[HN Gopher] Mathematically correct breakfast: How to slice a bag...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Mathematically correct breakfast: How to slice a bagel into two
       linked halves (2009)
        
       Author : graderjs
       Score  : 377 points
       Date   : 2022-03-06 00:39 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.georgehart.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.georgehart.com)
        
       | sandworm101 wrote:
       | Read before attempting:
       | 
       | https://newyorkerbagels.com/bagel-safety-dont-be-an-er-stati...
       | 
       | Seriously. As any nurse about a "bagel injury" and they will know
       | exactly what you are talking about. It is so common that it is
       | addressed in some military first aid courses.
        
         | OJFord wrote:
         | What a weird article.
         | 
         | > Use the right kind of knife for slicing bagels. This would be
         | a knife with a deeply serrated edge, NOT a knife with a smooth,
         | sharp edge. The serration helps "rip" into the bagel with a
         | crosscut saw type effect, gripping and cutting into the bagel
         | instead of slipping across the crust and cutting your hand.
         | 
         | So, a bread knife? Who'd've thought?
        
         | clove wrote:
         | For problem number 1 listed in your link, the YouTube video I
         | posted elsewhere in this thread is a solution.
         | 
         | Moreover, my wife, who is a nurse, has never heard of "bagel
         | injury."
        
           | joveian wrote:
           | I know someone who recently got a bad cut trying to remove a
           | pice of pre-sliced bread from a frozen loaf. So I can believe
           | "knife vs. frozen bread" is a common cause of injury.
        
           | shakna wrote:
           | > Moreover, my wife, who is a nurse, has never heard of
           | "bagel injury."
           | 
           | Well, if we go by the numbers in the article...
           | 
           | > Americans ate an estimated 3 billion bagels at home in
           | 2011, an average of about 11 per person (this doesn't include
           | bagels eaten at work). And in the course of slicing up all
           | those bagels, almost 2,000 people cut their fingers so badly
           | that they ended up in an emergency room.
           | 
           | You have roughly (very roughly) a 0.24% chance of being one
           | of those people injured, each day, across the entirety of the
           | nation. I'd say the chances are low enough that some nurses
           | will have heard of it, and some won't have, depending on
           | distribution of bagel eaters.
        
             | jacobolus wrote:
             | > 0.24% chance of being one of those people injured, each
             | day
             | 
             | 2,000 / 330,000,000 / 365 = 0.00000166% chance of daily
             | bagel injury. Not sure what calculation you did, but as far
             | as I can tell it is off by 5 orders of magnitude.
        
               | shakna wrote:
               | (2000 / (300000000 / 365)) * 100
               | 
               | You seem to have forgotten to move the decimal place to
               | get a percentage.
        
               | chronogram wrote:
               | It seems the original source for all the TIL sites is a
               | WSJ article which wrote that in 2008 there were 1979
               | people who went to the ER due to bagel related injuries.
               | So it's not 2000 per day, it's per year.
               | 
               | Keep in mind that when a HN user writes things like
               | "seriously", "ask any x", "it's so common". It means they
               | probably don't know what they're talking about.
        
               | jacobolus wrote:
               | Oh, you have the 365 in the numerator instead of the
               | denominator. That would do it. :-)
        
           | jacobolus wrote:
           | The link claims there are 2 thousand bagel injuries per year.
           | (Out of 3 billion bagels eaten per year.)
           | 
           | People should be careful with knives, but this is not the
           | most serious risk modern people face. Living near cars is
           | like 3+ orders of magnitude more dangerous.
        
             | sandworm101 wrote:
             | 2000 that result in an ER visit. No doubt the vast majority
             | do not require such attention. Few injuries involving cars
             | go unreported.
        
               | dtgriscom wrote:
               | Then there are the bagel injuries so serious they go
               | straight to the morgue. The bagel and news industries
               | conspire to hide these from public view.
        
