The Right Way to Eat a Bagel

Filed under wtf

This morning on my way to work, I saw a man eating a poppyseed bagel on the subway.

Good story, right?

No, but the interesting part was that he was eating it like a sandwich. A cream cheese sandwich. And when I approached Nik, my co-worker who regularly tempts me with bagels on Fridays, he said, “Uh, yeah, how else would you eat it?” My other co-worker (and roommate) Jack also acted like it would actually be weird to eat the halves separately.

But that’s what I’ve done my entire life! You buy the bagel whole with a slit down the center, you toast the halves, you cream cheese them, and you eat them one at a time. Sure, the top half of the bagel has all of the flavoring and the bottom half is just bread, but that’s why you eat the bottom half first! Just because the bagel cart man or your local Tim Hortons squishes the halves back together when they hand them over doesn’t mean they’re meant to be eaten that way.

But now I really, really want to eat them that way, with the cream cheese oozing between my fingers with each bite. Baaaaaaaaageeeeeeeeel.

Salt bagel with pumpkin cream cheese from Bricktown Bagel or Elite Bagel
salt bagel with pumpkin cream cheese from Bricktown Bagel in Queens

10 Comments

  1. Lisa says:

    I eat it like a sandwich on the go but when I’m home I eat the halves separately. Which is probably a dumb idea for me because I eat ridiculously slow already.

  2. Jessica R. says:

    I always eat the halves separately. I do that with Oreos too.

  3. Cassie says:

    If I’m in the car, it’s always the sandwich way. If I’m at home and not afraid to get peanut butter on my nose? Halves.

  4. I would be totally weirded out if I saw someone eating it like a sandwich.

  5. I really want a bagel now! I love them both ways, open or sandwiched together. I feel that you taste whatever is on it better when you eat the halves separately though, so eating it that way makes sense to me unless you eat one on the go!

  6. Oh my… I’ve always eaten the halves separately… I feel like I’ve seen the light!!

  7. Megan says:

    Yeah, I eat my bagels like a sandwich too. It’s messier, but better.

  8. Kaci says:

    Same as some of the above posters, I eat them separately only if I’m at home and toasting it myself. It’s such a hot mess if you try to separate an out in public bagel.

  9. I’m with you. Bagel sandwich = wrong.

  10. I usually don’t even pause long enough to ‘chew’, so…
    :)