I moved to Ann Arbor in 1989 for a two year Masters program.  I have no memory of worrying about bagels while living in Ann Arbor--and not just because I always had a dozen NYC bagels in a ziplock bag in the freezer.  When I lived in Ann Arbor a bagel was just a bagel...it wasn't the symbol of my Jewish existential identity crisis. I didn't dwell on my Jewish identity because there were plenty of  east coast Jews in Ann Arbor and I was young and thought I would be back in New York (where I was sure I belonged) soon enough. But it turns out that Ann Arbor was my just the beginning of my Midwest life.  

I hadn't been back to Ann Arbor since the start of the Pandemic and was glad to have the bagel quest as an excuse to visit some old friends. I drove with my husband, Matt, and we stayed with my good friends Michael and Ruth.  During my Ann Arbor life their home was my Jewish home away from home, so staying with them was perfect. Ruth is from Rye, NY so she joined me as I visited, tasted, and judged four bagel shops. 

​After consulting the 'best bagels' list in several foodie magazines, posting my bagel question to the 'Detroit Jewish History' Facebook group and asking my Ann Arbor friends for their suggestions, I settled on four bagel shops: New York Bagel in Detroit, Detroit Institute of Bagels, Bev's Bagels in Ann Arbor, and Zingerman's in Ann Arbor. All four used traditional bagel making techniques...some were hand rolled, some were generous with toppings, some steamed their bagels...and all were great bagels.  (For newcomers to my bagel reviews, link here to the description of my judging categories.)   

New York Bagels:  Opened in 1921, New York Bagel shop was on the top of almost everyone's list. The 'best of' foodie blogs, most of the comments from the Detroit Jewish History Facebook group, acquaintances of mine...all said to go to there. I am a sucker for a good family-owned business story, so I was looking forward to checking out this fourth generation bagel business.  New York Bagel started its life in downtown Detroit, but as the Jewish community moved north to the suburbs so did the bagel shop. I met with Phil, the current owner whose very succinct description of how they make their bagels I really enjoyed and tasted some bagels from their Ferndale shop. Walking into the Ferndale store was like walking into any NYC bagel shop. The look of it, the smell of it, and the bins and bins of bagels were just what I was hoping for.
Would I walk half a mile out of my way to eat a New York Bagel bagel: YES! The crispy crust exterior had a lovely crispiness without being tough to bit into. The dough was particularly flavorful. The mark against this bagel is how few seeds were on the sesame and everything bagel. 
​Would I buy a dozen bagels for a bagel spread: YES! New York Bagel would easily be my first pick for a bagel spread. All the Michigan bagels I tasted were quite good, so quality being almost close to equal, I would go for the much less expensive bagel for a dozen.  

Detroit Institute of Bagels: After reading through the 208 comments from the 'where are the best Detroit bagels' question I posed to the Detroit Jewish History Facebook group and reading through the Detroit News archives, it was clear to me that DIB was the second place to go. Philosophically I wanted to try these bagels. In 2012 Ben and Dan Newman opened it because they wanted to bring bagels back to the city center of Detroit. They were inspired to fill some the city's vacant spaces and bring this "quintessential Jewish food" to be part of a growing Jewish community. So what's not to like. I know that good intentions does not mean good bagels but enough people sung the praises of DIB's bagels, so off we went.  
Would I walk half a mile out of my way to eat a DIB bagel? YES! This was a very good bagel. Outside exterior was crispy, the seeds on the bagel were generous, and it had just the right chewiness. I had two minor quibbles with the bagel. It took a little bit of effort to pull off a piece of the bagel with my teeth and the dough wasn't quite as flavorful as it could be. This was easily remedied with cream cheese.
Would I buy a dozen bagels for a bagel spread: YES.  DIB bagel's are a perfect vessel for all the bagel spread options. ​