               | [deleted]
        
         | mushyhammer wrote:
         | I really hope this isn't _really_ that common. Like how bad do
         | you have to be with a knife and do you really need someone to
         | tell you it's going to be a tad difficult to cut a frozen piece
         | of bread?
         | 
         | Basic safety tip: Don't pull or point pointy bits towards your
         | meaty bits.
        
           | phamilton wrote:
           | This reminds me of a really interesting safety tip in the
           | woodworking world: A chisel is always a two handed tool.
           | Either two hands on the tool itself, or one hand on the
           | chisel and another holding a mallet. Either way, the piece
           | needs to be in a vice or otherwise rendered immobile.
           | 
           | Every dumb thing I've done with a chisel has been trying to
           | use it at an odd angle or stabilizing the piece with one hand
           | and holding the chisel in the other.
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | Now I have the idea of a kitchen vice hmmmmm
        
               | onion2k wrote:
               | That would be very useful for all the times when you use
               | a kitchen chisel.
        
               | dtgriscom wrote:
               | A significant number of my vices are indulged in the
               | kitchen.
        
           | irrational wrote:
           | My sister in law cut off a finger cutting a bagel (it was
           | sewed back on). Seriously. I thought she was just careless
           | (and has way too sharp of knives), but maybe it's more common
           | than I thought?
        
             | msarchet wrote:
             | Sharp knives are far better than dull knives. They don't
             | slip. Don't require too much force. With the added benefit
             | of when you cut your finger off they can sew it back on
             | from a clean cut :D
        
           | climb_stealth wrote:
           | Seriously, the worst cut I have had has been when cutting a
           | loaf of bread with the wrong knife. It was a fresh loaf as
           | well. Cut half into one finger tip and a sliced a piece off
           | the tip of another. It just takes one moment of frustrated
           | bread-doesn't-cut-wrangling and a slip.
           | 
           | My lesson from it: buy a serrated bread knife instead of
           | trying to make do with whatever is in the at the time super
           | minimal kitchen drawer. Saw the bread instead of trying to
           | cut it.
           | 
           | To be honest, I would have laughed at the thought of cutting
           | myself whilst cutting bread of all things as well before it
           | happened.
        
             | gameshot911 wrote:
             | My worst kitchen accident happened cutting bread too. I was
             | trying to cut through a stale loaf using a (brand new!)
             | serrated knife, got lost in thought for one second, and the
             | knife slipped of the bread and into the tip of my finger.
             | Seriously debated going to the urgent care, and took months
             | for feeling to return in the tip.
             | 
             | My takeaway was to be vigilant at being 100% focused
             | whenever using knives.
        
         | quickthrower2 wrote:
         | Bagel topology experiments preferred over human topology ones.
        
         | tootie wrote:
         | Right behind avocado-pitting injuries.
        
       | clove wrote:
       | Don't forget that you should cut all your bagels as soon as you
       | bring them home for easier storage:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ksNsbs2Z-Q
        
         | McNutty wrote:
         | His tip is to cut them in half so you don't waste half?. My tip
         | is eat both halves so you don't waste half.
        
           | clove wrote:
           | His tip is to cut them in half before you freeze them. This
           | way, you don't need to wait for them to thaw to cut them and
           | toast them.
        
       | gverrilla wrote:
       | very nice. with pedagogy potential
        
       | bryans wrote:
       | > In additional to the intellectual stimulation, you get more
       | cream cheese, because there is slightly more surface area.
       | 
       | As someone who uses half of a brick per bagel regardless of size,
       | I'd say surface area is a non-limiting factor for cream cheese
       | application. If you want more cream cheese, just have more cream
       | cheese -- it's delicious, on top of being more filling (and
       | arguably healthier) than the bagel itself.
        
         | na85 wrote:
         | I used to love cream cheese until I looked at the ingredients
         | list. Buncha weird ass bean gums and stuff. No thanks.
         | 
         | Now I use ricotta, or just butter.
        
