Sam Silverman is a proud bagel-tarian. The founder and CEO of BagelUp, a trade organization dedicated to advancing bagel culture worldwide, and the creator of New York BagelFest, bagels have always been his favorite food.
“From the earliest memories that I have, bagels were always a part of our life, a part of our household,” Silverman, who grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, told the Journal. “When I moved to New York 10 years ago, and I had my first New York bagel, [I] realized that I’d been eating bagel-shaped bread my entire life.”
This ignited his passion to explore New York through the lens of finding the best bagels. When he discovered New York didn’t have a bagel festival, Silverman started BagelFest. This was seven years ago. And led to the launch of BagelUp.
“BagelUp is all about celebrating bagels, the culture and the people behind them,” said Silverman, nicknamed “the New York bagel ambassador” by Utopia Bagels. “This food evokes such amazing nostalgia and comfort and feelings of joy and excitement, it’s [easy] to find other people who feel [the same] way.”
And it’s not just New York.
“Bagels are having a moment around the country, around the world, and our bagel up community brings everyone together in a centralized place,” he said. “It’s really amazing to see this food spread from what was classically known as a New York-centric and maybe a Montreal-centric food to places like Australia and Europe and it’s been fascinating to watch.”
Silverman attributes its popularity into three main factors.
“Number one, the bagel has become a vehicle for a sandwich; this was not historically true,” he said. “Bagels used to be eaten on their own, maybe with some cream cheese, but really as a snack or as a roll.”
Over the past 50 years, sandwiches, which have a much higher profit margin, have helped bagel shops become more profitable. Bagel shops are no longer simply a bakery that only sells bread.
The second factor relates to the pandemic.
“Not only did this cause an exodus of New Yorkers and North Easterners who went to other parts of the country and settled in other parts of the world – and brought their standards for bagels and their love for bagels with them, but many people who were stuck at home, started to bake,” he said. “Some of those people started baking bagels.”
And some of those people turned their bagel love into a business.
“Since the pandemic, we’ve seen this real explosion of artisan bagel makers and bagel shops pop up,” Silverman said. “The third and final factor is the internet, so that has unlocked the knowledge about how to make a great bagel in a way that simply has never been accessible before.”
Silverman explained that for years, the secret of how to make a good bagel was guarded by the members of the Bagel Bakers Union, who ran the New York bagel scene in New York City in the early parts of the 20th century.
“From the 1910s to the 1950s, you literally had to be the son of a bagel maker to get admitted into the union and to learn the secrets of the trade,” he said. “Today, anybody with an internet connection can access that secret information, and it’s become totally democratized, so we’re seeing entrepreneurs and creators and bakers all over take advantage of that.”
Silverman’s go-to is an everything bagel with scallion schmear, not toasted.
“That’s my litmus test that I get at every new bagel shop I visit, which at this point is in the hundreds, if not the thousands,” he said. “And the beautiful thing is the schmear is where the creativity of the local artisans really sings.”
The bagel is their canvas, the schmear and toppings are the paint.
For those creating schmears at home, Silverman shared a secret.
“The majority of bagel shops in New York use Philadelphia cream cheese as their base,” he said. The issue with that cream cheese is its brick format.
“To make it into a more spreadable, smearing vehicle, to add a tablespoon of seltzer water,” he said. “The carbonation from the seltzer helps to soften and whip up that cream cheese, and you can then mix in your own scallions, your veggies, your cut up lox, your blueberries, whatever cream cheese flavor that you want, to create.”
Then, put on gloves and mix it with your hands.
“It’s going to be 10 times better than the pre-mixed stuff you get at the grocery store,” he said.
When asked what makes a good bagel, Silverman, a self-proclaimed “hobbyist bagel baker” said it has to be boiled before it’s baked.
“That’s how you get the textural contrast, the crunchy outside and the soft chewy inside,” he said.
And, contrary to what a lot of people ask, Silverman said it’s not the water that makes teh difference.
“It is making your dough with a high gluten flour, letting it ferment at least overnight, if not longer – putting it in a cold environment and letting that yeast eat the sugars and the barley malt or whatever sweetener in the flour – and then the next day or a couple days later, boiling, then seeding and baking it,” he said. “Those are really the key steps in the bagel making process that cannot be skipped; otherwise, it’s just a roll with a hole.”
National Bagel Day is January 15. Happy Bagel Day to all who celebrate!
Learn more at BagelUp.com and BagelFest.com. Follow @bagelambassador on TikTok and Instagram, and connect with Sam on LinkedIn.
For the full conversation, listen to the podcast:
New York Bagels
Recipe courtesy of renowned New York City bread baker and instructor Reva Castillenti. Get the complete instructions at BagelFest.com.
Makes 6 bagels
Ingredients
2 cups (453 grams) bread flour
1 cup (~250 grams) water (≤80°F)
1 tablespoon (13 grams) barley malt syrup
¾ teaspoon (2 grams) instant yeast
1 ½ teaspoons (10 grams) kosher salt
Instructions
- Measure flour into a medium or large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the water, yeast and barley malt syrup until dissolved. Then, add to the flour; mix until a shaggy dough forms.
- Rest the dough for 8-10 minutes, add the salt and knead for 1 minute. Rest the dough for another 8-10 minutes, knead for 1 minute. Repeat the process until the dough is smooth and can pass the “window pane test:” Gently stretch a small piece of dough until it’s thin enough to see light through it without tearing.
- Divide the dough into six equal pieces and shape each into a bagel using either the rope-and-loop method or the poke-and-stretch method.
- Place the shaped bagels on a cornmeal-dusted or parchment-lined tray, cover and refrigerate for 12-48 hours to cold ferment.
- Preheat the oven to 475°F. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Then, boil each bagel for 30 seconds to 1 minute, flipping halfway.
- Remove the bagels from the water and immediately apply any desired toppings, while the crust is still wet.
- Bake the bagels for 15-20min, flipping halfway through, until crust is a deep golden brown.
- Cool the bagels on a wire rack before slicing and eating.
Debra Eckerling is a writer for the Jewish Journal and the host of “Taste Buds with Deb.” Subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. Email Debra: tastebuds@jewishjournal.com.
