Malt flour, water, yeast, sugar . These are the ingredients in the bagels known as Montreal style found at Myer’s Bagels in Burlington, VT. Unlike most Montreal style bagels, Myer’s uses no salt, eggs or preservatives. The ingredients are mixed into a dough, hand cut, hand rolled, boiled in honey water which makes the sesames, poppy seeds, etc. adhere to them and gives the bagels a sheen. Then they are baked in a wood burning oven. They’re smaller, less bready and it’s easy to eat more than one (less calories too!). Get them plain or with sesame, poppy seed, garlic, onion and the best, Montreal Spice.
Everyone knows a New York style bagel. Those are ones you probably eat. They’re big and bready. I acknowledge that people are either New York style or Montreal style devotees. I’m in the Montreal camp. These are the way bagels were originally made and eaten by your great grandparents.
The owner of Myer’s is from Montreal (of course) and was trained by the owner of St. Viateur, which is the home of the Montreal style bagel. There are others and everyone in Montreal have their favorites but we like St. Viateur. We went there one night, very late after having dinner, bought some bagels hot out of the oven and devoured them.
A hot Montreal Spice bagel, a shmear of cream cheese with some lox. Heaven on earth!
If you want to give them a try, call Myer’s Bagels in Burlington, VT (802) 863-5013 and he’ll be happy to ship you some or go online to St. Viateur at http://www.stviateurbagel.com. They are now shipping to the United States. And then, let me know what you think!
