The issue is quite clear in the marketplace bake-off between Berkeley bagel vendors: Is a bagel authentic if it wasn’t boiled before baking? Loyalists of the decade-old Brothers Bagel Factory say boiling a bagel before it goes into the oven gives it its characteristic crust. But there’s no boiling of the bagels baked by upstart Noah Alper, who opened Noah’s New York Bagels almost two years ago. Steam is injected into Noah’s oven to create fluffy, puffed-up bagels. “Bagels are supposed to be boiled,” said one Oakland woman who has tried both bagel shops but favors Brothers’ bagels. So what does an outside expert say? “An official bagel is a water bagel,” said Adam Silverstein of Columbia Bagels on New York City’s upper West Side. “Steam bagels? They look like ugly little rolls with a hole in the middle.”
