Bakery Bulletin by Philippa Kelly: The many meanings of bagel

Bugan is an Old English word meaning 'to bend'. From this, we get the Old English for 'ring' - Beag.
A bagelA bagel
A bagel

This is similar to the Old High German for “ring”, which is Bouc. The Middle High German for “ring” is taken from that and that’s Bougel. From Bougel, we get the Yiddish word which, after transliteration, becomes Beygl. Go to London, and it’s Beigel; New York and it’s Bagel.

All good foods come with a myth, and the bagel myth goes like this: In 1683, the King of Poland, John III Sobieski engaged in the Battle of Vienna against the Ottoman Empire.

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Upon his victory, a baked good in the shape of a riding stirrup was created in his honour, and thus the bagel was born.

As I said, it’s a myth. It’s not even a very good one. I would have gone down the cat collar route, or manacled slaves, or a toy from an adult shop. I mean I’d have chosen one of them as the basis of the myth, that’s not just a list of things I like.

The truth behind the beginning of bagels is, whilst linguistically compelling, kind of boring.

There’s evidence of bagels in Krakow, Poland as early as 1610. Evidence as in a text mentioning them, not a really stale little bagel.

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According to the Jewish Community Regulations documents from that year, bagels must be given to women during childbirth. I don’t know why, but I think I’d rather keep it that way.

Popular in Jewish communities in Poland, bagels were brought with the immigrant Poles to London and New York City. In the early 1900s, Bagel Bakers Local 338 was formed. It was like a trade union that protected the bagel bakers of The Big Apple.

By 1915 they had contracts with 36 bakeries in the city. So why are they called Bagel Bakers Local 338? Well it’s all pretty self explanatory apart from the 338. What? Why would I know that? Why don’t you find out, if it bothers you that much.

The union and it’s hand-bakers (yes, very clever, all the bagels were hand jobs, and yes, the adept workmen were master bakers) became all but obsolete when, in 1958, the first bagel-making machine was invented.

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A guy called Daniel Thomas invented it and leased the design to Henry Lender. Lender, his son, and someone else called Sender (no, really, it was Lender, Lender, and Sender) were able to mass-produce bagels and introduced the idea of freezing them. The introduction of pre-sliced bagels was the younger Lender’s idea. Why people bought bagels before they were pre-sliced is beyond me.

As well as eating a bagel, I could do some other stuff too. Stop it, I mean because bagel has other meanings. I could sing Bagelach. Actually I couldn’t but only because it’s in Russian and Yiddish. And I don’t know it.

In tennis, I could score a bagel. That’s if I could play tennis (I can’t) and be good enough to win a set 6-0 (I’m not) then I’d have scored a bagel (I could score it all right - with a knife before toasting).

Lastly, my favourite alternative use of the word bagel is courtesy of Yeshiva English (the dialect of Yeshivish - an ultra-orthodox strain of Judaism) and it means sleeping for twelve hours straight.

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It could be because a bagel has to rest for twelve hours between mixing and baking, or it could be because the hands of a clock draw the shape of a bagel in a twelve hour period, or it could be because it sounds adorable: I slept a bagel last night.

I love it. Just be sure not to add a floating “with”.

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