I am a New York Jew living in the Midwest just looking for a great bagel. I started on this self-appointed quest in January 2024, after my mom died. She was the last link to my family's Yiddish roots and was the culture bearer for our family. I have lived happily in the Midwest for the last thirty years, but I have never shaken the feeling that I am not living in the right place. I miss the anxious energy, the sharp sense of humor, people inserting themselves in my business. I contend that this attitude and my childhood memories can be distilled down to the New York-style bagel...my cultural comfort food...a bagel that has been properly kneaded, fermented, boiled, and baked.
The dominant bagel narrative is that bagels are a NYC Jewish food and that New York defines American Jewish culture. I am part of that narrative and have never questioned my New York-centricness, even after thirty years of living in the Midwest. But this quest has shown me that there is a bit more nuance here.
But as I dug through newspaper archives and old bagel history books, I kept finding a statistic that was quoted over and over again that was annoying me. “NYC had 30 bagel bakeries in the 1960s and ten other bakeries elsewhere in the country.” Hmmm…I wasn’t so sure about that. I first saw this quote early in my research in June Roth’s 1979 book, The Bagel Book. Roth was a syndicated columnist and the author of 36 cookbooks. As I got deeper into the Jewish newspaper archives and learned of dozens of Midwest bagel shops through my casual research, I dismissed her ten bakeries comment as someone who had been lazy about research. But then I saw the exact quote in the 1977 article in the Kenosha News by the UPI Family Editor, “Bagelmania sweeps country”. In a 1975 Racine Journal Times article, “Bagel Becomes an Institution” by an AP News features Writer. Then in a 1975 Sheboygan Press article by an AP news feature writer, “Bagels have blossomed beautifully”, I found the original source of the quote. Murray Lenders is quoted saying “Until the 1950s, the bagel in this country was almost exclusively an ethnic food in New York’s Jewish community. There were about 40 bagel bakers in the entire United States and 30 of them were in New York.” This quote, which was most likely a marketing effort by Murray Lenders, became the truth that everyone centered their bagel story around. And now, in a surprising twist to me in my bagel quest, I would like to disprove this historical point.
The dominant bagel narrative is that bagels are a NYC Jewish food and that New York defines American Jewish culture. I am part of that narrative and have never questioned my New York-centricness, even after thirty years of living in the Midwest. But this quest has shown me that there is a bit more nuance here.
But as I dug through newspaper archives and old bagel history books, I kept finding a statistic that was quoted over and over again that was annoying me. “NYC had 30 bagel bakeries in the 1960s and ten other bakeries elsewhere in the country.” Hmmm…I wasn’t so sure about that. I first saw this quote early in my research in June Roth’s 1979 book, The Bagel Book. Roth was a syndicated columnist and the author of 36 cookbooks. As I got deeper into the Jewish newspaper archives and learned of dozens of Midwest bagel shops through my casual research, I dismissed her ten bakeries comment as someone who had been lazy about research. But then I saw the exact quote in the 1977 article in the Kenosha News by the UPI Family Editor, “Bagelmania sweeps country”. In a 1975 Racine Journal Times article, “Bagel Becomes an Institution” by an AP News features Writer. Then in a 1975 Sheboygan Press article by an AP news feature writer, “Bagels have blossomed beautifully”, I found the original source of the quote. Murray Lenders is quoted saying “Until the 1950s, the bagel in this country was almost exclusively an ethnic food in New York’s Jewish community. There were about 40 bagel bakers in the entire United States and 30 of them were in New York.” This quote, which was most likely a marketing effort by Murray Lenders, became the truth that everyone centered their bagel story around. And now, in a surprising twist to me in my bagel quest, I would like to disprove this historical point.
I am writing my bagel quest book for the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. It will explore the connection between Jewish Yiddish assimilation across the generations and the assimilation of the bagel. And much more. Please follow along and share your thoughts about bagels with me. (And check out the bagel quest drop down menu to find my city-by-city reviews.)
