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Welcome to Off the Eaten Path<\/a>, a series where our Test Kitchen creator Noah Tanen<\/a> dives deep into regional recipes. Next up? New York bagels.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n I\u2019m just going to say it: New York City has the best bagels in America, and probably in the world. The absolute greatest, fresh out of the wood-fired oven at St. Viateur in Montreal come close, but what New York has over its Canadian counterpart is a far wider availability of good bagels almost anywhere. I would go as far as to say that the vast majority in New York are, if not great, pretty good.<\/p>\n Anyone who has lived anywhere else will tell you that this is not typical. The folk knowledge used to explain the concentration of high quality bagels has become gospel: it\u2019s all about the water<\/a>, that there\u2019s something about the pH or the mineral content in NYC tap water that causes the city\u2019s dough to be intangibly superior.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always been skeptical of this notion, but a little research shows it\u2019s simply not true. America\u2019s Test Kitchen<\/a> conducted a taste test<\/a>, pitting bagels made with both Boston and New York City municipal water against each other. The results amongst tasters showed the two batches to be virtually indistinguishable.<\/p>\n
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