> The lye boiling process is not special

It’s one element. The result, however, is highly perishable. You can make it last a full day in the counter, but that fucks with the texture.

> it's just one kind of bagel that you can prefer or not prefer

Sure. Same with various cheeses. Or beef.

Kobe beef is predominantly consumed in Japan. A bit makes it out. But you can generally serve someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time in Japan other wagyu and they’ll be happy. You won’t get away with that with a Kobe aficionado, and there are simply more of those in Japan for self-reïnforcing reasons. (I personally like a range of beef, and while Kobe is great, it’s not something I seek out.)

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pclmulqdq 4 days ago | parent [-]

Almost every city has several bakeries that make lye-boiled bagels and plenty of other things that are baked and stocked daily. Most bakers I know will donate their stock of all breads to a homeless shelter at the end of the day and start fresh on new bread in the morning. You don't need extremely high volume for that.

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JumpCrisscross 4 days ago | parent [-]

> that are baked and stocked daily

But not multiple times a day. A New York bagel noticeably stales after a couple hours.

Baguettes are the same, by the way. The little handies? If made plainly, correvtly, they change immeasurably once they cool.

When perishability is measured in tens of minutes’ intervals, your economics require a large city of aficionados. (Not applicable to cheese, obviously.)

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pclmulqdq 4 days ago | parent [-]

Most good bakeries everywhere stock multiple times a day as stock gets low. Even the ones selling American baked goods and things like cupcakes because all of these things have shelf lives of hours. Do you believe that New York is the only place in the US where you can get a baguette or a loaf of French bread? Do you think it's the only place you can get a cake?

Having high foot traffic and understanding supply and demand are not unique to New York. The specific type of bagel is, though, because it's a preference rather than a sign of quality. You have fewer bakeries per square mile outside New York, but you have fewer of everything per square mile outside New York. Many cities around the US are plenty dense to support people who make high-quality baked goods.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Most good bakeries everywhere stock multiple times a day as stock gets low The stuff that sells. In most bakeries, that doesn’t cover bagels. > Do you believe that New York is the only place in the US where you can get a baguette or a loaf of French bread? Nobody claimed this. > high foot traffic and understanding supply and demand are not unique to New York It absolutely is. New York has entire American cities’ worth of people in single city blocks. That drives niche culinary diversity in a way that’s impossible to sustain anywhere else in America. > Many cities around the US are plenty dense to support people who make high-quality baked goods Again, never contested. But not as wide a variety. You can’t profitably make every sort of baked good fresh every few hours in a town smaller than a few hundred thousand. You can find that within walking distance for bagels, cubanos, naan and dumplings in a lot of Manhattan.