Make us homepage
Add to Favorites
FAIL (the browser should render some flash content, not this).

Main page » Non-Fiction » The Bagel - The Surprising History of a Modest Bread


The Bagel - The Surprising History of a Modest Bread

 

The bagel may have grown out of its New York insularity to become an American icon, but its origins are not what many people have come to believe. Historian Balinska traces the bagel’s history and discovers antecedents in southern Italy and in Muslim northwest China. Despite the oft-repeated legend, the bagel did not originate as a tribute to Polish king Jan Sobieski after the Battle of Vienna in 1683, for documents citing the ring-shaped bread substantially antedate that event. In the nineteenth century, both Jewish and Gentile bakers sold bagels in local eastern European markets. Jewish immigrants brought the bagel to New York and made it popular. With a keen ear for telling the anecdote, Balinska reports how the bagel entered urban history, how it figured in labor disputes, and how America’s bagel capital may have shifted to Mattoon, Illinois, whose bakery daily turns out three million bagels.



Purchase The Bagel - The Surprising History of a Modest Bread from Amazon.com
Dear user! You need to be registered and logged in to fully enjoy Englishtips.org. We recommend registering or logging in.


Tags: bagel, antedate, substantially, event, nineteenth, Bread, Bagel, Modest, History