Montreal bagels or New York bagels?
With all due respect to New York, I prefer Montreal bagels.
I like their slightly sweet, less fluffy and more chewy nature. Granted, the more bread-like, fuller New York bagels are better for sandwiches, but for the best bagel-and-cream-cheese experience, it has to be the Montreal.
The word bagel translates loosely from the Yiddish and German to mean something like “ring,” and this of course makes baking and etymological sense, given the bagel’s shape.
Bagels made their way from eastern Europe really only in the early 20th century with the people (and their wonderful culinary traditions and knowledge) who sailed into Ellis Island and helped with shaping the food culture of North America. That it likely appeared at the gateway of world immigration at New York (though Ellis Island is actually mostly in New Jersey) neatly explains how the name came into play.
Here’s an interesing story about New York bagel history, from Atlas Obscura.
However, there is evidence that the original Ellis Island-immigration bagel was the sweeter, chewy version we know and love as a Montreal bagel. At some point in its history, it seems to have evolved into a fluffier, more bread-like ring that is the New York bagel.
The Ur-Montreal bagel really got established in places like St-Viateur Bagel Shop, which was founded in 1957, and Fairmount Bagel. When I visit Montreal, I seek these places out — the shops, both decades old now, are credited with being the anchors of true Montreal bagel-ness.
A Montreal bagel is just slightly sweet. There is usually not much (or not any salt) in the hand-made dough, but there is the all-important honey; and there is also often honey in the water in which the bagels are gently poached.
After their short, sweet honey-water bath, the Montreal bagel must then be baked in a wood-fired oven: that is a critical difference.
The external crispness and just-slight charring from the lick of flames gives an added flavour depth – think subtle sweetness with nutty sesame-seed deliciousness – to the soft but slightly yielding chew of the bagel interior.
There’s not much better — especially with melty cream cheese.
