Liberty Bagels
The starting act of opening up a bagel has been on my for you page for the longest time. Every time, it would be filled with rich cream cheese and a bagel that looks perfectly toasted. It was either that or a video starting with the huge pile of cream cheese at the counter. Those bagels are a symbol of going to New York. While there were lots of options such as Apollo Bagel, Liberty Bagels, Pop Up Bagel and more, for our trip this time with the limited time, we only had time for Liberty Bagel that was near our hotel.
History behind Culinary
Bagels trace back to the immigrants coming into New York City in the 19th century. In the 17th century, where there were anti-Semitic laws that prevented Polish Jews from baking bread, they changed the way they made bread, into the shape of a bread with a hole, and called beygl, which also meant ring or bracelet. In the early 1900s, bagel bakers unionized to improve the industry. With the bagel rolling machine invented in the 1950s, it allowed the bagels to be produced faster, which then led to mass adoption. All of this established the popularity base that bagels have today.
At Liberty Bagels, the line was relatively long, but it didn't take that long.
It also didn’t feel long from all the time I can get to admire the mountains of cream cheese. It was just like looking at ice cream and having trouble selecting a flavor. In the end, I got the classic Everything Bagel
with scallion cream cheese and my family ordered two others. It was as perfectly toasted as the ones I see on Instagram, making the outside crispy but the inside
chewy and fluffy, making it a great breakfast. At its first bite, it was so rich and decadent, but as it went on, it became a little too rich for me. I enjoyed it, but I don’t know if I would like to eat it with that much cream cheese, no wonder they need mountains of it at the counter.
For a sweeter option, we had the cinnamon raisin bagel with cookies and cream cheese. The bagel was similarly, chewy, even if it wasn't toasted.
The cookies and cream cheese were sweet and I loved how you could taste the crunches. It was rich and sweet, but I think it was balanced pretty well because it didn’t have the taste staying on your tongue like the scallion cream cheese did.
Saving the best for last, we had the Diablo, which
consisted of chicken, avocado, cilantro, cucumber, and chipotle mayo. This was my favorite among all that we ordered. It consisted of lots of ingredients, so eating it required opening your mouth widely, making it very enjoyable. Even as someone that does not particularly enjoy cilantro, all of the ingredients in the bagel paired well together.
It is amazing to see how immigrants have become the foundation of a popular food in New York City. The bagel craze is not just something that began today because of social media, but started long before in Poland.
References
Bagel History — BagelUp. (n.d.). BagelUp. https://www.bagelup.com/bagel-history
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