Montreal Bagels are Best

[rubyred]

I think all Montrealers adore singing the bagel love song. There's nothing better than eating one warm from the paper bag.

My Two Cents: We live right in between Fairmount & St-Viateur bagel shops and held a blind bagel tasting. Fairmount won my choice. (Slightly crispier crust to contrast soft interior).

To The Man Disappointed With St-Viateur: Did you buy flavoured bagels, or regular sesame or poppy seed? I've noticed that the flavored bagels at Fairmount seem to come in all shapes and sizes depending on flavor. The sesame and poppy are as they've always been... I think...

I'm going to get some bagels...

[Culatello]

Rubyred

I did the same thing 8 years ago ( blind taste test )

and I found that fairmount are just a bit more tasteier that ST.Viaters

O.K alot more tasteier Sweet, Chewier and when toasted Crispier

So if anyone wants to try theTest go for it

Edited April 15, 2004 by Culatello (log)

[identifiler]

The dozen at Fairmount just went up 15 cents as of yesterday 3:00PM. It was a historical moment for me !

The paninis one door left are really good too, honnest price for a quick lunch. Can't remember the name of the place.

I like Fairmount better because I like the chewy factor. The differences in them is really a matter of opinion, you could argue about it for the next 50 years.

[SteveW]

I was in the St. Viateur bagel camp for a long time. Then last year, I heard a lengthy discussion about the Fairmount bagel shop on Montreal radio. I went to Fairmount bagel shortly after the radio talk, & I was very impressed with the taste of their sesame bagels. Now I'm not sure which I like better(Fairmount or St. Viateur). Yes, I've noticed that in recent years that some of bagels that I get from St. Viateur are too huge(look more like NYC bagels).

-Steve

Edited April 17, 2004 by SteveW (log)

[gus_tatory]

My first post, and I'm proud that it's about Montreal bagels.

welcome to eGullet, dhalandrice~!

to add to the Montreal bagel anecdotes here, *sometimes* when i go to st-viateur bagels (the one across from Arahova, the souvlaki place), if i am walking my dog at the time and have her tied outside, the woman at the cash gives me a warm bagel and tells me to give it to my dog.

the dog, of course, is thrilled by this.

[prasantrin]

Montreal bagels are said to be closer to the original Old World bagels.

Very late add-on, but I remember reading once that the early Jewish immigrants to Montreal were Romanian. The bagels, thus, are not only closer to Old World bagels, but Romanian bagels, specifically.

Just what I read...

[identifiler]

makes sense, many romanians learn french in school.

[carswell]

Montreal bagels are said to be closer to the original Old World bagels.

Very late add-on, but I remember reading once that the early Jewish immigrants to Montreal were Romanian. The bagels, thus, are not only closer to Old World bagels, but Romanian bagels, specifically.

Just what I read...

According to everything I've read, they are close to Old World bagels. Or were before the recent trend to chubbification began. The Romanian connection is new to me, however. Will poke around and see what I can turn up. Unfortunately, at the St-Viateur bagel factory a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that the newspaper articles describing the history of the factory and the product had been removed from the wall on which they'd hung for at least a couple of decades.

Have heard something similar about smoked meat, by the way. One of the purported differences between it and pastrami is that the latter is made with sweet spices whereas smoked meat isn't, because its origins were in poorer areas of Europe (some say Romania, others Lithuania), where sweet spices were too expensive for everyday use.

makes sense, many romanians learn french in school.

As you might guess from its name, Romanian derives from Latin and so shares a basic vocabulary and grammar with the other Romance languages. That said, I doubt Montreal's French connection was much of a factor in attracting Romanian Jews. The big wave of immigration of Eastern European Jews to Montreal occurred in the first two decades of the 20th century. At the time, they were generally ostracized by Catholic Quebec and their children were forced into the Protestant (read English) school system. Also, the language of commerce was largely English. For those and other reasons, if contemporary Jews spoke a Canadian language, it tended to be English. French-speaking Jews didn't arrive in appreciable numbers until after 1920 and especially after WWII, mostly from North Africa and the Middle East. And, of course, nowadays most immigrant children have to go to French school. Times change!

Edited April 19, 2004 by carswell (log)

[SteveW]

All newspaper articles that was posted on the wall of the St-Viateur bagel factory, are now back there again(I think they were painting or something along those lines, that caused them to remove the articles for a short period).

At least for Schwartz's smoked meat, their recipe is from Romanian origins.

