Florida bagels. These are from The Speckled Egg in Ft. Myers. Eileen Goldfinger photo. 3/5/22 They are superb : high standards there.
The Speckled Egg. Ft. Myers, Fla. Paul Goldfinger 3/7/22
Paul Goldfinger, self-proclaimed bagel expert and editor. Blogfinger has published more bagel articles than any other publication in the world.
Everyone seems to know that you can’t get a decent bagel or pizza in Florida. We can’t speak to the pizza question because we rarely have pizza, and Eileen makes great “heart healthy” pizza at home . (Recipe to follow)
But we can speak to the issue of Florida bagels. First we must lay to rest part of that stereotype. There is no shortage of authentic New York City style bagels on the east coast of Fla. where there are wonderful Jewish delis and bakeries. The bagels are first rate in Boca, Boynton Beach, and other close-by towns with amazing bakeries practically on every corner.
However, this winter in Southwest Fla, l began my annual search for a decent bagel but without high hopes.
There is a shop at the local Farmers’ Market called “New York Bagels.” Each week the same woman tends to long lines–her bagels are popular.
I was skeptical about these being authentic New York. But her products are remarkably good. I wondered how they are able to emulate an authentic NY bagel.
My skepticism was due to having lived in New York City where the first bagel bakers showed up about 150 years ago—Jewish immigrants from Poland who also brought brisket, knishes and other delicacies. Generations later they still know how to do it.
Current New York bagel bakeries still follow the detailed methods from Europe which result in fame and excellence. Many believe that it is the New York soft water, with certain minerals, that is the secret ingredient. There are some special moving parts such as salt, mixing the dough, malt, and yeast in the proper amounts, and timing is key for each step. The finished product should be crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside, and getting there requires great skill and no shortcuts.
You might be surprised as to all the steps involved including getting the high gluten dough ready with proofing (letting the yeast rise for hours and standing the dough all night,) boiling in water, and adding the dressings (everything, onion, sesame, etc.) Then there is the baking which must be precise in terms of timing and temperature.
Many bagel bakeries today outside New York have allowed their products to become too fat and heavy, filled with air, and manhandled in a variety of ways resulting in poor quality. Some are machine made, but the best are hand rolled. You can witness this traditional method at the Hot Bagel Bakery in Oakhurst on Monmouth Road—a model of perfection for 40 years and supervised for Kosher by rabbis even though two Irishmen own the place. But go early to see the bakers doing that voo doo that they doo so well.
I didn’t believe anyone in Southwest Florida could duplicate all this, and the “NY bagel” lady was a mystery.
So I went to the “Speckled Egg” in Ft. Myers where their bagels are excellent. What ‘s going on? Is this magic; is this a mystery; is this sleight of hand? I asked them:
Well, the answer is plain as the bagel in your face. Huge bakeries in the Bronx flash freeze their bagels and then ship them by truck or Fedex overnight to Florida. On arrival the recipient just puts them briefly in the oven with directions from New York.
They stay fresh and delicious, and suddenly Southwest Florida is second home to the Bronx. We have two baseball teams that do spring training here including The Twins and The Red Sox. Now that we have Bronx bagels, how about the Bronx Bombers?
And as for the bagel lady at the Farmers Market? She speaks the emmis. (ie the truth—Yiddish.)
ITZHAK PERLMAN AND THE KLEZMATICS “”Simkhes Toyre Time” From the album Perlman Plays Klezmer
Dave: If a Pakistani makes perfect Jewish style bagels, then they are not a “cross-cultural” food. But if he adds bacon, Indian spices and hot peppers, then yes, it could be called “cross-cultural,” but not authentic.
If one is an aficionado of traditional Italian or Jewish food, then you have to shop where there are specialists who adhere to authenticity. You don’t go to a Chinese restaurant for real baked ziti or chicken cacciatore, and you don’t buy bagels at place where they are like white bread and the size of your head–you want that true texture and taste, and you know it when you have it. And then it doesn’t matter who prepares the food.
There are food purveyors and restaurants in Little Italy that have been there for well over 100 years and still make no changes in their traditional ways of doing it, even if they have a varied number of immigrants in the kitchens. They are not “cross cultural.”
I will repost my article about chocolate bagels an Wegmans.
So talking about cross-cultural is a red herring for this conversation.
However, throughout history, as one civilization conquers another, the foods become varied. If you ever visit the old city of Jerusalem, you will find a conglomeration of foods influenced by Muslims, Europeans, Jews, Persians, Crusaders, Turks, etc. But those foods generally keep their authenticity as they are served together.
For example, if you have an Israeli breakfast you will find hummus, falafel, halvah, filo dough, local fish caught by local fishermen, pickled items, local breads, and locally grown fruits and veggies. No one group can claim all this—it is truly multi-cultural and in the old city, there is pride in that multi-cultural cuisine.
Bagels can be cross-cultural items. In my area of Flushing, Queens, NY, the local bagel place has been operated by Koreans for several decades. The neighborhood was largely Reform Jewish originally but became Asian as most of Flushing.