Are Sweet Bagels Acceptable?

Are sweet bagels an abomination? It’s a bit of a contentious issue. We at Gotham aren’t really in the business of judging you—unless you ask us about those neon bagels you see on Instagram—but we decided this week to review the literature on this most important subject.

Is that a doughnut?

Traditional bagel flavors

Bagels originated in Poland, as we’ve already been over many times. They were a street food meant to serve as a cheap meal, and thus their toppings weren’t too fancy. Common central and Eastern European flavors like poppy seed, sesame seed, onion, and salt were the natural choices. As the bagel came across the ocean to the USA, the Polish Jews who peddled them in their shops expanded their offerings to include flavors like pumpernickel or rye, as well as the infamous “everything.”

Traditional bagel flavors include plain, sesame, and poppy.

New creations

Fast forward… the 1950’s were a wild time. In the American culinary world, it was a period of radical experimentation, spawning things like lime and cheese salad, or the Jell-O tuna wreath. Better refrigeration and storage meant mass production was more profitable, too, so recipes got an extra shock of new ingredients. Preservatives increased shelf life, food coloring intensified color, and synthetic flavorings boosted taste. Bagels were baked in scores of new flavors starting in the 50’s, too. While not of the new innovations of the 50’s were necessarily good, the flavor crossovers in the bagel shop definitely produced some hits.

A 1960’s kitchen creation. Source: pinterest.com

For those with a sweet tooth...

The most popular sweet bagel flavor is cinnamon raisin. In fact, many bagel enthusiasts regard the cinnamon raisin bagel as the only acceptable sweet-tasting bagel (although most classic egg and pumpernickel recipes have a decent amount of sweetness, too!) This is likely because this flavor also has its roots in Central and Eastern Europe, where raisins and cinnamon are baked into cakes, rolls, and holiday sweet breads. Other sweet favorites include cranberry, blueberry, and cinnamon-sugar. (Side note—our Chicago Creation of the Month for April is for sugar lovers: the Hyde Park, combining fried chicken with honey-walnut cream cheese and a maple syrup drizzle on a toasted cinnamon raisin…)

The Hyde Park, created by Chicagoan @spifster

What do you think?

To those that get heated about proper bagels (and this includes us!): do a couple of innocent blueberries and cranberries really offend you? We at Gotham advise you to pick your battles—with so many textureless rings of grocery store “bagels” in the world, it might be better to focus on preserving the hand-rolling, boiling, and wood-firing practices that make bagels special. But everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so, you know, go off I guess.