Montreal-style bagel
Encyclopedia
Bagel
A bagel is a bread product, traditionally shaped by hand into the form of a ring from yeasted wheat dough, roughly hand-sized, which is first boiled for a short time in water and then baked. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior...
. In contrast to the New York-style bagel, the Montreal bagel is smaller, sweeter and denser, with a larger hole, and is always baked in a wood-fired oven
Wood-fired oven
Wood-fired ovens, also known as wood ovens , are ovens that use wood fuel for cooking. There are two types of wood-fired ovens: "black ovens" and "white ovens"...
. It contains malt
Malt
Malt is germinated cereal grains that have been dried in a process known as "malting". The grains are made to germinate by soaking in water, and are then halted from germinating further by drying with hot air...
, egg
Egg (food)
Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...
, and no salt and is boiled in honey
Honey
Honey is a sweet food made by bees using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans...
-sweetened water before being baked in a wood-fired oven, whose irregular flames give it a dappled light-and-dark surface colour.
In many Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
establishments, bagels are still produced by hand and baked in wood-fired ovens, often in full view of the customers. There are two predominant varieties: black-seed (poppy seed
Poppy seed
Poppy seed is an oilseed obtained from the opium poppy . The tiny kidney-shaped seeds have been harvested from dried seed pods by various civilizations for thousands of years...
), or white-seed (sesame seed).
History
Montreal bagels, like the similarly shaped New York bagel, were brought to North America by Jewish immigrants from Poland and other Eastern European countries; the differences in texture and taste reflect the style of the particular area in Poland in which the immigrant bakers learned their trade. Minor controversy surrounds the question of who first brought the bagel to Montreal. They were (reportedly) first baked in Montreal by Chaim (Hyman) Seligman, as verified by Montreal historian Joe King, a historian of Montreal Jewry. Seligman first worked in the neighbourhood community of LachineLachine, Quebec
Lachine was a city on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is now a borough within the city of Montreal.-History:...
and later moved his bakery to the lane next door to Schwartz's
Schwartz's
Schwartz's, also known as the Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen is a delicatessen established in 1928 by Reuben Schwartz, a Jewish immigrant from Romania. It is a landmark at 3895 Saint-Laurent Boulevard and the most famous Montreal-style smoked meat restaurant. Schwartz's often has a line extending...
Delicatessen on Boulevard St. Laurent in central Montreal. Seligman would string his bagels into dozens and patrol Jewish Main purveying his wares, originally with a pushcart, then a horse and wagon and still later from a converted taxi. Seligman went into partnership with Myer Lewkowicz and with Jack Shlafman but fell out with both of them. Seligman and Lewkowicz founded the St. Viateur Bagel Shop
St-Viateur Bagel
St-Viateur Bagel is a famous Montreal-style bagel bakery located in the neighbourhood of Mile End in the borough of Le Plateau Mont-Royal. Established in 1957 by Myer Lewkowicz, the bakery takes its name from its street, St-Viateur Street...
in 1957 and Shlafman established Fairmount Bagel
Fairmount Bagel
Fairmount Bagel is the original Montreal bagel bakery in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.It was opened by 1919 by Russian immigrant Isadore Shlafman, whose hand-rolled recipe quickly became a staple in the Mile End community...
in 1919, which both still exist in the present day.
Spread
A substantial proportion of Montreal's English-speaking Jewish community gradually left for other locales. Catering to this population, Montreal-style bagel shops have opened in VancouverVancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
, Toronto, Hamilton
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
, Calgary
Calgary
Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...
, and other Canadian, and even US cities, such as Seattle, Houston, Los Angeles, and Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
. However, this style of bagel is almost completely unknown in the northeastern U.S. despite its proximity to Montreal, mainly due to the proximity of the rival New York City bagel. One exception is Burlington, Vermont
Burlington, Vermont
Burlington is the largest city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the shire town of Chittenden County. Burlington lies south of the U.S.-Canadian border and some south of Montreal....