           | atdrummond wrote:
           | For what it's worth, it's very easy to make at home or buy at
           | a farmer's market without any industrial stabilisers. In
           | larger cities, you can also get the same product (cream
           | cheese without the various gums and other additives) at
           | Mexican/Hispanic grocers where it will be called queso
           | filadelfia.
        
             | na85 wrote:
             | I'm in a pretty big city with lots of granola-type people
             | but I haven't seen any artisanal cream cheese or whatever
             | at the local farmer's market.
             | 
             | Honestly cheesecake is better with ricotta anyways, and my
             | waist can do without bagels, so I'm kinda post-cream cheese
             | at this point.
        
           | metafunctor wrote:
           | Perhaps try a different brand. The one I usually get lists
           | milk, cream, whey, salt, carob powder, citric acid, and
           | culture. So fermented milk products plus a bit of things to
           | make it more stable.
        
             | thaumasiotes wrote:
             | The "standard national (American) brand" is Philadelphia,
             | and their ingredients are:
             | 
             | > pasteurized milk and cream, whey protein concentrate,
             | whey, salt, carob bean gum, natamycin (a natural mold
             | inhibitor), vitamin A palmitate, cheese culture.
             | 
             | https://www.myfoodandfamily.com/brands/philadelphia/product
             | /...
             | 
             | We can summarize this as "a bunch of milk products, salt,
             | vitamin A, an antifungal, and carob bean gum".
             | 
             | It seems pretty inoffensive. There is one (1) bean gum in
             | there, but at this point I'd ask whether "carob bean gum"
             | is different from "carob powder".
             | 
             | For example, quoting from wikipedia:
             | 
             | > Locust bean gum [another name for carob bean gum] occurs
             | as a white to yellow-white powder.
             | 
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locust_bean_gum
             | 
             | It appears to be the powdered endosperm of carob beans.
             | 
             | If this is bad, wait till you hear about chocolate. Or
             | refried beans.
        
               | Symbiote wrote:
               | Philadelphia sold in the EU+UK:
               | 
               | > Full Fat Soft Cheese, Salt, Stabiliser (Locust Bean
               | Gum), Acid (Citric acid).
               | 
               | Which is similar, except without the mould inhibitor
               | (only allowed on hard cheeses here) or vitamin A.
        
           | blindmute wrote:
           | Yep, it's a chemical product for sure, full of xantham gum
           | and other such "ingredients". Some cheap brands you can
           | actually taste the gum, or so it seems... I stopped eating it
        
             | Cpoll wrote:
             | Isn't xantham gum just a product of sugar fermentation? I'm
             | all for fewer ingredients, but cheese is still as much a
             | "chemical" product if the stabilizers and mold extractors
             | are removed.
        
               | blindmute wrote:
               | Lots of nasty things are "just products" of simple
               | ingredients, like seed oils. If the ingredient was
               | invented in a lab less than 100 years ago, I try not to
               | eat it.
        
               | bryans wrote:
               | That's rather disinformative. There is nothing about
               | locust bean gum extraction that is unusual or unsafe, and
               | it certainly wasn't "invented in a lab." It's a seed that
               | gets milled into powder.
        
         | elyobo wrote:
         | I thought I liked cream cheese until I bought bagels in NYC and
         | there was more cream cheese than bagel. Even I can't eat that,
         | got used to scraping off half the topping (and it was still
         | half a brick left).
        
       | kbelder wrote:
       | This seems like it would be recursive; you could (very
       | delicately) repeat the process on each torus, to end up with four
       | interlinked.
        
       | nfkx120 wrote:
       | This is going to make toaster ICs more complex. Going to need a
       | BAGEL pin, and a BAGEL_ALT pin.
        
         | jahewson wrote:
         | Bagoid?
        
       | ChuckMcM wrote:
       | Definitely does NOT fit in the toaster that way! :-)
        
         | mauvehaus wrote:
         | As somebody who is firmly anti-toaster oven (they're an
         | inferior toaster _and_ a lousy oven), I 'll admit that if
         | you're hell-bent on slicing your bagels this way, you should
         | get a toaster oven. Everyone else can find a better use for
         | that counter space.
        
