Bagels

This has to be a "deep rambling" if I ever saw one...bagels. I am sitting here eating a bagel but fighting with it would be a better description. It was a little hard when I got it out of the bag so I microwaved it. Then it was super chewy so I found the biggest knife in the house and sliced and toasted it. Perfect, highly crunchy, but as soon as it cooled down it became (That is to say, now is) extremly hard, I think if you dropped your Arc AAA onto it the LED would break...

So since that was more of a comment than a conversation starter, this is to be the ultimate Bagel vs. Croissant topic. I personally am neutral, sometimes I like bagels, sometimes I like croissants, but certainly there are more than one of you who have an oppinion on these paistrys...

Keep your bagels in PLASTIC bags or a bagel keeper (rubbermade of tupperware) and they won't get hard... never store bagels in paper sacks... and if you keep them in the freezer, thaw them in the microwave on the defrost cycle, not the ZAP cycle... if you store them in the fridge in PLASTIC, they should never get hard... just a little moldy after a couple months...

Left some breadsticks out on the table once (in a tupperware..ok ok rubbermaid) for about a month, finally someone opened the container, I wasn't there but it was described as a fur farm or something! Needless to say the container soaked in the sink for about a week after that.

A long,long tome ago in a city far, far, away, I live in Greenwich Village New York City.

Native New Yorkers called the bagel "Cement doughnuts" The bagel may not start out that way, but it always ends up hard as a rock.

If you love bagels, you don't mind.

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Sasha said:
Keep your bagels in PLASTIC bags or a bagel keeper (rubbermade of tupperware) and they won't get ...snip....

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GAHHHH - Store a bagel? NOOOOOO You buy them FRESH, still warm from the oven, withing 3 hours of eating them, and as a preference, within 5 minutes of eathing them. A nice FRESH, still hot, traditional water method bagel, with your choice of topping (Butter for me if it's a plain, onion, garlic or everything, Cream cheese is it's a Rasin Bagel)

I got hooked on plain bagels with cream cheese (when I can afford them).

Any pastry, including bread will harden when left exposed to air, where the moisture evaporates out.

Bagels with lox (not liquid oxygen). Croisant? Isn't that French?

If you're foolish enough to put one in a microwave then you get what you deserve.
Toasters are also unacceptable.

They should be sold in plastic and stored in plastic.
If you've just bought your bagels and find yourself leaving the store carrying a paper sack then you can be assured that you've already made your first mistake.

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KC2IXE said:
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Sasha said:
Keep your bagels in PLASTIC bags or a bagel keeper (rubbermade of tupperware) and they won't get ...snip....

[/ QUOTE ]

GAHHHH - Store a bagel? NOOOOOO You buy them FRESH, still warm from the oven, withing 3 hours of eating them, and as a preference, within 5 minutes of eathing them. A nice FRESH, still hot, traditional water method bagel, with your choice of topping (Butter for me if it's a plain, onion, garlic or everything, Cream cheese is it's a Rasin Bagel)

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Or as they would say here: Oy Veh! Storing a bagel is a Schande! A shame! Some will not acknowledge something with raisins in it as a bagel. My favorites -- H&H or Ess-A-Bagel bagels exactlty as KC2IXE says, still warm. Bagels simply should not be kept around long enough to get hard. In addition to cream cheese or lox, whitefish salad is a great topping. Once you've had some of these, you won't even think of croissants given a choice.