MONITOR: Itsa restaurants no longer import their bagels but have them baked by McCloskey's Bakery in Drogheda
BAGELS MAY LOOKlike mere rolls with a hole, but they are steeped in history. And you have to get them right – there are an increasing number of imposters on the market. Just ask my colleague Domini Kemp. Her company Itsabagel imports around one million of the things per year; she has chewed her way through a fair few.
The history of the bagel goes back to 1683 in Poland and King Jan Sobieski's victory over the Ottoman Turks – when beugelmeant stirrup – to the flight of Polish Jews to the US. But bagel history may go back even further, to the latter half of the 16th century. There is evidence that the bagel came into being in Poland in competition to the bublik, a lean, wheat loaf. The bublikcaused a problem for strict observers of the Sabbath in that it took too long to bake – a proper bagel proves for more than 12 hours and is then boiled and baked, meaning it can be on the table with cream cheese and smoked salmon in well under an hour, post-Sabbath fasting.
The 12-hour bit is tricky. Time is money and Itsa imported bagels because they were unable to find a product in Ireland they considered more than a roll with a hole. Shortcuts include flour with too low a protein content, and skipping the boiling, crucial in caramelising the sugars and giving the golden crust.
That was, until Patrick McCloskey turned up. I am standing in McCloskey Sons bakery in Drogheda, Co Louth, talking bagels. I’d like to say making them, but actually Marta Ciesielska is placing each one, by hand, into boiling water. These have been proving for 18 hours and when they come out of their bath, after a minute or so, they are sprinkled with seeds before being manhandled onto trays and into the stone-floored oven. It is nine decks high, about 10 metres tall and has a computerised hoist to get the breads in at the right time. The flour used is high in protein, 14 per cent (strong bread flour is around 12 per cent), and it is this, combined with the proving time, that gives the bagels their chewability.
Roark Cassidy, Itsa’s director of operations, is frowning as some earlier bagels come sliding out of the oven. He is not too happy about the onion portion control – stickability seems to be the issue – so they ponder the problem, and he explains what really makes a bagel a bagel.
Cassidy is clear. The right ingredients, handled in the right way, produce a bagel that is “satisfying, dense and more filling than straight bread”. As he says, one bagel really is enough.
In purist taste mode, I try poppy, sesame, onion and plain versions. Then, at home, I have what Itsa calls “an all-day cure”, made by my son for lunch the next day. Bacon, sausage, egg, some ketchup and a plain bagel. Boy, is it good.
For the next few weeks, you can judge for yourself. The freezers at Itsa restaurants currently stock the last of the New York bagels, while if you order one at the counter it will have been freshly baked in Drogheda at McCloskey’s Bakery.
This change in production is one of the real bonus points. Bread freezes well, but there is a difference. Irish production of Itsa bagels will mean your bagel will be fresh, rather than transported frozen.
The change also means Irish jobs, local distribution, fewer food miles and, perhaps most importantly, a world-class food product. Ironically, exports are on the horizon – maybe even to the US.
