There is much speculation as to the exact origin of the bagel. One theory is that it was born in Austria in 1683 when a Viennese baker wanted to pay tribute to King Jan III of Poland for saving the Austrian people from Turkish invaders.

Regardless of its ancestry, the bagel quickly caught on and crossed the Atlantic when hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews introduced it to New Yorkers in the 1880s.

Sometime in the next 100+ years it made its way down to Raleigh, North Carolina in the form of round insipid bread sold by Bruegger’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. Both versions, a shell of what a real bagel should look and taste like.

One baker in Raleigh, the NY Bagel & Deli on Falls of Neuse and Strickland, was paying homage to the original bagel with their yeasty yet crunchy kettle-boiled version.

The best bagels in the South by far.

The HM&P Bagel-off

This past Friday, I schlepped all around town buying bagels for a blind bagel taste test. Why? Because a few of my co-workers suggested that Bruegger’s makes delicious bagels and couldn’t see why they were any different from those at New York Bagel & Deli. Another co-worker even piped in that Dunkins’ were the best. What? Blasphemy!

And so, to prove my point I conducted an in-office bagel taste test:

Winner: Ny Bagel & Deli.

All in all, a good time had by all.