Daniel Thompson, Whose Bagel Machine Altered the American Diet, Dies at 94

It's more complicated than that.

First, the article notes that the old-style bagels are hard to find now, even in cities like New York with large Jewish populations where they used to be everywhere. Even though they still had people there who preferred them, they were driven out of those markets by a combination of factors arising from the rise of the machine-made bagel. Since "bagel-maker" isn't a career that an artisan can make a living at anymore, for instance, the knowledge of how those old bagels got made doesn't get passed down from one generation to another like it used to. Eventually that knowledge will be lost, and the machine-made bagel will be the only bagel. So it's not a straight case of everyone's better off; if you're one of the people who lives in those markets and prefers the traditional bagel, you're losing it. It's possible to argue that loss is outweighed by the benefit everyone else in the world gets from having access to any kind of bagel at all, but it's definitely a loss.

Second, it's tied up with longstanding anxieties in the American Jewish community (anxieties that will be familiar to any immigrant minority) about assimilation. On one hand, if you are Jewish or love Jewish culture, it's exciting to see something as central to that culture as the bagel exploding outside the Jewish community to the plates of the nation at large; when Jewish food becomes American food, it helps reinforce the idea that the days when Jews were seen as foreign or alien are over. But the flip side of that is that you can look at the bagel that's landing on all those gentile plates and worry that maybe the price of becoming "American" involves having to give up the distinctiveness that makes Jewish culture Jewish. Is that too high a price for what it buys? How much of traditional Jewish culture can you give up before you've given up your Jewish identity altogether?

None of those anxieties are unique to Jews -- I imagine Americans of Hispanic extraction must feel the same way every time they see a Taco Bell. It's a question that immigrants to America (and those descended from them) of all kinds have always had to grapple with: how do you embrace your new home without completely losing your connection to the old one? How much assimilation is too much?

I can confirm that they taste _much_ better. And are more expensive.

I've never tasted a hand-made bagel other than my own attempts to make them at home. But I know, even over the span of my own lifetime, that store-bought bagels have changed a lot. Many brands of bagels, such as a couple of the chains operating in my locale, are basically toroidal wonder bread, huge, soft, and sweet.

There's a reasonably decent bagel factory near my house, with a retail counter. So at least the bagels are fresh, and buying a couple dozen is a convenient respite from baking bread every evening for the family.

When I was in school in the US I asked the first Jewish person I met "Where do I get good Jewish bagel". He knew exactly what I meant: unleavened and boiled. Despite both of us coming from either side of the continent, we both appreciated west coast lox and actual Montreal smoked meet. Just don't ask an American about pizza.

I have fond memories of listening to my grandmother tell stories about how her father installed the first (private, consumer) electric generator in the state of Alabama and how at night, you could see their farm glow for miles around. And I often contemplate how my 2yo daughter will think it's totally normal to have all the world's information at your fingertips 24/7. The pace of change is accelerating, and while we don't know what the future holds, this is a damned exciting time to be alive.

However, I bemoan the scarcity of good bagels, and it saddens me if Lender's is your concept of a "Bagel". That's like having McDonald's or Dominos be your concept of a Hamburger or a Pizza. They're the same type of food, in general, but you really won't understand what all the fuss is about until you have a more authentic, less processed version.

They will fundamentally never understand the idea that it used to be hard to know something.

The taxis in New York City have adapted to Uber by installing their own e-hailing app called Arro and they offer an advantage over Uber because there is no "surge pricing."

By simply removing the political limit on taxi medallions in NYC, there will be an increase in the use of taxis because they also have the advantage over Uber in that people can hail taxis with their hand.

You can put them on a stick or hang them from a rope in your shop to sell, clearing up counter space. Shops and street vendors will often have them stacked high on rods.