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A short video still featuring a woman with blonde hair and a text overlay that reads “Things I prefer in the US as a German” with American and German flag emojis, and further states “I don’t know why we don’t have bagels in Germany.”
Above this, the social media post caption reads “I can think of a reason!” The post is from “Vikram Bath @vikrambath.bsky.social.”
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And a staple of a New York Classic, the Breakfast Sandwich! New Yorkers might pick fights over how other cities do their pizza and hotdogs, but god help you if you try to take their breakfast egg and bagel.
When a place just tries to microwave the egg to put on their steamed bagel 😠
I honestly prefer a good buttermilk biscuit for breakfast sandwiches. If you have a Tudor’s Biscuit World near you go try them out! They are the only good fast food restaurant to work for, as in you get benefits, stock options, and will retire comfortably if you stay with them for 20 years. They also make some absolutely banging giant biscuit sandwiches.
Listen I love bagels. I just want to say that, there’s a reason it’s so popular and done so well by the good people living in NYC.
It’s probably the same reason that bagels are either rare, or kind of suck by comparison in Germany.
Somewhere a German is struggling to formulate a humerous retort.
Thank you, that cleared up the confusion.
Bagels come from Poland? They aren’t even a thing here anymore. I never saw one in my life.
I can think of a reason!
Of course we have bagels in Germany. But with a good Baker having one or two dozen variants of rolls anyway, nobody actually needs defect rolls with a hole in the middle.
I would never consider a bagel as a roll. I’m not sure what I would call it except excellent. But it isn’t a roll with a hole in the middle. I’m legitimately sorry if that has been your bagel experience.
Rolls are good, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a certain density to bagels that most rolls don’t have any business trying to imitate.
It’s just a different type of bread product entirely.
If people prefer rolls, that’s cool. Eat what you like, but nobody should be going around saying that rolls are universally better than bagels. They’re different, sometimes you feel like eating a while loaf of bread in one handheld package and bagels are there for you.
Don’t judge me.
Thinly veiling eugenic beliefs behind a topological proclaimation.
What?
Tell me you’ve never had a decent bagel without telling me you’ve never had a decent bagel. A bagel is not a roll.
Maybe bagels are better than American rolls, but that is not exactly aiming high. Have you ever tried German rolls? Because after that, you won’t touch bagels anymore, unless you go back to the US. And yes, I’ve had them all, and I don’t understand how you can stand those squishy, HFCS-loaded things.
American living in Germany, working happily at a German bakery. Brötchen can be absolutely spectacular and I love German bread, but I still miss bagels. I’ve never had a good one here, but the ones you find in the grocery store are basically similar to grocery store bagels in the US(though sometimes they’re not boiled here, which explains why they might seem like Brötchen with a hole).
It’s honestly similar to good Laugengebäck, just without the taste of lye (Lauge), which makes sense. If that’s not appealing to you, sure, but my homemade bagels (which are good but not spectacular, compared to some bagels I’ve had) have always been a hit among the Germans I’ve made them for.
You’re either responding to the wrong comment. Can’t read. Or you think straw man arguments are valid.
I never said either was better, just that’s it’s foolish to confuse or compare the two.
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Another European here. Might be because I’m into baking but I don’t think a bagel should be classified as a roll. Bagels are boiled in water prior to baking which gives them a rather unique texture compared to rolls.
Sadly most commercially available “bagels” are not actually produced in this way.
The order of superiority goes like this:
American bagels > German rolls > German bagels > American rolls
The America bagel is definitely at the wrong end. It is better than American rolls, but that’s it.
We have bagel here, so.
I never saw a reason to get a bagel if I could get better tasting alternatives. However since every bakery get stupid expensive I haven’t bought anything but blank buns there anyways. I’m not going to pay 6€ for some bagel and still be hungry afterwards. Keep it
I don’t hate bagels, but in the end it’s just pretty dry funny shaped bread. I assume americans go crazy for bagels because their normal bread is ass. If you have some good alternatives or you can bake yourself, i don’t really see the point.
Yes, I can see how you would not like bagels if you’ve never had a good bagel.
do you mean dense? I would say bagels are dense. But when talking about bread I could see how dry and dense could be similar.
If your bagel is dry and you can’t distinguish it from normal bread, you’ve never actually had a real bagel.
it’s just pretty dry funny shaped bread.
Idk what bagels you’ve been eating, but we have clearly had different experiences with bagels.
I would not describe bagels as “dry.”
Ah, your bagels are terrible, presumably for the reason the meme implies
das Bockmist.
Plenty of bagels in Germany…but hey, why not make a meme stirring up a little controversy, right?
For those that haven’t tried them, and don’t fancy going to NYC or Montreal for the “authentic bagel experience”, try making your own and you’ll see the huge difference between what you get in supermarkets (even good ones with good bakeries like Lidl) and a proper bagel. While there’s a few steps, it’s not hard to make.
