muffins were a true New York original and a smashing success. His bakery quickly reached capacity and eventually grew into a national brand. Today his original bakeshop has been turned into a condominium complex called “The Muffin House.” That’s New York for you.

Up in the Bronx, The Brown Bomber Baking Company was launched on Prospect Avenue in 1939. Owner Macy Mac O’Neal named the bakery after prizefighter Joe Louis’s moniker. With 92 employees, 24 delivery trucks, and 400 restaurant clients, Brown Bomber was the largest African-American owned and operated bakery in the country. But only 3-1/2 years later, war restrictions and price controls forced its closure, as well as many other independent bakeshops.

Earlier, New York bakers began conglomerating and producing a new kind of lighter, airier bread. Robert B. Ward, born above his family’s bakery on Broome Street, started his own R. B. Ward Company. Within 3 months he was selling thousands of loaves each day, including his best-seller, Tip Top Bread, a bright-white loaf like many of us grew up on. In 1928 slicing was introduced, the greatest idea since, well, I don’t know. Fluffy white bread sales were so strong that Ward’s son formed a second organization, Continental Baking Company, which produced Wonder Bread, featured in a polka-dot pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair. Silvercup Bread followed in Long Island City, with more soft loaves and a sign so snazzy that its recent owner adopted its name: Silvercup Studios.

Here’s yer New York bread

Besides bagels and bialys, there are other classic breads that are associated with the city. Here are a few:

Babka is a sweet, pastry-type loaf, made from an enriched dough (similar to brioche), and “swirled” with chocolate or cinnamon. When I say “swirled,” I mean there’s ten times more filling than bread in the modern versions. There’s also a streusel topping, no less. Originally babka was a holiday treat made by Jewish bakers in Eastern Europe, Poland and Ukraine.

Challah is also a Jewish bread that escaped the Sabbath table and wound up on everyone’s breakfast table (it’s great for French toast.) A similar bread is used to celebrate Christian traditions like Easter. Challah requires weaving together long braids of eggy dough, if that’s your thing.

A Hero is the New York version of a long sandwich roll. It’s an Italian loaf with a crisp crust and dense crumb to absorb all the drippy, overstuffed goodness. It is not called a grinder or submarine or hoagie; don’t use such language in the city. If you want one, say: “Yo, make me a nice sangwich wit some mortadell (mortadella), projoot (prosciutto), mutzadell (mozzarella), and gabba-gool (capicola.)” If you say “cappy-cola” you may get hurt.

A Kaiser Roll is what you get when you order the quintessential New York breakfast: an egg-on-a-roll in a coffee shop. An Austrian invention, they were brought to New York by Louis Fleischmann (see bio) when he opened his Vienna Model Bakery next to Grace Church. A good Kaiser Roll is the apex of the baker’s art: delicate yet slightly crunchy. (Select to enlarge:)

Lard Bread is another specialty of Italian bakeries. You probably know it by its polite name, prosciutto bread. It’s often ring-shaped, flavored with lard, scraps of Italian meats, maybe cheese, and lots of pepper. It’s a Southern Italy favorite for feast days.

Are Matzohs bread? You bet...unleavened bread, part of the Jewish holiday tradition (but enjoyed all year long.) New York was home to many matzoh bakers, including Jacob Horowitz and Margareten, Aron Streit, Strumpf and Manischewitz. In the old days, long lines would form outside these bakeries to get fresh matzohs for Passover.

New York Rye, also called “deli rye,” is a sandwich bread particularly good for piles of pastrami and mustard (see Deli article). In Eastern Europe it was made with all rye flour, but here it was “Americanized” with some wheat flour for a lighter flavor and texture. You may also like swirled Marble Rye, but be aware that it’s all the same deli rye dough...the browner part is made by adding a coloring agent. The same holds true for Pumpernickel: the German original is dark, sour, and made with whole rye berries, but the American version is usually just deli rye bread with caramel or molasses added for color.

There are as many breads in New York as there are spoken languages...and that’s a lot! Indian naan, French baguette, Mexican tortillas, Armenian lavash, Portuguese rolls, Japanese milk bread, Irish soda bread, Venezuelan arepa...it goes on and on. I hope to cover these some time in the future.

Okay, enough bread talk. It’s time to eat that bagel I’ve been dreaming about!