Are bagels in New York better than bagels elsewhere?

[killer b]

Fwiw, I love british food, and reckon when done well the best of it can match the best food from anywhere. Low self esteem ffs.

 

[tarannau]

I have. There's no real difference ime - there's no magic hokey cokey involved in making them, just a simple 2 stage cooking process

America is good at sandwiches and oodles of toppings though, but the bagels are no different in actuality imo.

 

[editor]

Fwiw, I love british food, and reckon when done well the best of it can match the best food from anywhere. Low self esteem ffs.

Who's got low esteem?

 

[Wilson]

There is a bagel place near me (in Massachusetts) that is pretty well known for their home-made bagels even though they're different than New York style bagels. They're damn good though, and it sounds like you have good bagels there in the UK too.

I agree your Massachusetts bagels are probably excellent! and NY ones (apart from the one i had) are probably fantastic too!!11!1

2000

 

[joevsimp]

But the thing is...certain foods are associated with certain geographical locations. Could they be possibly made better in other places? Of course. There might be better pizza in some place in Norway than in a particular restaurant in Naples.

Peppi's pizza is definately the best pizza chain I've ever eaten in, much better than pizza hut and domino's, not to mention that Sbarro shite they have in america

there's also a kebab house in a town called Honefoss that has the finest kebabs I have ever eaten, they actually taste like they might not give you a cardiac anurism, depite being very good

 

[killer b]

I was answering a post further up.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Over the years, I've scoffed bagels from all over London and can say, with some confidence, that NY ones are the finest I've tasted. Have you tried NY ones yourself?

Yes, but probably not from the best places. Just bog standard delis, which I suspected of buying their bagels from fiends who cooked them in steam ovens rather than boiling first. I'm sure there are good bagel bakeries in New York but I'm equally sure there's more crap masquerading as bagels there than it would be possible to find in the leafier Barnet postcodes.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Who's got low esteem?

It was on an earlier post.

 

[tarannau]

As in Miss C's assertion that Brits have low self esteem because people were questioning, mocking and laughing at her (lack of) knowledge about bagels, despite the confident guff she was spouting. Bagels didn't exist until the US stumbled upon cream cheese apparently

 

[editor]

Yes, but probably not from the best places. Just bog standard delis, which I suspected of buying their bagels from fiends who cooked them in steam ovens rather than boiling first. I'm sure there are good bagel bakeries in New York but I'm equally sure there's more crap masquerading as bagels there than it would be possible to find in the leafier Barnet postcodes.

I can't be arsed to do a selective street by street/borough by borough analysis, so let's put it this way.

Your average sandwich shop in NY will serve much finer bagels than what you can expect in London. I'm very rarely disappointed by NY bagels, but I've had loads of rubbish ones in London.

 

[Cm7]

They seem to have the best selection of bagel delis there. Better than anything I've ever seen in Europe.

Pick A Bagel on Lexington Av is the best bagel place I've ever eaten at. So, in short, yes New York does seem to be the place to go for bagels.

I even took a photo of that place when I was there.

Mmmm. Bagels.

Pick-a-bagel! They're the best.
This brings back fond memories.
Every morning before painting class, I would get sesame bagel with cream cheese at Pick-a-bagel and a coffee from the italian deli down the road.
Best start of the day.

 

[tarannau]

That's fair enough, but there is no difference between proper bagels in either country.

We almost certainly sell more crap, bready non-bagels than NY, but I'd wager that's because there's less of a tradition of decent sandwich bars in the UK, plus we're more reliant on supermarkets in general, who tend to sell rubbish rolls with holes.

There again, look at American cheese. Swings and roundabouts

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Bagels didn't exist until the US stumbled upon cream cheese apparently

They didn't stumble upon it, they invented it. Hundreds of the finest dairy scientists escaped European tyranny and fled to the New World where pluck, ingenuity and incredibly generous federal funding led them eventually to do what no man had thought possible and soften cheese.

 

[tarannau]

Before that point all cheese were hard I believe. It's one reason Europeans have such bad teeth - they broke all their molars on hard cheddars and goudas

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

In general, I'd say that when the conversation turns to cheese, Americans should have the grace to assume an extremely low profile.

Very true. Mustard too.

. . . and beer.

