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As a mere 30-something, it's always amazing to me to read about these things that seemed ubiquitous when I was a child (store-bought bagels, folding ping-pong t

As a mere 30-something, it's always amazing to me to read about these things that seemed ubiquitous when I was a child (store-bought bagels, folding ping-pong tables, even things like vacuums, electric stoves, and color TV) really are recent inventions. I had no idea that the Bagel didn't become what I think of the Bagel until this article. I regularly talk to my nearly nineties grandparents, and they regularly mention something that they are amazed by that I just take for granted (air conditioning, power steering, batteries, frozen meals, and more). I hope I don't lose my sense of wonder for the world. Here's to you, Mr. Thompson, a tinkerer from the age when one could revolutionize the world twice from one's garage.

Tenhundfeld 11y ago
+1 to your general sentiment. I have fond memories of listening to my grandmother tell stories about how her father installed the first (private, consumer) electric generator in the state of Alabama and how at night, you could see their farm glow for miles around. And I often contemplate how my 2yo daughter will think it's totally normal to have all the world's information at your fingertips 24/7. The pace of change is accelerating, and while we don't know what the future holds, this is a damned exciting time to be alive. However, I bemoan the scarcity of good bagels, and it saddens me if Lender's is your concept of a "Bagel". That's like having McDonald's or Dominos be your concept of a Hamburger or a Pizza. They're the same type of food, in general, but you really won't understand what all the fuss is about until you have a more authentic, less processed version.
- hga 11y ago
  Thing is, though, Lender's bagels, and McDonald's hamburgers, are tasty. Certainly there are better, I've had much better bagels when I've lived in big cities, but in my relatively small home city that I've retired to starting my day with a Lender's bagel, as I do almost every day, is not a bad thing.
  - Tenhundfeld 11y ago
    I acknowledge that, not trying to come across as some food snob. I've enjoyed many a McDonald's cheeseburger. They've spent literally millions of dollars to make it taste good. I should hope it tastes good to most people. But if that's the only burger you've ever tasted, you should really try one made by somebody who grinds/chops their own meat. It's different, better I think, but it's also going to cost 10 times as much. And yeah, I've enjoyed a few Lender's bagels, toasted with some butter or cream cheese, maybe even gasp some jelly. Untoasted, they're far too spongey, IMO, and I greatly prefer a denser, chewier texture with a stronger flavor. But that doesn't mean Lender's tastes bad.
- russnewcomer 11y ago
  I personally don't think the pace of change is accelerating, I think the uniformity of acceptance of change is. In regards to your second paragraph, I don't know if 'more authentic' really means what you think it does. I've had the idea for a while that traditions around food are a lot more fungible than is popularly thought. Something like the documentary The Search for General Tso [ http://www.thesearchforgeneraltso.com/ http://www.thesearchforgeneraltso.com/ ] or Rachel Laudan's work [ http://www.utne.com/environment/fast-food-culinary-ethos.aspx http://www.utne.com/environment/fast-food-culinary-ethos.asp... or https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/slow-food-artisanal-natural-preservatives/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/slow-food-artisanal-natur... ] better illustrates it than I could in a comment.
  - Tenhundfeld 11y ago
    Well, I guess we just disagree. I think if you look back over the last 500 years, modern society is changing faster – technologically and culturally. Society is undergoing massive shifts more frequently, with the move from agrarian societies to the industrial revolution to the information age to the coming, IMO, biotech revolution. Or to use the classic example, I think if you plucked an adult from 1500 and transported them to 1600, they'd be able to understand and navigate society much better than someone plucked from 1915 transported to 2015. Related to your point though is the idea that change is not just happening faster, IMO, it's spreading more uniformly due to globalization, e.g., cellphones have spread to all but the most impoverished, over 90% of the global population at the last estimate I saw. And yes, I'm aware of Rachel Laudan, though I haven't seen The Search for General Tso. "More authentic" is clearly vague, context-dependent, and ever changing, akin to "proper grammar". You can intellectualize it forever, which can be fun, but eventually you should try actually tasting the food. You will taste the difference in a bagel made from traditional ingredients, i.e., no fats. You can rightly argue about exactly what is meant by "traditional," but at some point, there's a way that's been practiced for hundreds of years and there's a newer, more automated way. That's not to say I'm right or that the factory-produced food is always worse. I know many people who think Panera has fantastic bagels. I disagree and think they're far too spongey. But there is a difference.
    - 11y ago
- tjr 11y ago
  Where would you go for a good bagel?
  - Tenhundfeld 11y ago
    It depends where you live. I've had great bagels all over NYC and upper NJ, obviously, but also in Boston, Charlottesville, VA, Sarasota, FL and so on. Bagels made according to the "traditional way" don't have any eggs or fats in them. They're chewier and denser (and more flavorful IMO), but they also get hard/stale very quickly. Thus, I've found the most important aspect of a good bagel shop is very high turnover in the product and baking new batches throughout the day. Typically this means a place that bakes everything from scratch in house and only serves bagels. A bakery that offers bagels as one of its many products will probably add egg or oil to keep the bagels palatable longer, which is fine, but means the texture will be different, more like a roll.
munificent 11y ago
I have two young kids. It is completely inconceivable to them that anyone might be in a situation where all of the world's information isn't immediately available at a moment's notice one any of several nearby screens. They will fundamentally never understand the idea that it used to be hard to know something.
- jonknee 11y ago
  > They will fundamentally never understand the idea that it used to be hard to know something. Except perhaps that very idea--they won't know not knowing.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- jbattle 11y ago
  I do think there will always be this detectable weird KT-boundary starting around the mid-late 90's where information is just hard to come by (on the internet). Important stuff like GI Joe cartoons and news stories will of course be available, but simple everyday facts and figures will be really hard to uncover. So I 100% agree with you that this is a pretty huge transition and will be hard for them to look back over, but they will always have a chance to experience ignorance, but only when they look for boring stuff from the last century.
- afarrell 11y ago
  Well, it is easy to look something up, but it is still hard to know something.
- roghummal 11y ago
  >They will fundamentally never understand the idea that it used to be hard to know something. It's still hard to know things, but it is much easier to look things up. It's also easier to change the meaning of things when nobody knows anything.
arprocter 11y ago
It occurred to me the other day I see people who were alive in WW2 using smartphones
- hga 11y ago
  That would include my father, who helped serve ice cream in his father's store to GIs on leave from Camp Crowder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Crowder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Crowder He prefers Android to iOS, BTW ^_^.

