Crumb Chronicles: Bagels Create Connection for SLO Jewish Community and Beyond
Story by Aja Goare
Illustration by Dyna Beach
Anyone who has engaged in debate about bagels (given that this is a food magazine, it’s assumed such an argument is relatable) has found themselves on one of two sides: New York bagels are either superior or they’re not. The reason, Big Apple believers argue, is the water.
“Very little water goes into a bagel,” contests Brenda Hock, a San Luis Obispo cooking instructor who has made her share of the round bread. “It’s more to do with the oven than the water.”
Water is important, though. Notably, the bagel is the only type of bread that is boiled in water before it’s baked. This process not only sets the crust to prevent excessive rise during the baking process, but it also gives the bagel its glossy finish. The reason the oven is important, Brenda says, is that a really high, consistent heat produces the best results.
Brenda has been making bagels for decades, including the 25 years she taught breadmaking. Before making bread, she was dealing with a different kind of “dough” as a bond trader on Wall Street. After she was laid off, she took up cooking school and went on to be a restaurant reviewer in Poughkeepsie, where her love of eating inspired a desire to learn to bake. “I gifted myself bread baking classes at the Culinary Institute of America, then I attended a bread camp in San Francisco,” she explains.
Years later in 1999, after some time running a catering business, a leap of faith brought her to San Luis Obispo. As a member of two local synagogues, Brenda wanted to help bring in extra money to her place of worship in a feasible way. So, she hosted a baking class on site to teach, where congregants could pay to learn bagel, bialy (a traditional bread roll) and babka (a sweet braided bread) baking basics. The money went back into the synagogue. “I feel a strong connection to traditions,” says Brenda. “Judaism has a deep connection to food and hospitality.”
Bagels have long been associated with the Jewish culture. Among the first mentions of them was in Poland in the 17th century. Common lore has it that the bagel was born in response to antisemitic laws that prohibited Jews from baking. “Boiling the bread was a kind of loophole,” Brenda explains. When Jews immigrated to America, they brought the bagel with them. By the early 1900s, there were over 70 bagel shops in New York City. Today, there are an estimated 200 and counting.
Growing up Jewish in New York, Brenda says bagels were an undeniable pleasure for all ages. “When I was younger, I remember people going out late Saturday night to get a copy of The New York Times. They’d stop at the bagel place — we called them ‘appetizer stores’ then — and get a bagel with shmear,” recalls Brenda. “It was a real treat.”
When she makes the coveted provisions today, it’s not without some serious reflection on her last half-century consuming them. One of the biggest influences on flavor, she’s learned, is not an ingredient at all. “Time equals taste,” she shares. “The more time you take, the more flavor is imparted into it.” To this end, Brenda allows her dough to rest overnight. She takes a golf ball-size piece of dough and puts it in a Mason jar full of water. Once the ball rises to the top, it’s time for refrigeration. These steps ultimately give the bagel its signature New York chewiness.
The techniques are countless and vary from city to city and kitchen to kitchen. New Yorkers boil their bagels, but in Chicago, steam produces a fluffy interior; in Montreal, the bagel is thinner, sweeter and denser than its stateside brethren. Even in Poland, the bagel’s presumed birthplace, the obwarzanek krakowski is a braided, ring-shaped bread that’s boiled and sprinkled with salt and seeds (sesame or poppy) before it’s baked.
“Sometimes I like to scoop out the soft underbelly and just have the crust with cottage cheese, salmon and chopped tomato,” says Brenda.
In this modern age, bagels are even made gluten free. Salty Bagel in San Luis Obispo, for instance, makes a dozen flavors of bagel all without gluten. And that’s no small feat, considering bagel recipes tend to call for high gluten flour that can more easily produce the traditional texture and chew.
Whether it’s boiled or steamed, made with or without glutenous flour, topped with lox or cream cheese, the bagel is a beloved bite to eat. It’s what Brenda calls the “great bonder.”
“It brings people together and starts the conversation,” she says.
