Ask George: Do you have anything to add to the whole #BagelGate controversy?? —Lisa S., Kirkwood
We must admit we jumped right into the #BagelGate scrum, casting our vote on Today.com for bagels sliced the traditional way (horizontally, into halves) versus “bread-cut” (sliced vertically, into pieces). Just to rile the masses (and we did), we even admitted to being a “top-half-of-the-bagel-snitcher,” which is a capital offense in most offices.
We opined that slicing a French baguette into relatively uniform crostini is acceptable, but slicing a bagel into odd-shaped little pieces is not. And recalled that every home-issue bagel slicer slices horizontally, guillotine-style.
We found it fascinating that a single tweet showing bread-cut bagels from Panera resulted in thousands of reactions (pro and con), which steamrolled into “St. Louis style” food memes (many of which were hilarious), which in turn triggered articles in major news publications.
Before the scandal dies off completely, we have a few observations (aside from all the mispronunciations, like Upper Midwesterners who call bagels “baggles” and Philadelphians who say “beggle”—"Iggles" fans, no doubt).
The bagels people tend to bread-cut are far larger than traditional, New York–issue water bagels. Some grocery store iterations more closely resemble mini-loaves of bread, so slicing these monsters vertically makes more sense, since no one except Joey Chestnut–types would attempt to knock down a whole one, or even a half.
(We’re reminded of our restaurant days when we served a 5-inch sourdough boule—not unlike the one served at BRIO—rough cut into fourths, which was adequate dosage for a four-top. One day, when said loaf was served to a rather, um, healthy party of four, one of them looked up in disbelief and said, “We’d all like a bun.”)
Then our minds wandered to other different ways people cut and consume food: eating pizza with a knife and fork, or proper British folks who cut their glazed doughnuts vertically into sections, eating each piece with a fork, which may or may not have sparked the Snickers gag on an episode of Seinfeld.
So we figured it made sense when moms and snackers and people on road trips would cut large, bread-y bagels into what the Sklar Brothers called “a lot of separate but not equal slices.” And that one might even consider slicing one hasselback-style, stuffing the voids with lox and cream cheese. Better yet, cut that sucker into several horizontal slices, layer with whatever, and call it a "bagel Napoleon."
Then we remembered the day we encountered a loaf of rye bread sliced horizontally, into slices about a foot long, the genesis of a $50 reuben sandwich, created and served at the former Stadium Bar & Grill at Lumiere Place. We described it thusly: “The filling is shaved corned beef, six pounds of it. The Swiss cheese, a stadium blanket's worth; the Russian dressing, enough to fill a Gatorade jug (OK, here we exaggerate). In truth, this sandwich is so big it probably deserves some new classification, but Man versus Reuben will suffice. This super sammy is presented on a massive, footed cutting board, each half speared by a burly steak knife, accompanied by a fistful of whole pickles and house-made french fries, served in a mini-buckets, portions designed to comfortably feed four guests."
Keep this to yourselves: If word of this sandwich were to get out, it would the beginning of #breadgate, another food scandal St. Louis could lay claim to.
If you have a question for George, email him at gmahe@stlmag.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @stlmag_dining. For more from SLM, subscribe or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