But for the yanks, you should absolutely try German bakeries. I can understand why even good bagels aren’t a priority for them…
I recently, as a lifelong montrealer, spent a few days in Manhattan and tried the bagels. Montreal bagels have this kind of faint aroma you get from the honey in the dough that I just didn’t find in New York bagels, the flavor of the new York bagels was much closer to bread but the texture was great. Also, maybe a New Yorker could answer this, but were they always so big with almost no hole or is that a development from them being used for sandwiches?
I read they use a malt syrup in NY instead of honey when they boil them, I’ve always wanted to try making them that way.
As an Australian living in Germany for over a decade I’m still not that impressed with German bakeries. The pretzels are awesome and the bread is fine but the sandwiches are lame. They’re like mostly bread and never more than 1 or 2 toppings. A German once told me it’s because the point of the sandwich is the bread and if there are too many toppings you won’t taste the bread 😅
Germans love their bread so much but I think it’s just because that’s what they grew up with, I don’t think it’s objectively as good as they think it is
I had a friend from Germany say the same thing, didn’t call them out on it but man I laughed later.
Well see there’s was this whole thing back in the 1930s-40s…
Big Hunk candy bars?
I just want to put it out there that not all begals are equal…
In Southern California we have places like “Einstein’s Begals”. These taste like soggy compressed cardboard.
In New York, however, they have these crispy, amazing circles of heaven. These are life-changing.
you must boil them first, then bake them.
if you just bake them, all you get is a shitty dinner roll. not a bagel.
If its not boiled, how can it even be called a bagel? That’s false advertising…
Do you realise that you’re spelling it ‘begal’, and everyone else is saying bagel?
Maybe he’s taking about dogs.
They lived in New-York, they know how to say begal.
It’s the water.
You have to put baking soda in the water too, right?
IDK it’s something about NY water that makes them taste better.
I was thinking of pretzels.
Who needs bagels when you can have pretzels?
Why have abs when we can have kebabs?
… Every moderately sized grocery store here has bagels.
I don’t know the person in the OP, but I am assuming she is not talking about a pack of bagels you buy from the grocer. I imagine she is talking about the grocer selling packaged bagels in the aisle and having a baked goods section with bagels from a bakery in the same city. And also have one or two bagel places local. And also cafes or similar establishments that rep their bagel game.
I do not know Germany 's bagel game. Just saying being able to buy a thing at the grocer does not mean you have access to the jawn the way others do. For example I can buy sushi at the grocery store near my work.
I do not know Germany 's bagel game
This is simple. If you are not in the US Northeast or Mid-Atlantic, there is a high probability that your bagels are trash.
Did your neighborhood have any national policies with respect to bagel bakers and their ethnic roots?
I can also think of a reason we’re not very funny people.
1992 called. They want their mic back.
I don’t get the joke please explain? Is the joke that bagels are bad? Because I’m German and I love bagels
The joke is that bagel shops are a Jewish food, so most bagel shops are owned and operated by Jews. And Germany did that whole holocaust thing, where they systematically tried to wipe out the Jews.
It’d be a little bit like if a country tried to wipe out Indian people, then went “Hmm why don’t we have any good Indian restaurants?”
Not a great example though, because Britain literally conquered India and we’re full of great Indian restaurants.
Did you systemically persecute Indian business owners in Britain, escalating it to ethnic cleansing?
The analogy is historically exact.
In the US at least, bagels are stereotypically popular among jewish people.
I honestly don’t get to bagel hype so I would be glad if somebody could explain it to me. Why wouldn’t you just have a sandwich instead?
It’s all in the texture for me. The denser, somewhat chewy bagel is really nice and holds up to cream cheese a lot better than sandwich bread. They are amazing open face with cream cheese. Some folks like them with butter. It’s fine, but I do love cream cheese far more. I’ve had bagel sandwiches, which can be really good, but I do find them to be really heavy. (Plain or blueberry bagel, with cream cheese and sliced ham is my go-to for a bagel sandwich.)
You can get all sorts of flavors of bagels, like cinnamon, blueberry, and onion. You can get schmear (cream cheese spread) with many different varieties of mixins too, like herbs, fish, and lemon! I think my favorite combo is an onion bagel with garlic herb schmear.
That being said, I do love a good sandwich too.
I am not entirely sure you really like cream cheese, as you mentioned cream cheese only 5 times in your comment
cream
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Kinda the same reason crumpets, rye bread and Naan bread exist - they go better for different things in different ways.
Im personally a salmom/cream cheese bagel guy
To tie this whole meme convo back into a circle, schmear is a yiddish word that comes from German schmieren which means to spread!
I’ll add to the others that A LOT of places don’t make bagels well. If it feels like you’re just eating bread then it’s not a good bagel. It should be chewy but also somewhat hard on the outside. A good bagel also doesn’t need to be toasted because it’s fresh.
The way bread is made can make a huge difference in a sandwich. Bagels are made differently than most sandwich breads and offer a different flavor and texture profile.
Like, would you rather have some really good French bread or Wonderbread when you make a sandwich?
Who needs bagels when you can have better bread rolls for the same price without a hole