, where Myer's Bagels boasts both a Montreal-style wood oven and a former Fairmount Bagel
Fairmount Bagel
Fairmount Bagel is the original Montreal bagel bakery in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.It was opened by 1919 by Russian immigrant Isadore Shlafman, whose hand-rolled recipe quickly became a staple in the Mile End community...
baker.
Montreal-style bagels have even flown in space. Gregory Chamitoff
Gregory Chamitoff
Gregory Errol Chamitoff is an engineer and NASA astronaut. He was assigned to Expedition 17 and flew to the International Space Station on STS-124, launching 31 May 2008. He was in space 198 days, joining Expedition 18 after Expedition 17 left the station, and returned to Earth 30 November 2008 on...
, who grew up in Montreal, took three bags of sesame bagels with him on his assignments to STS-124
STS-124
STS-124 was a Space Shuttle mission, flown by Space Shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station. Discovery launched on 31 May 2008 at 17:02 EDT, moved from an earlier scheduled launch date of 25 May 2008, and landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility, at 11:15...
as passenger and ISS Expedition 17
Expedition 17
Expedition 17 was the 17th expedition to the International Space Station .The first two crew members, Sergey Volkov, and Oleg Kononenko were launched on 8 April 2008, aboard the Soyuz TMA-12...
as crewmember.
Production
Montreal-style bagels are, for the most part, manufactured by the same method used to produce a generic bagel.The Montreal-style method of making bagels builds on the basic traditional method in the following ways:
- The bagel dough includes egg and honey.
- Honey is also added to the water used for poaching the bagels before baking.
- The bagels are baked in wood-fired oven.
Famous bagel shops
Several Montreal bagel factories are famous for their authentic Montreal-style bagels. St-Viateur BagelSt-Viateur Bagel
St-Viateur Bagel is a famous Montreal-style bagel bakery located in the neighbourhood of Mile End in the borough of Le Plateau Mont-Royal. Established in 1957 by Myer Lewkowicz, the bakery takes its name from its street, St-Viateur Street...
, at 263 av. St-Viateur West, Fairmount Bagel
Fairmount Bagel
Fairmount Bagel is the original Montreal bagel bakery in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.It was opened by 1919 by Russian immigrant Isadore Shlafman, whose hand-rolled recipe quickly became a staple in the Mile End community...
, at 74 av. Fairmont West, as well as Mount Royal Bagel Bakery, at 709 Lucerne, which is the only traditionally made wood fired MK Kosher Bagel in the world (www.mountroyalbagelbakery.com) and Cote-Saint-Luc Bagel, are the most well-known and popular bagel shops in Montreal. R.E.A.L. Bagel, Cantor's and Kosher Quality also sell Montreal-style bagels.
In New York City, there are two Montreal-style bagel locations in Brooklyn within four blocks of each other:
Montreal-style bagels are made fresh in a traditional wood-fired brick oven in New York's historic Brooklyn Heights neighborhood, at B&B Empire Cafe (200 Clinton Street, Brooklyn NY).
Montreal-style bagels can also be purchased at a deli called Mile End, in the Boerum Hill
Boerum Hill
Boerum Hill is a small neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn that occupies 36 blocks bounded by State Street to the north, 4th Avenue to the east, Smith Street to the west, and Warren Street to the south. Commercial strips line Smith Street and Atlantic...
section of Brooklyn, which was opened and is run by a Montreal native.
See also
- Mile End, Montreal
- Montreal-style smoked meatMontreal-style smoked meatMontreal-style smoked meat, Montreal smoked meat or simply smoked meat in Montreal , is a type of kosher-style deli meat product made by salting and curing beef brisket with spices...
- Urban cultureUrban cultureUrban culture is the culture of towns and cities. In the United States, Urban culture may also sometimes be used as a euphemistic reference to contemporary African American culture.- African American culture :...