By Zachary Loeb
It is hard to think about Jewish food without thinking of the humble bagel, which has long been a staple of the Jewish culinary experience. And though the bagel has been known to occasionally be a subject of heated disagreement – families have been torn apart amidst fierce debates over whether the Montreal bagel is superior to the New York bagel – the history of the doughy circle is not often thought of as being linked with stories of unionism, invention and automation. However the death of Daniel Thompson in September 2015 has opened a window back into a contentious period in the history of the bagel, for Thompson was the inventor of the automated bagel-making machine. Prior to Thompson’s invention the making of bagels was a trade secret carefully guarded by unionized bagel makers, as Matthew Goodman told the New York Times (in its obituary of Daniel Thompson) “Every bagel that was made in New York City up until the 1960s was a union bagel — every one.” A booklet published by the Beigel Bakers Union (Local 338) in 1940 on the occasion of the union’s fifteenth anniversary trumpets the proud history of these organized bakers who first came together in 1907 to organize the Beigel Bakers’ Sick Aid Society though it wasn’t until several decades later that the union would become fully autonomous. Reading the history recounted by the Beigel Bakers Union provides an important insight into the workers who would feel their trade threatened by the appearance of Thompson’s machine – indeed, the New York Times’ obituary of Thompson specifically mentions the power of Local 338 to hold the city “gastronomic hostage.” Daniel Thompson’s father had experimented with the bagel making machine but it was Daniel who finally turned the prototype into a marketable machine – one which could make 400 bagels in an hour. But, as Maria Balinska recounts in her book The Bagel, the moment that Thompson’s invention truly made an impact was when the machines were adopted by the makers of Lenders’ Bagels – which still uses the machines to this day. And thus Thompson’s machines helped bring an end to the era of hand rolled bagels even as it facilitated their spread in frozen form.
It’s a small piece of history to consider the next time you sit down for a nosh.
The New York Times and Washington Post both featured obituaries of Daniel Thompson:
The Center for Jewish History’s partner collections have numerous books on Jewish food – and the humble bagel, including:
The Beigel Bakers Union – Local 338 – Fifteenth Anniversary Booklet
The Bagel: The Surprising History of a Modest Bread by Maria Balinska
Jewish Food: The World at Table by Matthew Goodman
The Bagel Bible: for Bagel lovers, the complete guide to great noshing
Bagels! Bagels! And more bagels! A saga of good eating with recipes, legend, and lore
Photo above: Poppy (dark) and sesame (light) seed Montreal-style bagels from R.E.A.L. Bagels. Photo by Gary Perlman, 2006-01-23. (released into the public domain) Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bagels-Montreal-REAL.jpg