Sunday flagels.

I was buying some bagels at the bagel shop the other day, when I noticed a couple of odd things. 

I don't know what the French toast bagel is like, but since they were sold out, I assume they are pretty good. Maybe another time. They would have been inappropriate for my purposes, though, as we were having bagels and smoked salmon for lunch.

I was more confused by the lower basket, featuring flagels. Never saw them before. What, I wondered, is a flagel? They look kind of flat; is it just a flat bagel?

Yes, pretty much, according to an article in the Village Voice from 2010: 

The flagel is a bagel variation invented by Tasty Bagel in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in 1994.

Basically, it’s a bagel that has been flattened prior to boiling and baking. Why would anyone do that? As you might imagine, bagel bakers get tired of doing the same thing day after day, and maybe the guys at Tasty, which is one of the few bagelries run by Italian-Americans, wanted to do something different to relieve the monotony.

So, there you go. Now, these look like Everything Flagels, since they seem to have no end of stuff on them -- onion and poppy seeds and garlic and sesame seeds and so on. As breakfast baked fads go, this is clearly no Cronut, the bastard child of the croissant and doughnut that swept New York nine years ago. I may be out of touch, and seldom have to go to town anymore, but if the city had been caught up in Flagelmania I think I'd have heard something. 

Maybe I'll get one next time to see what the flagel it is. The Voice piece notes that they tend to go stale quickly, but I never let baked goods sit around here long. However, if the French toast bagels are available, I may have to skip the flagel. Both bagels might be lousy, but maple syrup can cover up a myriad of sins.