Philly has great hoagies, cheesesteaks, pizza and soft pretzels.  Know what else?

Bagels.  

You couldn’t always find great bagels in Philadelphia, writes Jillian Wilson, Michael Klein and Craig LaBan.  

Only in recent years have bagel shops started to appear on the regional landscape.

Now there are curated menus of freshly baked bagels, flavorful schmears, and breakfast or more sandwiches.

There’s a debate surrounding what is the best kind of bagel and it tends to surround two main types: New York and Montreal. New York bagels are boiled, then baked in an oven. Montreal bagels are boiled in honey and water, then baked in a wood-fired oven.

In Philly, one place even boils their bagels in beer. The varieties available here rival anything made in New York or Montreal.

One stand-out in Delaware County is The Original Bagel at 2914 West Chester Pike in Broomall.

Michael Leibowitz is a fifth-generation bagel master who learned from his father, Melvin.

Melvin is credited with launching Philadelphia’s first traditional bagel bakery, New York Bagels, in 1965.

At Leibowitz’s Broomall shop you will find a classic New York-style bagel that is doughy and delicious.

Hungry for more? Click through to the full Philadelphia Inquirer story to see the best bagel spots making Philly a serious contender in the bagel game.

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This New York University video uses the bagel to tell a bigger story of immigration, labor, and identity. From Jewish bakers in Europe to powerful New York unions, bagels were once made by hand and passed down generation to generation. Then machines arrived. Unions collapsed. Scale replaced tradition.

What we call a “New York bagel” today isn’t the same thing that existed before 1967. The process changed, the shape changed, and so did the meaning. A deeply Jewish food became wildly popular while losing much of what made it Jewish.

Editor’s Note: This post first appeared on DELCO Today in May 2022.