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Comment by StriverGuy | Hacker News Reader

You may have invented it, but NYC perfected it.

New York style pizza is frickin horrible. those thin floppy slices can't support any reasonable amount of toppings. I actually prefer Domino's over most New York style pizza, and Domino's is pretty bottom of the barrel. The worst offender is the New York style cheese pizza which is basically just an oversized soggy triangular cracker which appears to have been dipped in oil. Blech.

The only thing more overrated than New York pizza is New York bagels.

(Ok, I take that back, In-n-Out Burger is more overrated than both.)

But outside of New England "New York Bagel" is polite code for Jewish bagel, ie the type using unleavened bread. It means actual bagel, not bagel-shaped bread.

(I say jewish rather than kosher, because many of the best bagel places don't qualify as kosher. At Vancouver's best bagel place (siegels) you can get cheese on your Montreal smoked meat bagel.)

What's a non-Jewish New York Bagel?

I've never heard of "Jewish bagel".

Montreal bagels are "Jewish", and are the opposite of New York bagels.

A Jewish bagel weighs about three times as much as a non-Jewish bagel, and is about three times as dense. It doesn't have the airy, bread-like consistency that a non-Jewish bagel has. As my Jewish friends like to say (paraphrasing), "If I can throw it at your head and risk knocking you out, then it's a Jewish bagel."

I've never had a bagel that was "airy", but I've also never had one that was made without yeast. They're normally pretty chewy, but definitely not unleavened. You boil and then bake them.

Jewish bagels have holes. Non-jewish bagels, the ones with yeast, often rise so much as to occlude any hole. They are more hamburger bun than bagel.

Are "Jewish bagels" what you call matzoh? Or is this a type of bagel with which I am unfamiliar?

No, they're referring to real bagels (chewy, with a shiny exterior) as "Jewish", as opposed to fluffy-white-bread-roll-with-a-hole that is sometimes marketed as a bagel.

I am certain that "chewy with a shiny exterior" bagels that I get at a bakery are made with yeast. They aren't some sort of secret or rare thing any place I've been, from New York to Arizona.

The mass-produced-in-a-factory-with-lots-of-preservatives bagels (e.g. Lenders) are very different, but also obviously made with yeast, and they don't really resemble fluffy white bread IMO.

When I go to my local grocery store in the northeastern US (the chain is in fact owned by a Jewish family), both kinds are available, the one in the bakery area and the other on the shelves with rolls.

Talking about these as though the dividing line was Jewishness or the use of yeast strikes me as both weird and incorrect.

Absolutely, sandworm101 is wrong about yeast and I clarified that up-thread.

All bagels are leavened (real bagels with yeast, whether commercial or sourdough, but I'd be surprised if even 1% of bad bagels are made with non-yeast leavening). The difference between an airy bagel and a tough bagel is the type of flour (high gluten) and the cooking process (boiled then baked).

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