The secret history of Everything Bagels

My mother-in-law is a lovely person gracious, accepting, and welcoming but there are some culinary choices that she simply cannot wrap her head around. Not just that she doesn't like them; she literally cannot understand how someone elsewould like that particular food. She can kind-of figure out when I mean when I talk about brute force hacking and why it's so important to use a password manager. But she simply cannot fathom why anyone would ever eat an everything bagel.

To be clear, her opinion on this matter is categorically wrong. Most people I know are the opposite: we think Everything should be the default bagel topping. If you want to mix it up maybe you're just feeling plain today, or you really want to make it pop with the ol' Jalapeo-Cheddar combo then you can absolutely have at it. But if you're ordering bagels for a group, for example, it just makes sense to go with a mostly-Everything order. It'll guarantee that everyone's day starts off just a little brighter. And maybe a little garlick-y-er, sure. But that's a small price to pay for pleasure.

I thought of all this as I munched on an Everywhere Bagel (Everything, but with all the toppings coated on the bottom, too a specialty from my local bagel heaven) and read this delightful AtlasObscura piece on the who and the how of this perfect bagel's invention

By his own and most other accounts, that person was David Gussin.