           | juliangamble wrote:
           | Sounds like an @siracusa review meme.
        
           | Jarwain wrote:
           | How do you feel about air friers? Aka convection toaster
           | ovens
        
             | mauvehaus wrote:
             | I have no idea what this is or how a person would use one
             | in practice, but it sounds like the sort of thing invented
             | by and marketed to people who need to get more exercise and
             | worry less about their use of cooking fat.
             | 
             | Edited to add: before everybody gets the impression that
             | I'm a total curmudgeon about kitchen appliances, I think
             | electric kettles are up there with sliced bread and my
             | immersion blender is the best $3 I've ever spent at a
             | thrift shop. I thought food processors were moronic until I
             | discovered how easy they make pesto (so easy!). And I would
             | entertain the idea of sous-vide if it weren't so cultish.
             | 
             | On the subject of bread machines, I'm convinced that the
             | world needs no more of them and that the existing supply
             | will suffice for decades if people who wanted to try one
             | went to the thrift shop instead of buying new. I've never
             | seen a thrift shop that didn't have a couple in stock.
        
               | jiggunjer wrote:
               | Air fryer is just marketing talk for a small convection
               | oven. Useful for small studios or if portability is
               | needed. I bake vegetables and chicken thighs in it
               | because I can't fit a full sized oven into my kitchen. It
               | was a toss up between this and a toaster oven. As I
               | already have a toaster I went with the smaller airfryer.
        
           | modeless wrote:
           | Really? As toasters they're merely serviceable but as ovens I
           | find them actually good. They heat up and cool down faster
           | and are convenient for the things that fit in them. Which is
           | actually a lot of things if you're not cooking for lots of
           | people.
        
             | mauvehaus wrote:
             | Maybe I look at baking differently, but I don't have a lot
             | of recipes that I bake that would fit in a toaster oven.
             | Even when I've cooked for only myself, I've tended to cook
             | in quantity for plannedovers and freezer meals.
             | 
             | I hope you'll pardon my hot take above. I don't consider
             | the way I cook to be the only valid one, but it's genuinely
             | never crossed my mind that I'd bake something small enough
             | that a toaster oven might suffice.
        
               | samatman wrote:
               | It's a whole different lifestyle.
               | 
               | For example: you can bake a full sheet of chocolate chip
               | cookies, eat one or two while they're warm and delicious,
               | and put the rest into a jar to eat over a week. That's a
               | thing you can do. Or.
               | 
               | You can make a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, and
               | whenever you're feeling like one or two cookies, bake
               | them in the toaster oven. That way you never have to eat
               | a stale cookie, or even a cool one. Whatever minute out
               | of the oven is your ideal cookie, all the cookies are
               | that one.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | sp332 wrote:
       | His daughter, Vi Hart, has a video about how to solve the three
       | utilities problem on a bagel.
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CruQylWSfoU
        
         | nfkx120 wrote:
         | I could have legit named my daughter Vi? Fuck.
        
           | squarefoot wrote:
           | Well, at least her name isn't Emacs.
           | 
           | (ducks and runs)
        
             | nfkx120 wrote:
             | Which is worse to predispose her to - split personality
             | disorder or obesity
        
               | stickfigure wrote:
               | Best to name her Ed.
        
               | mnemotronic wrote:
               | Or Slick.
        
             | kingcharles wrote:
             | Just to be safe I'll call my daughter PINE, aka PINE Is Not
             | Emacs.
        
               | acheron wrote:
               | My sister had twins last year, I should have suggested
               | Pico and Nano.
        
           | dotancohen wrote:
           | You'd just be frustrated by unexpected behaviour. Vim's a far
           | better choice:
           | 
           | https://www.popular-babynames.com/name/vim
        
           | stickfigure wrote:
           | That may be a finite limit. Some years ago a couple I know
           | married and decided to pick a neutral last name, 'X'. The
           | powers that be would not allow it. So their last name became
           | 'Ecks'.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | maxnoe wrote:
           | Maybe using is as short form of Viola will speak it by the
           | other parent....
        
