Food for thot(s)
Introducing our Intern Max's "Perfect Bagel Criteria" and the religiosity of round perfection.
Hey wicked pisser,
Hope you’re hungry, cause we’re taking a page out of Badu’s “Appletree” and offering some thoughts on that edible food you eat! BAGELS!
A bagel, in its roundness, completes the circle of life, bridging traditions of eating across hundreds of years and a vast geographic expanse that was refined in the basements of New York and New Jersey bagel shops and delis. For more details, see this interview with Maria Balinska, author of “The Circle of Life With Bagel,” who astutely points out that, “so many are simply bread rolls in the shape of a ring, in the shape of a bagel.”
As it turns out, the bagel can be a profoundly religious experience, and in my estimation has been a replacement for Catholicism in my early life in New Jersey: I am fervent about their traditions, I worship the bagel saints who make them, I weaponize bagel guilt on family and friends when not presented with bagels and I believe I know everything about them!
But the bagel joint is a temple to community, its workers the clergy (whose 1951 strike lead to a 1,200,000-bagel shortage in New York) and we bagel eaters the disciples. Is this what it’s like to truly believe?!
Every religion needs its commandments and PISS subscribes to our intern (only employee) Max’s “Perfect Bagel Criteria” which he will be expertly applying to bagel joints around London just for your amusement and education. So enjoy!
The Good Bagel, 56 Stoke Newington Church St, London N16 0NB, 9am-4pm all week.
By
A bagel is good one way and one way only, and is great in one place and one place only. However, since we are 4,000 miles away from New Jersey, you gotta make do with what you’re given. That's why I’m here and I'm coming to you loaded with what I like to call Max’s Perfect Bagel Criteria cause if anything’s perfect, it's my opinion:
A bagel must be a lovely shade of golden brown.
Its crust should be lightly bubbled, with a thin dry crisp.
It should be able to handle a smattering of interior delights, like bacon, egg, and cheese, schmear etc. At volume.
The bagel must be biteable, with a moist chew. NOT DOUGHY. NOT A BREAD ROLL. (I.e. not a tubular circle of white bread being peddled at the supermarket, offensively called New York bagels.)
The right amount of schmear is essential (pronounced schmee-uh) What is schmear? I can’t explain everything to y’all, pull up your big person panties and use context clues. (It’s cream cheese.)
It's simple really.
Let’s take a look at The Good Bagel, a Stoke Newington locale bringing you Montreal style (no clue what that means) bagels!
Merguez Meatball on an everything bagel: Whole. Ass. Meatballs. These savory little meatballs were accompanied by a beautifully seasoned shakshuka sauce and a criminally small amount of cheese. The pleasure was not only in the flavor of this combination but in the messiness of eating it (bring napkins and hand sanny). The everything seasoning was less seasoning and more seeds, the bagel itself missed basically every mark on ‘Max’s Perfect Bagel Criteria’. It had zero crispy crust and was too airy, more reminiscent of a bread roll—bagel crossover, which categorically means it's not a bagel and definitely not a “Good Bagel”.
Green Chicken on an everything bagel: You may be asking what is green chicken? Did Dr. Suess come back for round 2? Green chicken, while odd is mighty delicious. Shredded rotisserie chicken smothered in a green goddess-esque dressing. New, funky, fun! The complaint however, is the bagel once again. The everything bagel upon which this goddess-like chicken rests? Criminal. Everything means EVERYTHING! Did I order a poppy seed bagel? No, I'm not a weirdo. Where is the onion, the garlic and the damn salt that should be beautifully baked into the crust of an everything bagel? Nowhere in sight!
Green Salt Bagel with harissa cream cheese: I think you get the jist, The Good Bagels were lackluster and this one left me wanting just as much as the others. The green salt (salt with herbs) was just salt and the harrisa cream cheese had an odd gherkin-like taste, not for me.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9a2c6e45-f9be-4e4e-8fdb-fe13d842c392.heic)
Menu, intriguing! Bagel, nice try? £4.50 for a bagel and schmear, kind of a joke. If you are going for a weekend jaunt around Abney Cemetery to live your emo fantasy, stop by! Give it a whirl! I wouldn’t purposely seek it out though and I'll tell you why pissciples: Who wants a good bagel when you could have a great bagel?
P.S.
If you’re interested in more of London’s glutinous history, look at Owen Simon’s 1903 masterpiece, The Book of Bread, which is half pop-art and half bread bible. Available online for free (unlike £700 physical copies) here.
∩
\\
/ )
⊂\_/ ̄ ̄ ̄ /
\_/ ° ͜ʖ ° (
) /⌒\
/ ___/ ⌒\⊃
( /
\\
U