It’s a schmear job.
Everyone knows the best bagels come fresh from their local bagel shop — except the “experts” at Consumer Reports magazine, who actually prefer the frozen kind.
In a study that must be aimed at out-of-towners who don’t know their lox from their gefilte fish, Consumer Reports rated as “very good” the rock-hard Lender’s bagels sold from supermarket freezers.
“Tastes freshly baked,” the venerable consumer mag’s tasting panel gushed of Lender’s Original frozen bagels.
You’d think a magazine based in Yonkers — just a hop, skip and jump from the world’s greatest bagels — would know better.
But amazingly, it also gave “very good” ratings to bagels from Dunkin’ Donuts and Costco.
“Plenty of pull when bitten, chewy inside,” the magazine’s taste duds wrote of Dunkin’ bagels, which can be bought anywhere.
And of Kirkland Signature bagels, sold by the bag at Costco, Consumer Reports wrote, “Hints of malt and toasted flavors.”
Consumer Reports consulted its own professionals to reach the dubious conclusion that supermarket and chain-store bagels are “close” in taste to the fresh-baked kind.
Science and stats are for rubes when it comes to bagel eating, New Yorkers said yesterday as they chewed on the real thing. It was hard to find anyone who’d ever tried a frozen bagel.
Ed Diamond, a customer at Bagel Bob’s in Greenwich Village, had such a deprived childhood in small-town Massachusetts that frozen Lender’s was the only bagel choice.
“They [Lender’s] are not even close to a bagel you would get here, or even at just an average New York City bagel place,” said Diamond, a 49-year-old college English teacher.
“If you have to consult Consumer Reports to find your bagels, you are in deep doo-doo,” said Edith Penty, who ate a plain bagel with tuna at Murray’s Bagels in the Village.
One of Murray’s bagel bakers, Brian Fox, was shocked anyone at Consumer Reports could develop a taste for store-bought bagels.
“These are all handmade, and that makes for a completely different bagel, a better product, a better bagel,” said Fox, who’s been rolling dough at Murray’s for 17 years.