From Egypt, ancestor can be traced to classical Rome and France, where there is boiled and baked anise-flavored bread similar to bagel.
By the 14th century, Jewish artisans and traders had brought bagels and pretzels from the West to Krakow, Poland, independently of Germans who were introducing the ring-shaped breads to Polish markets.
In Poland it was common for a soft, crusty, warm bread that was chewy and delicious to be given to pregnant mother and mid-wives as a gift during childbirth.
The bread was known as a bajgiel and it refer to a type of bread that is ‘toroidal’ (means round) in shape.
Bagel making arrived in America with wave of eastern European Jewish immigration that began in the 1880s and bagels were sold on the street of New York by the early twentieth century.
The US bagel industry took off in New York City between 1910 and 1915 with unionization of bagel bakers.
Until, the late 1950s, bagels were handcrafted in small two or three person cellar bakeries in New York’s Lower East Side.
By the 1990s, Americans were consuming a large quantity of bagels, spending more money on them which was estimated $900 million than on doughnut ($500 million).
McDonald’s tested a McBagel in 1998. It wasn’t successful as the company wanted and it was later removed from the menu. Other fast food chains were more successful.
It wasn’t until the 20th century that bagel varieties grew to include cinnamon, raisins, salt and whole wheat with the more gourmet types of pesto, sundried tomato, blueberry, pumpkin and apple to arrive later than century.
History of bagels