         | trevcanhuman wrote:
         | You mean _the Vi Hart_ ? What a small world.
        
       | dmoy wrote:
       | Topology is some crazy shit.
       | 
       | I wonder if the guy who sells Klein bottle hats can come up with
       | a knife for cutting this way. Cliff Stoll.
        
         | sonofhans wrote:
         | We could ask him --
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=CliffStoll
        
         | drdec wrote:
         | Seems like a good place to mention that I bought a Klein bottle
         | hat from Cliff for my (mathematically inclined) wife for
         | Christmas and she loved it. Also there is more to it than just
         | the item, the packaging and other extras really put it over the
         | top. I can't recommend it enough.
        
       | loloquwowndueo wrote:
       | I tried this a while ago and couldn't for the life of me get it
       | right.
       | 
       | At some point I decided to stop wasting my time and ruining
       | bagels and just ate them as they were :)
        
       | sh4rks wrote:
       | Stopped reading when I saw he drew on a perfectly good bagel with
       | a sharpie. People have no respect for food nowadays.
        
         | OJFord wrote:
         | Do you hate anything being used for an alternative purpose, or
         | just food?
         | 
         | What if the bagel had been made from the scraps of flour spilt
         | in dusting over the years? Or found where someone else (or the
         | supermarket) had already discarded it?
         | 
         | I don't think it's 'waste' to _use_ something differently.
        
         | s5300 wrote:
         | Bit of an odd gripe IMO, but either way Sharpie ink is non-
         | toxic & you'd have to ingest more than an entire marker to do
         | any real harm.
        
       | dwmbt wrote:
       | this rules. gonna try it out tomorrow morning!
        
       | IncRnd wrote:
       | This method doesn't always leave the bagel looking aesthetically
       | pleasing. The bagel, even in the linked video linked in the
       | article, appears to have been hacked apart by a machete wielding
       | attacker, leaving tufts of bread falling out.
       | 
       | There is another way! To do so, cut the bagel just one time (not
       | four), turning the knife around the bagel until the bagel is 180
       | degrees flipped when the knife returns to the starting position.
       | 
       | Here is a short video for this sort of a mobius-bagel method. [1]
       | 
       | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktfo8D3cCr0
        
         | ycombinete wrote:
         | I thought the first photo was an example of a failed bagel
         | slicing attempt, until I started reading the article.
        
       | divbzero wrote:
       | > _What is the ratio of the surface area of this linked cut to
       | the surface area of the usual planar bagel slice?_
       | 
       | The surface area of the usual planar bagel slice is
       | straightforward, but what's the most intuitive way to integrate
       | the surface area of a twisting strip?
        
         | newaccount74 wrote:
         | I think you need to find a parameterisation of the strip X(phi,
         | r), calculate the cross product of the unit vectors (dX/dphi
         | cross dX/dr), then integrate that (X being a 3D vector while
         | phi, r are scalar parameters).
        
       | zouhair wrote:
       | How many bagels got sacrificed in this folly?
        
       | stickfigure wrote:
       | ...and I thought I was clever to cut my bagel in 3rds to eat "low
       | carb".
        
       | beeskneecaps wrote:
       | Is that sharpie on a bagel? My parents always told me not to plot
       | with my food.
        
       | ouid wrote:
       | Now glue them back together into S2xS1.
        
       | scbrg wrote:
       | Having grown up in a non bagel rich country, I've been puzzled
       | ever since I first encountered them. What's the point of the
       | weird shape? What's wrong with a square or even circular piece of
       | bread _without_ an inconvenient hole in the middle?
       | 
       | For an outside viewer, it looks like someone went out of their
       | way to create a shape that makes it as difficult to deal with as
       | possible, and then mass psychosis took over and everyone went all
       | _Hail bagel shape!_ for no good reason.
       | 
       | What am missing?
        
