Is a bagel still a bagel?
If it is, what makes it so?
This is what I ask,
and what I mean to know.
It’s been mechanized and modernized,
up-sized and then disguised,
no longer is as advertised,
or even can be recognized
by the hands that knead the dough.
It’s been liquified and stupefied,
substituted, reconstituted,
tenderized and sweetened up,
and steamed instead of boiled.
So now there’s
maple as a staple,
cheddar cheese is as you please,
asiago in the dough,
even pretzel don’t you know.
This simple scrap of bread
by the people of the book,
once had a different package,
once had a different look.
It was lean and mean and clean
with a chutzpah crackly crust,
and while it then was small,
it had a flavour you could trust:
a sweetly sour taste
with nothing left to waste,
and dense and chewy crumb
with character to plumb.
And though it’s more acceptable,
even more perceptible,
and found in every marketplace,
it may well have changed its own true face.
For in its drive to be,
everything to everyone,
it may have lost its bagel-ness,
it may have come undone.
Is a bagel still a bagel?
If it is, what makes it so?
Is a bagel still a bagel?
I don’t think so —
I say no!
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