Bev's Bagels: I was very much looking forward to trying these bagels. Michael clued me into Max Sussman, an artisanal bagel maker running a weekend pop-up out of his house. I started following Bev's Bagels on Instagram and the bagels looked gorgeous. To give the bagels even more bonafides, his Ann Arbor bagels were raved about in the comment thread in the Detroit Jewish History Facebook discussion of best Detroit bagels. True, it was his aunt praising the bagels, but I took it for confirmation. I liked the whole set-up  of the pop-up...the very homey vibe was nice. The entry room to the house had his oven, and mixer and bagel racks and the bagel check-out operation.  
Would I walk half a mile out of my way to eat a Bev's bagel: YES! These bagels were outstanding.  First of all the bagels were warm when we ate them, which already gives them an advantage. A bagel is at its best in the hour after it comes out of the oven. The exterior crispiness was perfect. The amount of seeds was incredible , covered every inch of the bagel. The interior taste was quite good but not fully great..maybe it was the hint of sourdough...not sure.  I should add the downside of the pop-up bagel....unless I lived in this specific outskirts of town neighborhood, it would not be possible to walk half a mile to get this bagel. It was a schlep to get there. 
Would I buy a dozen bagels for a bagel spread: YES. These bagels are gorgeous and tasty and would elevate any bagel spread. (But I might only invite good friends since the bagels are pricey.)​

 Zingerman's:  Zingerman's Deli opened in 1982 and was already an institution by the time I got there in 1989. Anytime I wanted to plunk down a chunk of money I could get myself a truly perfect deli sandwich. But they did not make bagels. They started making incredible bread in 1992. There was a glorious year when they would give away any unsold loaves to whoever was in their next door coffee shop at the time. I made a point to be there a few times a month to get a loaf. I didn't realize they started making bagels until I checked their website. Given the quality of all of Zingerman's food I figured I had to add them to the list. Amy, one of the co-owners of Zingerman's Bake House met us there and told us the story of Zingerman's bagels.
Would I walk half a mile out of my way to eat a Zingerman's bagel: NO. I feel uncertain saying this because it was a very good bagel. The flavor and exterior were great but it was dense and difficult to chew. I did eat it about eight hours after it was baked and a bagel that isn't fresh needs to be toasted. When we brought them home, toasted them and added cream cheese they were delicious. Since these bagels needed to be toasted to reach their full potential...I wouldn't walk extra to buy them and then need to wait until I got home to toast it.
​Would I buy a dozen bagels for a bagel spread:  YES! Great exterior texture, nice amount of seeds, flavorful interior...these would be great bagels for a bagel spread. And warming up the bagels in the oven before you bring them to the table is very acceptable behavior for a bagel spread.

The discipline of my self-appointed Midwest bagel quest requires me to judge Midwestern bagels by the authentic NY bagel standard.  I made the rules so I must stay disciplined and not be distracted by delicious artisanal bagels. 

Let me first go on the record and say that if you find yourself in Detroit or Ann Arbor you can not go wrong buying a bagel at any of these four bagel shops. My mission statement for this quest is that I am a NY Jew living in the Midwest just looking for a great bagel. And these are all great bagels.  

That said...I need to choose a winner. And that winner is the New York Bagel.  The bagels were the right size, the interior flavor was the best of the four and there was a nice crispy exterior. The bins of bagels were full and ready for you when you walk into the store. The bagel would be closer to perfect if they weren't so skimpy with seeds on the bagel. You can tell from the audio that I initially was tempted to choose Bev's Bagels because of how gorgeous, seed-filled and tasty they are. But if I am looking for NYC bagel experience...and considering the gestalt of the bagel...New York Bagel hits the mark.

The bagel quest is heading to Michigan this weekend. I know that Detroit has some deep bagel roots so I wanted to be well prepared for my visit. I posed some bagel questions to the 'Detroit Jewish History' Facebook group and a few folks suggested I search the Detroit Jewish News Digital Archives. This was an incredible treasure trove of bagel history. I typed "bagel" into the search engine and in the blink of an eye 7,936 entries presented themselves to me.  I skimmed through one hundred years of stories, and advertisements (and more advertisements,) and more bagel jokes than I thought existed. This was a fascinating deep dive into how bagels were talked about between 1920 and today.  There were some very random entries such as  the 'Bagel and the Constitution' article from 1996 when a Klan leader went before the Congress Committee on Un-American Affairs to "expose the kosher food business." And it turns out there was a song about bagels and lox recorded by Apollo Records  in 1946. You can listen to it here. ​ 

Every decade had its version of a bagel themed social gathering...some with lox, some with pizza bagels, some with donuts and some for the 'lox and bagel dating circuit.' Viewed through the lens of the bagel, these almost 8,000 entries had a lot to say about Jewish assimilation.  Below is a small sampling of some of my favorite entries. 

