Friday Bread Basket 5/17/24
Bringing back the montecristo
Hello from the Wordloaf Friday Bread Basket, a weekly roundup of links and items relating to bread, baking, and grain. I think I am going to send these out every other week for a little while, in order to use the slot to also share new book releases and not overwhelm you all with posts each week. Once I get caught up, I’ll resume weekly FBBs.
The New Yorker’s Hannah Goldfield wrote a great piece about the current wave of new bagel shops, both in NYC and beyond. I like that it doesn’t knock variation and novelty in bagel styles, while still advocating for a tradition in what makes a bagel a bagel:
When it comes to my own bagel preferences, I am open to creative recipes but believe that a bagel should be, fundamentally, a humble staple—relatively inexpensive and sold by the dozen, or a multiple thereof. A sandwich has its place, but bagels belong, first and foremost, in a paper sack, hot from the oven (they need not be toasted unless they’ve gone stale), grab-and-go. The new-wave shops, especially outside of New York, don’t all seem to embrace the bagel’s inherent utility.
I get that everything is expensive to make nowadays, especially when produced “artisinally,” but spending ~$40 for a baker’s dozen bagels is still painful. Fortunately, making bagels at home is quite easy to do, especially now that I have updated my own recipe for Breaducation.
Speaking of bagels, the great newsletter and YouTube channel Chinese Cooking Demystified explored the world of the Chinese bagel, and provided recipes:
They’re stuffed. They’re technicolor. They’re… squishy.
Among some expats circles in China, we used to - sort of dismissively - refer to these as ‘Chagels’. After all, if you’re from North America (and a little homesick), you don’t want your bagel to bend when you try to apply cream cheese; you’re not really in the market for something stuffed with shrimp, cheese, and broccoli.
But over the years, as bagels move from niche to mainstream, I began to develop an appreciation for ‘the Chagel’. It’s its own thing, its own style. In a world where there’s German bagels, New York bagels, Montreal bagels… why not a Chinese bagel too?
Legendary music engineer Steve Albini died last week, and the tributes poured out, though maybe only Talia Levin’s Notable Sandwiches focused on Albini’s strong opinions about sandwiches and bread, among them the chip butty and toast:"
“A rare few things in life are properly rated. Babe Ruth, properly rated. John Bonham, properly rated. Laying around on your day off doing fuck all, under-rated. Stealing bases, over-rated, catcher defense, under-rated. Backing vocals, probably number one most over-rated thing ever on earth. If there is a great celestial price/performance curve for every artistic endeavor, backing vocals are way out there on the continental shelf next to southern accent vocal coaches and gold plated toilets. Toast, the food item, is sadly under-rated. It may be the most under-rated food.”
Loved this behind-the-scenes at San Diegos’ Wayfarer Bread from Eater:
That’s it for this week’s bread basket. Have a peaceful weekend everyone, see you all next week.
—Andrew
Toast is criminally under-rated. Make bread, cook it again. Genius.
Really enjoyed that chagel video, especially as I have a fascination with pictures of the Japanese ones. Also just tried a couple of bagels in Seoul, and they too were a unique thing unto themselves. Maybe not a "bagel" but still delicious!