-Steve

Edited April 19, 2004 by SteveW (log)

[Mr. Fagioli]

I've been eating a fair number of bagels lately (almost all poppy, FWIW) from three sources: the two St. Viateur bakeries, and Fairmount.

After many years of being a St. V. devotee (I used to walk the extra long block & back through the snow rather than go to Fairmount), it seems to me that the pendulum has swung and Fairmount is now making a better bagel. Smaller, denser, chewier. The St. Viateur, for its part, seems to have a slightly more brittle crust than it used to.

Most samples tasted hot from the oven, or no more than an hour or two old. As an aside, either the poppyseed bagel is gaining in popularity, or the bakeries have me trained to show up at roughly the right time to score some fresh ones.

Which is not to say that they're bad at St. Viateur; just not quite as good.

Anyone else notice this...or the opposite?

[MaeveH]

You know, I've always preferred Fairmount (and I've always preferred poppyseed). I haven't done a direct comparison recently, but I'm glad to hear your opinion.

[jokhm]

Is this possible.. ? I've seen a recipe or two online but figured before i choose which one to try out I should probably ask on egullet

Only thing I have going for myself is a lifetime of eating montreal bagels nearly everyday and I've baked tons and tons of bread... Otherwise I'm stuck here in Beijing - see what the local ingredients and fiery hot oven can produce.

And no comment on the st. viateur s fairmount variety.. I can't seem to choose between the two usually so a recipe that comes close to either would be great!

Thanks

Joel

[Kenk]

I have used this recipe,

http://www.recipezaar.com/35261

You probably can work the eggs out of the recipe.

I think the most important thing is to realise these are very quick to make.

You can play with the size and chewyness by not letting the rolled dough to stand.

[jokhm]

Hmm.. seen that one recently too..

How were the results exactly, compared with those in the good bagel shops? What were the differences. I'm quite curious as to what they do differently.

Starting to buy the stuff to make it here but i know that I might have problems just based on the oven being a 20 year old chinese gas oven with barely any temp controls. Just High and Ridiculously High.

But what's a wood oven? 500?800?

[Kenk]

The results were very good. You do get a large variation with texture and size. To control the size you have to experiment to find the size you want. I found if you let the bagels rise very much they get puffy. I found if you boil them just after rolling, the bagels are more dense and chewy like the real thing. The bagels puff up a lot in the boil. Tell me how things turn out.

[jokhm]

Hey

Well I discovered a lot about my oven. Firstly, it exceeds 600 degrees with the dial turned up half way. Also the temp. dial for the second gas burner couldn't take the heat, so it melted all the way to the floor. As for the bagels, despite having only enough room to make 6 at a time, they turned out quite good - inside. I specifically got bread flour but it is obvious that I need to buy foreign imported bread flour, since the supposed bread flour is really cake flour. But then again, who would know the difference here when sliced bread has a crust texture that a baby can easily squeeze into a tiny ball. It's really bad stuff. So despite having an extremely hot oven, even if the bagels come out black they still won't be crispy on the outside. However, the taste that the honey and malt give to the batter is dead on. Like being back at st. Viateur and eating the bagels too soon after coming out of the oven. As for controlling squishyness and density, I remember a time watching the guys at a R.E.A.L bagel place rolling the bagels and immediately tossing them to the guy putting them into the honey-water pot. So no rising, or if there was any it was minimal. Naturally since my oven could only bake 6 at a time my results are quite different per batch. I'll let you know how they go as I eat them. Anyway.. I'll see if I can get a better flour, if you have any ideas how best to make anything baked 'crispy' or have any resemblance to crust, let me know. No one here has a clue despite the millions of chinese bakery shops all making western-looking treats. Gross.

[Kenk]

If you get the right flour and get the right oven temperature the bagels should turn out crispy.

If not, try adding some steam in the oven when baking the bagels.

From reading your description of the bread there just bar the doors when you get them right, every one in Beijing will be coming by for some bagels.

[jokhm]

damn.. too small an oven to add anything else without it catching fire.

Well.. its nice to think that bagels would be marketable here. I would consider it actually if some bagel people at home took interest (money and planning-wise).. but you must imagine that the average city here makes montreal look like all the food just got up and left. Food culture is VERY advanced (despite people commonly drinking red wine but making sure to add sprite 1:1). There is so much bread products already. mmm.. some of it is great stuff. Hard for most people back home to register. People don't eat rice here much... just bread. And yes, if it is western style then its exactly as described in my previous post! Anyway.. I get new flour and see what happens.