Complex Numbers

Holy of Holies

This month's penultimate entry for "Journalistic Intentions"  [18+] takes us to the Great White North.

Montreal

A while back, a friend of mine was getting ready to visit NYC for the first time. (I promise this is relevant to the prompt.) She knows I go there fairly regularly, but every time I wanted to give her advice or suggestions, I managed to restrain myself. "I'll answer questions if she asks," I thought to myself. "It's more fun to discover things for yourself there."

And then, one day, she texted me with, "Where's the best place to get bagels?"

I immediately responded with "Montréal."

"Asshole."

There are, of course, plenty of great bagel places in New York. While I can't personally vouch for the "Montréal" answer, having never been there, I've heard it from so many different sources that I have accepted this superlative as Truth.

Which led me to wonder: How did this Francophone city in the upper reaches of North America become the Holy of Holies? (Get it, because bagels have holes? I'll be here all week.)

Obviously, it has to do with the Jewish community there. But the origins of this particular toroidal carbohydrate module stretch back, not to France, but to Poland. Like every near-perfect food, such as curry or pizza, though, they proved too popular to be limited to one country, instead spreading in their glorious roundness all over the globe.

It's true, however, that bagels entered the North American diet by way of New York, not Montréal. But they spread like cream cheese on a... well, they spread. Hell, there's even a great and popular bagel place right here in my very Southern hometown.

It's even one of the few foods that California does right. They can't make a decent pizza or pastrami sandwich, but there are at least good bagels scattered around California like poppy seeds on a... well, they're scattered.

As a side note, I once had a pastrami pizza. I was, of course, initially skeptical, but that particular abomination turned out to be quite delicious. Where was it? South freakin' Dakota, and I never would have discovered it had I not been stranded there for two days.

But I digress. We were talking about... what were we talking about? Montréal. I thought about going there before France, mostly to try the bagels. But I was concerned that I'd miss summer. There's a three-day window when the climate there would actually be comfortable for me; the problem is, one never knows exactly when those three days fall on the calendar. Usually in July, but not always.

Bagels, however, are a multi-season food. You know, many seasons. Like on an everything bagel.