Undoubtedly a stupid thought...

[ffutures]

I've eaten a lot of bagels over the years.

All of them have been cut in half with some sort of filling added - cottage cheese, meat, pickle, etc.

And all of them have been made in the same toroidal shape. Which has a hole in the middle, which lets bits of the filling fall out fairly easily.

Is it possible to make them without the hole? I presume that there's a traditional element, e.g. everyone expects them to be that shape, but is there any more practical reason, e.g. the flavour is different if there's no hole / the way that they're made only works for that shape? Has anyone ever tried to sell bagels that are a solid oblate spherical shape, like other rolls?

No particular reason for asking, apart from eating a cottage cheese bagel for supper, but now that I've thought of this I really want to know the answer...

Comments

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I would say that it is not the hole that makes them bagels, but the boiling of the dough before the cooking.

After all - if it was the hole that defined bagel-ness then ring doughnuts would be bagels... The hole seems to be to ensure even baking - so if you took the dough, boiled it, and then baked it in a different shape it would be a different shaped bagel.

But then I am not a Jewish baker, so what would I know?

Apart from the fact that soda bread is much nicer if you want a change from ordinary bread rolls...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's probably that - not mad keen on soda bread, but you can't get it freshly baked around here so I suspect it's better than I think.