Bagel and cream cheese

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A bagel with cream cheese NCI cream cheese bagel.jpg
A bagel with cream cheese

A bagel and cream cheese (also known as bagel with cream cheese) is a food pairing that consists, in its basic form, of a sliced bagel spread with cream cheese. Bagels with cream cheese are traditionally and most commonly served sliced horizontally and spread with cream cheese and other toppings. [1]

Contents

Bagels with cream cheese are common in American cuisine, especially in the cuisine of New York City and American Jewish cuisine. Bagels with cream cheese became popular in the 1980s as they expanded beyond Jewish communities. Bagels served closed as a sandwich also became increasingly popular for their portability. The basic bagel with cream cheese serves as the base for other items such as the "lox and schmear", a staple of delicatessens in the New York City area and across the U.S. While non-Jewish ingredients take well to bagel sandwiches, such as eggs and breakfast meats, cold cuts and sliced cheese, several traditional Jewish toppings for bagels do not work well between bagel halves, including the popular whitefish salad, pickled herring or chopped liver for the simple mechanical reason that soft toppings easily squirt out the sides when the bagel is bitten, as even a fresh bagel is firmer than most breads.

American cuisine

A toasted bagel with cream cheese Toasted bagel with cream cheese.jpg
A toasted bagel with cream cheese

A bagel with cream cheese is common in American cuisine, particularly in New York City. [2] It is often eaten for breakfast; with smoked salmon added, it is sometimes served for brunch. [2] [3] [4] [5] In New York City circa 1900, a popular combination consisted of a bagel topped with lox, cream cheese, capers, tomato, and red onion. [6]

The combination of a bagel with cream cheese has been promoted to American consumers in the past by American food manufacturers and publishers. [7] In the early 1950s, Kraft Foods launched an "aggressive advertising campaign" that depicted Philadelphia-brand cream cheese with bagels. [8] In 1977, Better Homes and Family Circle magazines published a bagel and cream cheese recipe booklet that was distributed in the magazines and also placed in supermarket dairy cases. [7]

American Jewish cuisine

A "lox and a schmear" is a sliced bagel with cream cheese and lox, a part of American Jewish cuisine. *this* is a bagel.jpg
A "lox and a schmear" is a sliced bagel with cream cheese and lox, a part of American Jewish cuisine.

In American Jewish cuisine, a bagel and cream cheese is sometimes called a "whole schmear" or "whole schmeer". [9] [10] A "slab" is a bagel with a slab of cream cheese on top. [10] A "lox and a schmear" is to a bagel with cream cheese and lox or “Nova” smoked salmon. The latter being the particular style of Atlantic salmon used by Jewish delis on the East coast, and often also referred to as lox, especially outside the old and shrinking Jewish lineage of delis, [11] [12] Tomato, red onion, capers and chopped hard-boiled egg are often added. [12] [13] These terms are used at some delicatessens in New York City, particularly at Jewish delicatessens and older, more traditional delicatessens. [10] [14]

The lox and schmear likely originated in New York City around the time of the turn of the 20th century, when street vendors in the city sold salt-cured belly lox from pushcarts. [12] A high amount of salt in the fish necessitated the addition of bread and cheese to offset the lox's saltiness. [12] It was reported by U.S. newspapers in the early 1940s that bagels and lox were sold by delicatessens in New York City as a "Sunday morning treat", and in the early 1950s, bagels and cream cheese combination were very popular in the United States, having permeated American culture. [2] [lower-alpha 1]

Mass production

Both bagels and cream cheese are mass-produced foods in the United States. [2] [16] [17] Additionally, in January 2003, Kraft Foods began purveying a mass-produced convenience food product named Philadelphia To Go Bagel & Cream Cheese, which consisted of a combined package of two bagels and cream cheese. [18] [19]

Bagels and cream cheese were provided to theater patrons by the cast of Bagels and Yox, a 1951 American-Yiddish Broadway revue, during the intermission period of the show. [lower-alpha 1] [20] [21] [22] The revue ran at the Holiday Theatre in New York City from September 1951 to February 1952. [20] [22] A 1951 review of Bagels and Yox published in Time magazine helped to popularize bagels to American consumers throughout the country. [8] [23]

"Bagel and Lox" is a humorous song about the virtues of the bagel, lox, and cream cheese sandwich. It was written by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett. It has been recorded by several different artists, including Eddie "Rochester" Anderson [24] and, more recently, Rob Schneider, [25] Joan Jaffe, [26] and Oleg Frish. [27] The lyrics to the chorus are:

Bagel and lox with the cheese in the middle,
Bagel and lox let it toast on the griddle,
Bagel and lox with the cheese in the middle,
And a slice of onion on the side.