 

[killer b]

I've had some lush yank beers recently. As anywhere, smaller producers make the good stuff, and the big producers make filth.

 

[Miss Caphat]

seriously, lmao here still.

The point was, no matter what I said that you found to be untrue (and I still have yet to seen anyone post a source about the cream cheese thing) the general concept was that NYC bagels are thought to be the best (arguably) and why that is.

I could have predicted that what would immediately follow would be a bunch of Brits whining about "wah wah, why do they get all the attention? we have bagels too...."


of course you do... but then why isn't Brick Lane or wherever the place associated with the best bagels?

Who the fuck cares? why not just accept it? or try to figure out why instead of trying to figure out why it couldn't possibly be true that NYC makes the best bagels?


What i was trying to explain to Cheesy is that bagels had been made in New York, by the method they used (notice I didn't say invented, as I've learned from my mistake), for a long time, and over that long time the method gets perfected. I never said they invented bagels or anything like that.

 

[tarannau]

What a nonsensical ignoramus you are Miss C. Why you have to come out with such knowledge-free arse is beyond me

FWIW when I think bagels I don't think NY or London, I think widely available Jewish bread product. The method of making them was 'perfected' way before they reached either city - if anything both nations have done their best to adulterate and fuck up a simple process to try and save costs. Fortunately decent bagels exist in both countries

 

[Pip]

MC, you have to much information so readily available to you right now, why are you stubbornly flailing about making yourself look silly rather than just educating yourself?

 

[Maurice Picarda]

(and I still have yet to seen anyone post a source about the cream cheese thing)

Cheese predates writing, so of course there aren't records of when the first cream cheese was made. But Sumeria is a lot more likely than anywhere on the American continent.

 

[strung out]

What i was trying to explain to Cheesy is that bagels had been made in New York, by the method they used (notice I didn't say invented, as I've learned from my mistake), for a long time, and over that long time the method gets perfected. I never said they invented bagels or anything like that.

you did say that a bagel isn't a bagel unless it's eaten with cream cheese though, which is clearly nonsense.

 

[editor]

Very true. Mustard too.

. . . and beer.

Actually, that's not so true any more. There's loads of fine micro breweries producing some very good beer in the US, although, annoyingly, they don't seem compelled to display its strength which can be unfortunate seeing as some are mental strong.

Their cheese is, however, remains laughably rubbish. As does their tea.

 

[tarannau]

I've had really good cheese in the US, but it is the exception rather than the rule

 

[Maurice Picarda]

The white-coated, clean-cut, US dairy scientists, deep in their underground bunker, can definitely claim credit for luminous orange processed cheese food slices, though. We'll give you that.

 

[Pip]

I've had really good cheese in the US, but it is the exception rather than the rule

Same with me and tea.

 

[killer b]

Isn't shit tasteless cheese standard everywhere? It's a bit better now than it was a few years ago I suppose, but there's still a lot of shit about. No need to get sneery.

 

[editor]

I've had really good cheese in the US, but it is the exception rather than the rule

Of course there's a chance you might find a decent bit of cheese if you look hard enough, but what you'll find in the vast majority of shops, cafes and delis is very, very disappointing indeed.

Same goes for the tea, and I've drunk a *lot* of their tea.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Isn't shit tasteless cheese standard everywhere? It's a bit better now than it was a few years ago I suppose, but there's still a lot of shit about. No need to get sneery.

No, there's a big difference between dreary mousetrap cheddar of the kind that you might get in a crap sandwich bar here, and the stuff they make - and consume in vast quantities - in the US which they aren't even allowed to call cheese. Hence "cheese food". So there's every need to get sneery. Well, even sneerier.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Isn't shit tasteless cheese standard everywhere? It's a bit better now than it was a few years ago I suppose, but there's still a lot of shit about. No need to get sneery.

Yeah most supermarkets here are still piled high with tasteless rubbery cheddar. I suppose it's still a bit better than cheese slices but...

 

[tarannau]

Think not actually B - more mature cheeses are increasingly the norm in the UK, with hefty gains at the expense of more mild and medium stuff in the last few years. Apparently the same pattern isn't mimicked in Europe, or the US

One indication here, but the Daily Mail was running pretty much the same story last week:
http://www.dairyreporter.com/Markets/Mainland-Europe-oblivious-to-UK-cheddar-boom