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​The bagel entries really got going in the 1940s with 211 mentions of bagels. Many of them were were in reference to bagel and lox breakfast served during WWII to American soldiers. Bagel advertisements became a common thing. One of my favorite ads were for "Bob the Bagel Boy." After their WWII service, Bob Schorr, and his brothers Mickey and Jack opened this delivery service because they got tired of waiting in line for their bagels. 

I always understood the phrase, 'bagel and lox Jew' to be a shorthand of sorts to describe someone who is a culturally identified and not a particularly religious Jew.  Whether this is an insult, praise, or benign is in the mind of the beholder. This phrase showed up over and over again in the archives. And it is possible I found the origin of this phrase. In 1946 rabbi from Glencoe, Illinois wrote about a member of the congregation who described himself with pride as a 'bagel and lox Jew.' He viewed this statement as a tragedy and wrote, "Actually they have no Jewish consciousness at all. They have picked up a few affinities they might describe as Jewish but they are matters of habit, or of the palate. There is no Jewishness in there hearts or in their homes. If they are happy that way, well and good. We have lost them and we are sorry to see them go. The bakeries and the herring stories will also be open to supply them with bagels and lox."  I was a bit surprised that this debate/argument was happening then - I would have thought in the years immediately following the Holocaust we wouldn't be quibbling with who was Jewish enough. This article and phrase was referenced and debated many times in the decades to come in the Detroit Jewish News archives.

The 1950s and 1960s had plenty of ads for bagels, with the New York Bagel Company, Manhattan Bagel Bakery, and the Bagel Palace taking up the most ad space. My takeaway from all these ads and bagel gatherings is that there were plenty of bagel shops to chose from in Detroit in the 50s. There were a surprising number of bagel themed plays and performances and at least monthly a bagel and lox brunch was advertised.

There were 843 entries in the 1970s and no small percentage of them were about Lenders Bagels. Lenders was not afraid to throw out a great deal of money to advertisement and it paid off in becoming a national bagel juggernaut. Modern production was going to replace the human made bagel operation whether Lenders happened or not. And once it became mass produced and available at a grocery store it was inevitable that the bagel would assimilate from an ethnic food item to a more generic part of the American diet. Looking through all the Lender's ads and the relentless pairing with Philadelphia cream cheese, Harry Lender seemed to really put a lot of energy into making sure the bagel was not seen as a Jewish delicacy to be eaten with smoked and kinda smelly fish.

The 1980s was a big decade for Detroit bagels with more than 2,100 entries. While there were a lot of ads, debates about how Jewish the bagel remained, and Lenders selling their bagel business to Kraft, the   entries regarding the 'bagel files' got a lot of attention. Some of the folks in the Cranbrook school admission process drew a bagel next to the names of Jewish students. Many articles declared the bagel to no longer be Jewish and to have thoroughly assimilated, yet here it remained a Jewish identifier. 

The 1990s had 2,217 bagel entries. It was the Bagel Barometer' that caught my attention. It took me awhile to realize that I wasn't missing  bagel articles on the newspaper page, and this was how they ranked movies. 

From the Yiddish bagel jokes from the 1940s to more current cartoons, there were a surprising amount of bagel humor entries. 
​

Between the close to 300 comments I got from the Detroit Jewish History Facebook group singing the praises of the Detroit bagel and the close to 18,000 entries I skimmed from the Detroit Jewish News - people from Detroit love their bagels. And they are not afraid to go bagel-to-bagel with New York City bagels. I will be tasting some this weekend and will report back and let you know if I share their confidence in the Detroit bagel.