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 "The next stop for the bagel: Broadway. Its break into stardom came in the 1950s. By that time, the cream-cheese bagel was close to supplanting the traditional, Saturday-morning ham, eggs, and toast in America. It had saturated the culture." [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandwich</span> Food made with bread and other ingredients

A sandwich is a dish typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a portable, convenient finger food in the Western world, though over time it has become prevalent worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bagel</span> Ring-shaped bread product

A bagel is a bread roll originating in the Jewish communities of Poland. Bagels are traditionally made from yeasted wheat dough that is shaped by hand into a torus or ring, briefly boiled in water, and then baked. The result is a dense, chewy, doughy interior with a browned and sometimes crisp exterior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reuben sandwich</span> Type of sandwich with meat and sauerkraut

The Reuben sandwich is a North American grilled sandwich composed of corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing or Thousand Island dressing, grilled between slices of rye bread. It is associated with kosher-style delicatessens but is not kosher, as it combines meat and cheese.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open sandwich</span> Single slice of bread with food items on top

An open sandwich, also known as an open-face/open-faced sandwich, bread baser, bread platter or tartine, consists of a slice of bread or toast with one or more food items on top. It has half the number of slices of bread compared to a typical closed sandwich.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cream cheese</span> Soft, mild-tasting cheese with a high fat content

Cream cheese is a soft, usually mild-tasting fresh cheese made from milk and cream. Cream cheese is not naturally matured and is meant to be consumed fresh, so it differs from other soft cheeses such as Brie and Neufchâtel. It is more comparable in taste, texture, and production methods to Boursin and mascarpone. Stabilizers such as carob bean gum and carrageenan are often added in industrial production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuisine of New York City</span> Culinary traditions of New York, New York (USA)

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lox</span> Brined salmon

Lox is a fillet of brined salmon, which may be smoked. Lox is frequently served on a bagel with cream cheese, and often garnished with tomato, onion, cucumber, and capers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Appetizing store</span> Type of retail establishment

An appetizing store, typically in reference to Jewish cuisine in New York City, particularly Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, is a store that sells "food that generally goes with bagels", although appetizings can also be served with a variety of breads. Appetizings include smoked and pickled fish and fish spreads, pickled vegetables, cream cheese spreads and other cheeses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kosher style</span>

Kosher style refers to foods commonly associated with Jewish cuisine but which may or may not actually be kosher. It is a stylistic designation rather than one based on the laws of kashrut. In some U.S. states, the use of this term in advertising is illegal as a misleading term under consumer protection laws.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breakfast sandwich</span> Sandwich with breakfast foods

A breakfast sandwich is any sandwich filled with foods associated with breakfast. Breakfast sandwiches are served at fast food restaurants and delicatessens, sold in supermarkets, or commonly made at home. Different types of breakfast sandwich include the bacon sandwich, the egg sandwich, and the sausage sandwich; or various combinations thereof, like the bacon, egg and cheese sandwich. The breakfast sandwich is related to the breakfast roll.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roast beef sandwich</span> Sandwich made from roast beef

The roast beef sandwich is a sandwich that is made out of sliced roast beef or sometimes beef loaf. It is sold at many diners in the United States, as well as fast food chains, such as Arby's, Rax Roast Beef, and Roy Rogers Restaurants. This style of sandwich often comes on a hamburger bun and may be topped with barbecue sauce and/or melted American cheese. The roast beef sandwich also commonly comprises bread, cold roast beef, lettuce, tomatoes, and mustard, although it would not be uncommon to find cheese, horseradish, fresh/powdered chili pepper and even in some cases red onion. Roast beef sandwiches may be served hot or cold, and are sometimes served open faced.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Montreal-style smoked meat</span> Style of smoked meat corned beef created by Jewish immigrants in Montreal, Quebec

Montreal-style smoked meat, Montreal smoked meat or simply smoked meat in Quebec is a type of kosher-style deli meat product made by salting and curing beef brisket with spices. The brisket is allowed to absorb the flavours over a week. It is then hot smoked to cook through, and finally is steamed to completion. This is a variation on corned beef and is similar to pastrami.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pastrami on rye</span> Classic American deli sandwich

Pastrami on rye is a sandwich comprising sliced pastrami on rye bread, often served with mustard and Kosher dill pickles. It was popularized in the Jewish delicatessens of New York City and has been described as New York's "signature sandwich". It was created in 1888 by the Lithuanian immigrant Sussman Volk, who served it at his deli on Delancey Street in Manhattan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Jewish cuisine</span> Food, cooking, and dining customs associated with American Jews

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whitefish salad</span>

Whitefish salad is a salad of smoked freshwater whitefish and mayonnaise. Whitefish salad is a staple fare of Ashkenazi Jewish American cuisine, often found at appetizing stores and Jewish delicatessens. Common ingredients that can be added to whitefish salad include dill, lemon juice, capers, celery, chives, green peppers, vinegar, hard-boiled egg, and mustard. The mayonnaise can be substituted with sour cream, lebneh, or crème fraîche. Whitefish is often served on a bagel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kornblatt's Delicatessen</span> Jewish deli in Portland, Oregon, U.S.

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References

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Further reading