Sweet water, hot wood: the Montréal bagel

By Isla Quinn

Small. Dense. A little sweet. A hole you could put two fingers through.

That is the Montréal bagel, and the sources agree on most of it. Wikipedia says it is smaller, thinner, sweeter and denser than the New York kind, with a larger hole, and that it is always baked in a wood-fired oven. Then it gives the recipe in one line: the bagel contains malt and egg and no salt, and is boiled in honey-sweetened water before baking.

A caution first. Wikipedia’s own “Production” section for this bagel carries a banner saying it cites no sources. The summary line above is cited; the longer method section is not. We treat the method as a general description and not as a specification.

What the water does

Honey in the dough. Honey in the poaching water. Wikipedia lists both. Our reading: the boil is where the sweetness and the glossy skin come from, and the wood fire adds the smoke. A personal food blog from 2011, written by a visitor, describes a crisp, slightly smoky crust from the wood-fired oven and a dough “just a touch sweeter and chewier”. It also notes that a sesame bagel from one shop tasted of toasted sesame seeds because there was no salt on the crust. That is one visitor’s taste, and it is a blog.

The same blog names the two flavours it says locals prefer, poppy seed and sesame seed, and describes the “all dressed” version as onion, garlic, caraway, sesame seeds, poppy seeds and coarse salt.

Where it came from

Wikipedia says Montréal bagels, like New York ones, were brought to North America by Jewish immigrants from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe, and that differences in texture and taste reflect the style of the part of Poland where the bakers learned their trade. It adds, with a small flag of its own, that “minor controversy surrounds the question of who first brought the bagel to Montreal.”

Here the sources split.

Wikipedia says the bagel was reportedly first baked in Montréal by Chaim (Hyman) Seligman, as confirmed by a historian of Montréal Jewry. It says he first worked in Lachine, then moved to a lane next to Schwartz’s Delicatessen on Boulevard St-Laurent, and sold bagels strung in dozens, first from a pushcart, then a horse and wagon, later a converted taxi.
Fairmount Bagel’s own site says that in 1919 Isadore Shlafman arrived in Canada and opened the first bagel bakery in Montréal, called the Montreal Bagel Bakery, at the back of a lane off Saint-Lawrence Boulevard, then known as “The Main”. That is a producer describing itself.
A Jewish news site, Unpacked, tells both stories. It says some credit Shlafman, whose family had a bakery in Kiev, and others credit Seligman, who came from Dvinsk, now Daugavpils in Latvia. By “city lore”, it says, the two joined forces in the early 1930s, and the partnership ended in the early 1950s. It closes: “the truth probably lies somewhere in between.”

We do not settle it. We note that Wikipedia’s Fairmount article gives 7 September 1919 for the first Fairmount location, on Saint-Laurent, and that it flags its own claim of being the first bakery of its kind as needing a citation.

Two shops, two founding dates

Wikipedia says St-Viateur Bagel was founded in 1957 by Seligman and Myer Lewkowicz, and that Shlafman established Fairmount in 1919. It says both shops claim to be the oldest in the city. The shops are on neighbouring streets in Mile End.

Fairmount’s site says that in 1949 Shlafman bought a cottage on Fairmount Street, knocked out the back wall and built his oven there, living upstairs, and renamed the bakery “The Original Fairmount Bagel Bakery”. Wikipedia agrees on the 1949 move to 74 Fairmount Avenue West and says the business is still family run. Unpacked adds that Fairmount closed in 1959 and the family reopened it in 1979. Neither Wikipedia nor Fairmount’s site mentions that, and we have found no second source, so we pass it on as Unpacked’s account alone.

How many a day?

A caption on a press photograph reproduced by Unpacked says St-Viateur runs around the clock and serves over 12,000 bagels a day. The 2011 blog says St-Viateur is open 24/7 and sells over 1,000 a day. Those are far apart, and the sources are a photo caption and a visitor’s blog. We do not know which is right, or which year either describes.

Space, briefly

Wikipedia says the Montréal-style bagel is the only style known to have been taken into space, and that a Montréal-raised astronaut took three bags of sesame bagels on shuttle mission STS-124 and on space station Expedition 17. A tour operator’s blog says the astronaut took 18 bagels, in 2008, and calls him a cousin of Fairmount’s current owners. Three bags and 18 bagels may describe the same load. We do not know.

Spread

Wikipedia lists Montréal-style shops that have opened in Dartmouth, Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Whitehorse, among other places, as part of the English-speaking Jewish community moved elsewhere in Canada. It also says the style spread to the UK and some American cities.

Dates in order

7 September 1919: Fairmount’s first location opens, according to Wikipedia; 1919, according to Fairmount’s own site.
Early 1930s: Seligman and Shlafman join forces, according to Unpacked (“city lore”).
1949: Fairmount moves to Fairmount Avenue, according to Wikipedia and Fairmount.
1957: St-Viateur is founded, according to Wikipedia.
2008: Bagels go into space, according to Wikipedia and a tour operator’s blog.

What kind of sources these are

Wikipedia, open to all editors. A producer’s own history. A Jewish news site. A tour operator’s blog. A personal food blog. No museum or regulator page was read, and none of them is a primary record. The question of who came first is better treated as a story the city tells than as a settled fact.

What we left out

Shop opening hours and addresses. The personal histories of owners, living and dead. Prices. Any ranking of one shop over the other, which the sources describe as a matter of loyalty.

Quick answers

Do Montréal bagels have salt in the dough? According to Wikipedia, a Montréal-style bagel contains malt and egg and no salt, and is boiled in honey-sweetened water before it is baked.

How is a Montréal bagel different from a New York bagel? Wikipedia says it is smaller, thinner, sweeter and denser, has a larger hole, and is always baked in a wood-fired oven.

Which Montréal bagel shop is the oldest? Wikipedia says St-Viateur and Fairmount both claim to be the oldest. Fairmount’s own site dates its first bakery to 1919; Wikipedia dates St-Viateur’s founding to 1957.

Roam first. Shop later.

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