One of New York's most beloved foods is also one of its most storied, the bagel. For over a century, bagels have been baked fresh in bustling New York bakeries, from the Lower East Side to boroughs well beyond it. The story of the bagel is bound up with the hows and whys behind a staple that many New Yorkers treat as part of the city's very identity.
For its devotees, the bagel is woven into the rhythm of the day. New Yorkers describe it as a breakfast food, a lunch food and a supper food all at once, with one person calling bagels and lox the best there is. Another went further, describing the bagel as their life's blood and asking, without bagels, what is the day. The bagel also has its roots as a Jewish food.
Part of the bagel's appeal lies in the way it is made. Straight out of the oven, a good bagel is crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, a contrast that fans prize above almost everything else. Much of the craft lies in the secret behind a perfect crust, with the texture not as an accident but as the result of careful craft built up over generations.
There is also the sheer range of options on offer. One enthusiast rattled off a wish list, asking for the garlic, the sesame and the onion, before adding, give me them all. That appetite for variety, from the classic everything bagel on down, is part of what keeps the city's bakeries busy and their counters crowded throughout the day.
There is a bit of New York pride at play too. One enthusiast dismissed the idea that the bagel travels well, joking that people in the Midwest would not know a bagel from a donut. The line underscored a belief held by many in the city that the real thing can only be found close to home, in the bakeries that have made it for decades.
Beyond the food itself lies a chapter of labor history. When bakeries once shut their doors, lox sales plummeted by up to 50%, and the usual weekend demand for 1.2 million bagels went unmet, leaving customers upset. That disruption forced bakery owners to the bargaining table with the union, which was then able to fight for good wages and benefits and to define what the job would look like.
Bakers also keep pushing the form forward. There is the story behind the everything bagel, and one shop refuses to slice its bagels at all, in the name of quality. As one baker put it, they are just bringing bagels to the next level, a reminder that even a century-old staple is still evolving in New York.