Talking BAGELS with Mary Lamond
I chat to my bestie Mary (A.K.A. mary.bagels) about baking bagels at Black Seed, New York. Plus, where to get the best bagels in NYC and some sandwich inspiration.
Week in brief
What’s in season: bagels :)
What I’m reading: The Girl with the Louding Voice, by Abi Daré
What I’m listening to: Mariners Apartment Complex by Lana del Rey. On a loop.
What I’m eating: Bacon Egg Cheese on an Everything Bagel
A series of very fortunate events led to this particular week of bagel consumption in New York City. I’m staying with my friend Mary Lamond, who works at Black Seed Bagels. In a stroke of sheer serendipity, Mary and I met at Ballymaloe Cookery School in September 2019. Mary knocked on my door on the very first day (we were both staying in the Coach House), and we immediately hit it off. After three months of early mornings at the Bread Shed, pints in Ballycotton and antics aplenty, Mary, our friend Clare and I all moved to London together to work in kitchens.
After we left London in 2021, we arranged to meet in New York in January 2022. I only stayed for a (bagel and doughnut-fuelled) week, but Mary never left. She got a job at Black Seed Bagels, and worked her way up to Bakery Production Manager, running operations across several bakeries. Safe to say Mary is a bagel connoisseur.
I’m going to let Mary introduce herself here, then I’ll throw a few rapid fire questions at her before we get into the bagel chats.
Mary: I'm from Australia. I started baking with my mom when I was very young, and I grew up making chocolate chip cookies - and often just eating the cookie dough, and not baking any at all. When I left high school, I did a degree and realised that my passion was baking and being in the kitchen. So I went to Ballymaloe Cookery School where I met Beth, and that was the first time that I felt like I was with like-minded people, people who are really passionate about food and working with good ingredients and and it was at that point that I decided to pursue a career in food. And from there I went to work in kitchens, tried out the chef thing, tried out the bread thing, tried out the cake thing and kind of found my niche in bagels eventually.
What's the best advice you've ever received?
Oh, I like this one. It's from Ed Sheeran: luck is where opportunity and hard work meet. You know, you make your own luck.
Best book you've read recently?
The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller
What's your favourite cocktail?
A dirty gin Martini with a blue cheese olive if they have them.
Favourite kitchen tool or utensil?
A spatula. Easy. Yeah. I don't think I could ever live without a spatula.
Favourite spice and favourite herb?
Coriander (or cilantro here in the US) and cinnamon.
How long have you been working in New York and what is your role?
I started out as a baker working for Black Seed Bagels. We bake around 5,000 bagels in 24 hours, so it's pretty high production. After some time at Black Seed, I became the production manager for the daytime, so now my role is travelling between the stores, training the bakers, making sure that our bakers are making the best quality bagels they can. We make bagels for all 10 Black Seed stores, and then we also bake for wholesale, so we send bagels to Whole Foods and Fresh Direct in boxes of four. We produce thousands of bagels for that which we hand-slice, bag, and then ship off in boxes.
How do you make a bagel?
It's quite a dense, low-hydration dough, mixed between 7 and 15 minutes. The dough always contains flour, salt, water, and yeast. And there's a sweetener, so the Montreal bagels have honey and the New York bagels generally have malt. Then you do a bulk proof, which is normally ambient and quite quick, then you shape them and prove them again, this time in the fridge, so it’s a slow overnight proof. And then to see when a bagel is ready to bake, you pull it out of the fridge and if it floats in water, then it's ready to bake. Then you boil the bagel to form that skin, which makes it chewy and also gives it a really nice shine and kind of crispness when you bite into it. You boil the bagel for 30 seconds on each side in boiling water with honey added or malt syrup or malt powder, depending on what sweetener you used in your bagels. And then you bake them for around 20 minutes in a 400-450 degree (200-230C) oven. If you're baking at home, you don't need to turn them in the oven because they're going to get enough heat on the top and bottom. But at Black Seed, we bake them on wooden sticks, moving them closer to the flame as they're baking so that they get a golden colour on the top. To bake the both sides of the bagel we flip the stick onto the hot oven hearth, and eventually we pull them out with a wooden bagel peel.
What differentiates a New York and a Montreal bagel?
Normally a New York bagel will be bigger in size and have a longer proof whereas a Montreal will have a shorter proof and be a lot smaller and denser in size. So you'll notice, when you see a big fat fluffy bagel, that's a New York style. And when you see a denser, smaller, more rustic looking one, that's a Montreal bagel. Also, a New York bagel is more likely to be sweetened with malt, whereas Montreal will be sweetened with honey. And then in Montreal, you're likely to have a woodfire oven, while in New York City you're more likely to have a gas fire rotating oven.
And why do people say that New York has the best bagels?
They say that it’s because of the water quality, and that's why the pizza is some of the best too, but I don't really think that that’s true. I think in New York City there's such a demand for high quality bagels. And I feel like the competitive nature of America helps too, because everybody wants to make the best bagels. So we have so many good options. And it's probably also because of the Jewish population here.
Where can you get the best bagels in New York?
Oh, it depends what you're after. I think if you want to get a really fresh bagel, then you need to go to a bakery where they have an oven, so if you can see the bakers making the bagels, then you're definitely going to get a great bagel at a shop like that. So that would be Black Seed, Ess-a Bagel, and Tompkins, among others.
What are some of the most popular bagel sandwiches?
Definitely the classic lox (smoked salmon) cream cheese, red onion, capers. And then the Reuben which has Thousand Island dressing, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and pastrami. And the bacon, egg and cheese like all those breakfast sandwich combos are so popular in New York City. People will queue up for a bacon egg and cheese when they're hungover and, you know, they'll queue up for 30-45 minutes.
My bagel recommendations for New York City
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