         | emoII wrote:
         | https://youtu.be/cpynN_B_7QI?t=57
         | 
         | Although this is not a definite answer I think it makes sense,
         | that the inconvenient hole actually provide a convenient
         | storage solution, historically at least.
        
         | arrrg wrote:
         | Not sure about bagels (could just be tradition), though, for
         | example, the Brezen* shape achieves a contrast between crunchy
         | and soft with its shape. Also makes it quite hard and
         | impractical to spread stuff on it (which leads to some just
         | cutting open the large soft part and spreading stuff there
         | which is horrific and wrong), but it's worth it.
         | 
         | Spreadability of stuff on something isn't the only relevant
         | factor.
         | 
         | * not a perfect photo, the difference between the thin and
         | thick parts is a bit small, but it's ok:
         | https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Laugenbrezels#...
        
           | the_mitsuhiko wrote:
           | So completely useless fact but "Bagel" comes via Yiddish
           | "beigel" from "Beugel" which means "little horn" (similar
           | etymology to "bend"). In Austria and Germany there are still
           | bread products call "Beugel" and they look like a horn (https
           | ://images.ichkoche.at/data/image/variations/620x434/4/b...).
           | 
           | So I suppose the original form might not have been closed yet
           | into a ring.
        
             | phkahler wrote:
             | >> So completely useless fact but "Bagel" comes via Yiddish
             | "beigel"
             | 
             | Around 2005 one of my coworkers from Germany would bring a
             | large box with assorted beers for us when he came to the
             | US. He would always fill it with bagels before returning.
             | He loves bagels but said they don't really have them back
             | home and he didnt know why. I paused and said "oh...
             | they're a Jewish thing." He paused, lowered he head
             | slightly and said "Oh, oops."
        
         | layer8 wrote:
         | > it looks like someone went out of their way to create a shape
         | that makes it as difficult to deal with as possible
         | 
         | I'd like to introduce you to pretzels. :)
        
         | alisonatwork wrote:
         | As other posters have pointed out, different shaped breads have
         | different textures because they cook differently, so there is a
         | flavor aspect to preferring bread with a hole.
         | 
         | But I wonder if perhaps historically there might be a
         | convenience aspect too. In Turkey there is also a bread with a
         | hole called simit, and over there street vendors sometimes
         | thread the breads on sticks or with string to carry them
         | around. I think there is a Middle Eastern bread like that too.
         | That makes more sense to me than carrying a bag full of hot,
         | fresh breads without a hole, especially in warm climates.
        
         | dtgriscom wrote:
         | A solid block of dough, heated rapidly (e.g. bagel in boiling
         | water, or donut in hot oil) will still have an undercooked
         | center once the outside is fully cooked. Adding the hole evens
         | out the heat transfer.
        
         | gjvc wrote:
         | the uniform shape helps ensure even heat transfer for when they
         | are cooked in boiling water (to which is added baking soda),
         | and baked evenly in an oven.
         | 
         | (in case you are wondering why they are boiled, it's to develop
         | a chewy crust)
        
           | ars wrote:
           | It's not for the oven, it's for when they boil in water.
           | 
           | A proper bagel is boiled first, then baked.
           | 
           | It's also used for transportation and display by threading a
           | rod or string through the hole, but the main reason is for
           | even boiling. Same as a doughnut (except that is boiled in
           | oil).
        
           | scbrg wrote:
           | Ah. That makes sense. Thanks for the answer :)
           | 
           | Still, I eat plenty of bread that's non bagel shaped and
           | fairly evenly baked. I guess I pay slightly more for the more
           | difficult production process then, or have to suffer bread
           | that's just not _quite_ as perfectly uniform in texture as it
           | could be. Well worth it, if you ask me, to not have to deal
           | with the frustrating shape. Mileages vary, of course :)
        
             | bigDinosaur wrote:
             | I, too, kind of share your perspective, and indeed prefer
             | the texture and structure of non-bagels to bagels. I just
             | find them unnecessary and harder to put fun fillings inside
             | them.
        
