Lox Schmear Bagel

Bagel is one of those words whose Finnish spelling is a complete mystery to me. Somehow "baageli" sits better in the mouth than the short and pithy, and surely more correct, "bagel". Said aloud there is no problem. When you order one at the counter of Wayne's Coffee, say, the "beigeli" that comes from the English pronunciation feels perfectly natural. Originally the word is Yiddish and means, as far as I know, a ring.

Bagels were known in Poland as early as the seventeenth century, and Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe brought them along to America, where they are now very popular. The bagel shelves in the shops there are truly well stocked. Bagels come savoury and sweet and flavoured in all sorts of ways. What makes a bagel special is that the ring of dough is boiled before it is baked, which gives it its chewy inside and shiny crust.

In Finland the situation is unfortunately different, for bagels are sold almost nowhere. I asked the person in charge of the bread department at my otherwise splendidly stocked local K-Supermarket where I might get some. "Lots of people have been asking about bagels, but I don't know where you can get them. I have rung round every bakery in the area, and nobody makes them," was the answer. Before my tour of the shops I had naturally googled what little has been written about the bagel situation in Finland. I knew that Dennis Bakery in Kaarina bakes bagels and sells them frozen as well, and I suggested that the shopkeeper should stock those.

Having done the rounds of several shops, big ones too, I was about to sink into despair when the bakery at the Prisma hypermarket in the Sello shopping centre cheerfully answered that yes, they had some! "Not right away, though, but if you wait 10 minutes we'll bake them for you. How many would you like?" Ten minutes later a warm paper bag was put into my hands. The bagels had come frozen from Denmark, but once baked they were tasty in every respect. They were of the "everything" kind, that is, topped with at least sesame and poppy seeds and with flakes of dried onion and garlic. In places the dried onion had baked almost black on the crust. On the way home the heady smell of warm bagels filled the car and made me hungrier still.

My favourite filling, lox schmear, was quickly made. That name is Yiddish too. Lox is salmon, the same word as the Swedish lax, and a schmear is a smear of something, in this case cream cheese. In New York a bagel filled with salmon and cream cheese has apparently been Jewish brunch food for a hundred years already, capers and red onion included.

Original lox is salt-cured salmon, but I use cold-smoked salmon or rainbow trout. The cream cheese is Philadelphia Extra Light, because I am trying to keep the calories in check. Into it I mix chopped capers and parsley, lime juice, salt and white pepper. Half of the schmear is spread on the bottom half under the fish and the rest on top of the fish and the onion rings, so that the filling holds together even when the bagel is packed up to take to work.