Einstein is a moron.

Get your prayer wheels spinning. In taxonomic honor of all this discussion, I just ate a toasted half-legab with blueberries, slathered with cream cheese and topped with green pepper jelly for a little bite. And I liked it, but of course I drew the curtains and locked the doors.

As it was a legab and not a bagel, you needn't have locked the doors

If it were a blueberry baguette, however, you would have had to leave town by now or call it a gabuette...

Get your prayer wheels spinning. In taxonomic honor of all this discussion, I just ate a toasted half-legab with blueberries, slathered with cream cheese and topped with green pepper jelly for a little bite. And I liked it, but of course I drew the curtains and locked the doors.

Well, if you've got to toast the things, that's a serious problem to begin with, irrespective of the adulterants. Bagels, like any fresh bread product, should be scrumptious uncooked. A bit of cream cheese, some lox and there you go!

Keepin' it real in the 'hood,
Mark Lipton

Well, if you've got to toast the things, that's a serious problem to begin with..

I agree. And yet another dagger to thrust in the British culinary culture that is filled with burnt toast (I smell it everywhere in the apartment building hallways while leaving for the office in the morning).

I'm with Stuart and Thomas on this......... Show me something called a "bluberry bagel" and I will be looking at an abomination. And believe me, Dr. Johnson was wrong......the road to Hell was not paved with good intentions. It is paved with things called "blueberry bagels". Ye gods......almost as horrible as pizza with pineapple and coconut.

Ye faithful curmudgeon
Rogov

Get your prayer wheels spinning. In taxonomic honor of all this discussion, I just ate a toasted half-legab with blueberries, slathered with cream cheese and topped with green pepper jelly for a little bite. And I liked it, but of course I drew the curtains and locked the doors.

Sounds tasty to me, Larry!

It was, in spite of people telling me how and what to eat. Maybe I'll be a rebel and toast another bagel this morning.

It was, in spite of people telling me how and what to eat. Maybe I'll be a rebel and toast another bagel this morning.

Stop it, Larry. No one is telling you how and what to eat--just what not to call it. Oh, that's right, you shouldn't be toasting a bagel, even a real one!

Thomas,
I will continue to call them Cinnamon Raisin bagels in hopes it annoys the hell out of you. As I'm originally from The Queens, I'm sure you can relate to the attitude.

Thomas,
I will continue to call them Cinnamon Raisin bagels in hopes it annoys the hell out of you. As I'm originally from The Queens, I'm sure you can relate to the attitude.

I wonder how many others caught the The Queens reference

What's being overlooked here is the wide variation in quality among flavored bagels or "lagebs" or whatever you want to call them. They run from really delicious, dense, chewy versions to godawful white-bread-plus-fake-flavorings abominations that only exist to ruin cream cheese.

I'm an unapologetic bagel toaster! But draw the line on sweet-flavored bagels and agree with Rogov's paraphrase of Dr. Johnson.
Hmmm, let's see, will now look forward with anticipation to my Sunday morning breakfast of a toasted bagel with lox, cream cheese, onions and capers.

I'm an unapologetic bagel toaster! But draw the line on sweet-flavored bagels and agree with Rogov's paraphrase of Dr. Johnson.
Hmmm, let's see, will now look forward with anticipation to my Sunday morning breakfast of a toasted bagel with lox, cream cheese, onions and capers.

That's civilized, unlike some people who lean to sugar and the equivalent of a 2 buck chuck palate.

A plain bagel is about 6 WW points, or 300 Calories, so they are a pleasure which I have more or less given up. But after all my years in New Jersey I'm on the side of the traditionalists, we get very good bagels here, and a good plain bagel with lox and a schmear needs no raisins and no cinnamon.

As a "German guy" I perked up at Stuart's question until I figured out what he was getting at. Still one must admit that both bagels and pretzels originated in that part of Europe. And one of the most interesting places I visited in Ulm the last time I was there was the bread museum. Evidently there are fossilized breads of some sort from 2000 years ago and the shapes are rather fantastic. It is a little hard to figure out how some of them would even be edible, since they seem to resemble a porcupine. Maybe that's how they survived for all these years??

I have cousins over there who still bake in what could be called the neolithic way. The thick stone wall of the barn has a cavity. You put burning wood in the cavity until it gets really really hot. Then you scrape out what's left of the embers and put in your loaves. Probably that technique is also about 2000 years old. The way German women cut their bread could be described as "auto-mastectomy." I have never seen anyone injure themselves but it always seems like an accident about to happen.

Wenn Sie deutsch lesen kann, hier gehen.

http://www.brotmuseum-ulm.de/

Frank

Wenn Sie deutsch lesen kann, hier gehen.

http://www.brotmuseum-ulm.de/

Frank

Und auf Englisch, man kann hier gehen und etwas lesen.

Oy. Not again.
Redwinger, a good NY boy ought to know better.
Those blueberry rolls with holes you're eating might taste good, but they have nothing to do with bagelry.
Jeez, why don't you put some chocolate chips in 'em while you're at it?

Sadly, it is difficult to find a proper bagel, even in the old stomping grounds. All the guys who knew how to make them are dead, and everyone knows, dead men make no bagels.

Now excuse me while I go make a burrito, er, I mean wrap.

A bit of cream cheese,

Sorry, I'm not familiar with that term. Is it anything like a shmear?

A bit of cream cheese,

Sorry, I'm not familiar with that term. Is it anything like a shmear?

Indeed it is. I was translating for the masses. I take nothing for granted when dealing with legab-eaters.

Mark Lipton

I grew up working in my stepfather's Jewish bakery. We made bagels. One kind. Bagels.

While we're on an authenticity trip, there's this cousin to the bagel called a bialy. Thank the Lord nobody's promulgating adulterated bialys - if you can even find them.

Thank the Lord nobody's promulgating adulterated bialys...

I wouldn't be so sure of that: http://www.nybagelsnbialys.com/flavors.html

That's awful.

Delighted to see that I can still count on John for a proper sense of outrage.

While we're on an authenticity trip, there's this cousin to the bagel called a bialy. Thank the Lord nobody's promulgating adulterated bialys - if you can even find them.

Every time I hear that word I think of Zero Mostel.

Thank the Lord nobody's promulgating adulterated bialys...

I wouldn't be so sure of that: http://www.nybagelsnbialys.com/flavors.html

Where are the assassins when you need them?

[David M. Bueker]

Ok food snobs...cinnamon raisin bagels have been around for a long, long time. They are not some new sign of a food apocolypse.

Plain bagels are the most boring food on the planet after rice cakes. Give me an everything bagel, but in a pinch for brunch a cr is not a bad thing.

I don't know about that. Ever try cream cheese and lox smeared on a chocolate bagel? There's a reason for simplicity, David.

Well first off I hate cream cheese. Cannot stand the stuff.