Celebrating February 9

Daily Five Food Finds: Bagels

1. The word Bagel is often thought to have derived from the ‘buckle‘ shape it has, but actually it is from a Yiddish word ‘beygl‘ meaning ring or hole.

2. Bagels are one of the few breads that are boiled then baked. creating the sought inside while retaining a crisp exterior.

3. Over a Billion dollars a year are spent on bagels in the US alone.

4. The top selling bagels are Plain(#1), Whole Wheat(#2) and Sesame Seed(#3)

5. Originally bagels were baked and sold by street vendors. They would have been carried around on a long string draped over the sellers’ shoulders. (Link to drawing)

What’s a lox? Lox is thinly sliced smoked salmon

Bagel & Lox are typically bagels with cream cheese, onions,  and smoked salmon. Other variations often include  tomatoes, cucumbers, capers, and/or scrambled eggs

Daily Quote: “Sandwich every bit of criticism between two layers of praise”~Dixie Carter


Today’s Food History

on this day in…

  • 1870 The creation of the U.S. Weather Service (National Weather Service) was authorized by Congress
  • 1889 The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was established as a Cabinet level agency.
  • 1899 Minnesota’s all time record low temperature: 59 degrees F below zero at Leech Lake Dam.
  • 1894 Hershey’s Chocolate Company was founded as a subsidiary of Milton S. Hershey’s Lancaster Caramel Company.
  • 1901 RIP Fred Harvey Born in 1835 in London, Frederick Henry Harvey, was an American restaurateur who operated a chain of restaurants called the ‘Harvey House,’ and a series of railroad dining cars and hotels. The restaurants were opened along the route of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, and were staffed by ‘Harvey Girls’, who over the years numbered in the thousands. Will Rogers said Harvey “kept the West in food and wives.”
  • 1909 Carmen Miranda was born. Brazilian singer and actress. Appeared in many Hollywood movies, she was known as “the Brazilian bombshell” and also “the lady in the tutti-frutti hat.”
  • 2001 The American submarine USS Greenville accidentally strikes and sinks a Japanese fishing & high school training ship, the Ehime-Maru. Nine crew members of the Ehime Maru and 4 high school students were drowned. The submarine was practicing an emergency rapid surfacing maneuver at the time.