               | thaumasiotes wrote:
               | > and indeed prefer the texture and structure of non-
               | bagels to bagels.
               | 
               | They're different textures. They are best suited to
               | different things.
               | 
               | But if you want non-bagels in the shape of bagels,
               | Costco's store-brand bagels are like that. I hate them so
               | much. If I wanted regular bread, I'd buy regular bread.
        
               | lmm wrote:
               | Is there anywhere that does the converse? I'd like a
               | bagel-textured bun.
        
               | bigDinosaur wrote:
               | Where does a bagel excel? I've had so many disappointing
               | bagels that I've become jaded about them (but bear in
               | mind I'm from Australia which, as far as I know, is not
               | really known for having a culture of bagel excellence.)
        
               | alisonatwork wrote:
               | New York City and Montreal are both well known for having
               | very good bagel bakeries, each with their own distinct
               | traits. In my experience the further away you get from
               | those two cities, the more a bagel ends up tasting like
               | regular (and often stale) bread that just happens to be
               | in a torus shape. In any case, you should always get one
               | freshly baked from a bakery and not from a supermarket
               | bread aisle.
               | 
               | I'm surprised at the number of commenters here talking
               | about toasting a bagel. In my opinion, if you need to
               | toast the bagel, you already failed at finding a good
               | bagel. A good bagel should already be somewhat crispy on
               | the outside and pleasantly soft on the inside, and it
               | shouldn't need anything spread on it to be edible.
        
               | samatman wrote:
               | Toasters with a bagel setting concentrate the heat on the
               | cut side of the bagel (which is presumed to be the
               | inside), a toaster oven can do this even better by
               | setting at toast to heat up, then using the broil setting
               | for the actual toaster.
               | 
               | This gets three textures going: the crump stays chewy and
               | dense, the crust isn't burned (very important if it has
               | any allium topping, fairly important for seeds, still not
               | great for plain), and a nice crumbly toast layer.
               | 
               | Which holds up under schmear and butter excellently. I
               | agree that a fresh bagel should be tasty direct from the
               | bag, but I'm still going to be eating them with toppings
               | for the most part.
        
             | Broken_Hippo wrote:
             | _I eat plenty of bread that 's non bagel shaped and fairly
             | evenly baked._
             | 
             | So do people that eat bagels. I'm going to guess that you
             | consider rolls and a slice of bread different bread,
             | though. The sheer amount of the 'crust' on a bread roll
             | contributes significantly to the taste and texture of a
             | roll. Similarly, the sheer amount of "inside bread" on a
             | slice affects its texture and taste. And of course, they
             | affect how they cook.
             | 
             | Same thing with a bagel. A good bagel has a fairly chewy
             | outside and a somewhat dense interior. Changing the ratio
             | of these two affects taste. Heck, you even notice it if you
             | eat different sizes of bagel.
             | 
             | I'll also note that the shape isn't often all that
             | frustrating, at least to me. Half of the bagels I've eaten
             | have very little hole in the middle and they hold sandwich
             | fillings pretty well.
             | 
             | Edit: I might be a little nostalgic, though: I moved to a
             | place with few bagels indeed and I kind of miss them.
        
               | oldmantone wrote:
               | FWIW, "inside bread" is called "crumb."
        
           | kevinmchugh wrote:
           | Malt syrup is more traditional and tastier than baking soda
        
       | supercucklchaim wrote:
       | This thread pretty much sums up the state of the modern tech
       | industry, we will be OK for another decade at least. I hope our
       | future generations are as exemplary, too! ;)
       | 
       | Yes, we are well adjusted and have real priorities, just imagine
       | how envious bagel-aficionados would be and what they would think
       | if they knew what we look like. :(
        
       | quickthrower2 wrote:
       | Would make a good bar room hussle.
        
       | StanislavPetrov wrote:
       | As clever as this is, a bagel cut this way is far more likely to
       | end up face down in my lap as I'm trying to wolf it down while
       | navigating traffic on the morning commute.
        
       | [deleted]
        
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