Tenhundfeld 11y ago

+1 to your general sentiment. I have fond memories of listening to my grandmother tell stories about how her father installed the first (private, consumer) electric generator in the state of Alabama and how at night, you could see their farm glow for miles around. And I often contemplate how my 2yo daughter will think it's totally normal to have all the world's information at your fingertips 24/7. The pace of change is accelerating, and while we don't know what the future holds, this is a damned exciting time to be alive. However, I bemoan the scarcity of good bagels, and it saddens me if Lender's is your concept of a "Bagel". That's like having McDonald's or Dominos be your concept of a Hamburger or a Pizza. They're the same type of food, in general, but you really won't understand what all the fuss is about until you have a more authentic, less processed version.

hga 11y ago
Thing is, though, Lender's bagels, and McDonald's hamburgers, are tasty. Certainly there are better, I've had much better bagels when I've lived in big cities, but in my relatively small home city that I've retired to starting my day with a Lender's bagel, as I do almost every day, is not a bad thing.
- Tenhundfeld 11y ago
  I acknowledge that, not trying to come across as some food snob. I've enjoyed many a McDonald's cheeseburger. They've spent literally millions of dollars to make it taste good. I should hope it tastes good to most people. But if that's the only burger you've ever tasted, you should really try one made by somebody who grinds/chops their own meat. It's different, better I think, but it's also going to cost 10 times as much. And yeah, I've enjoyed a few Lender's bagels, toasted with some butter or cream cheese, maybe even gasp some jelly. Untoasted, they're far too spongey, IMO, and I greatly prefer a denser, chewier texture with a stronger flavor. But that doesn't mean Lender's tastes bad.
russnewcomer 11y ago
I personally don't think the pace of change is accelerating, I think the uniformity of acceptance of change is. In regards to your second paragraph, I don't know if 'more authentic' really means what you think it does. I've had the idea for a while that traditions around food are a lot more fungible than is popularly thought. Something like the documentary The Search for General Tso [ http://www.thesearchforgeneraltso.com/ http://www.thesearchforgeneraltso.com/ ] or Rachel Laudan's work [ http://www.utne.com/environment/fast-food-culinary-ethos.aspx http://www.utne.com/environment/fast-food-culinary-ethos.asp... or https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/slow-food-artisanal-natural-preservatives/ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/05/slow-food-artisanal-natur... ] better illustrates it than I could in a comment.
- Tenhundfeld 11y ago
  Well, I guess we just disagree. I think if you look back over the last 500 years, modern society is changing faster – technologically and culturally. Society is undergoing massive shifts more frequently, with the move from agrarian societies to the industrial revolution to the information age to the coming, IMO, biotech revolution. Or to use the classic example, I think if you plucked an adult from 1500 and transported them to 1600, they'd be able to understand and navigate society much better than someone plucked from 1915 transported to 2015. Related to your point though is the idea that change is not just happening faster, IMO, it's spreading more uniformly due to globalization, e.g., cellphones have spread to all but the most impoverished, over 90% of the global population at the last estimate I saw. And yes, I'm aware of Rachel Laudan, though I haven't seen The Search for General Tso. "More authentic" is clearly vague, context-dependent, and ever changing, akin to "proper grammar". You can intellectualize it forever, which can be fun, but eventually you should try actually tasting the food. You will taste the difference in a bagel made from traditional ingredients, i.e., no fats. You can rightly argue about exactly what is meant by "traditional," but at some point, there's a way that's been practiced for hundreds of years and there's a newer, more automated way. That's not to say I'm right or that the factory-produced food is always worse. I know many people who think Panera has fantastic bagels. I disagree and think they're far too spongey. But there is a difference.
  - 11y ago
tjr 11y ago
Where would you go for a good bagel?
- Tenhundfeld 11y ago
  It depends where you live. I've had great bagels all over NYC and upper NJ, obviously, but also in Boston, Charlottesville, VA, Sarasota, FL and so on. Bagels made according to the "traditional way" don't have any eggs or fats in them. They're chewier and denser (and more flavorful IMO), but they also get hard/stale very quickly. Thus, I've found the most important aspect of a good bagel shop is very high turnover in the product and baking new batches throughout the day. Typically this means a place that bakes everything from scratch in house and only serves bagels. A bakery that offers bagels as one of its many products will probably add egg or oil to keep the bagels palatable longer, which is fine, but means the texture will be different, more like a roll.

munificent 11y ago

I have two young kids. It is completely inconceivable to them that anyone might be in a situation where all of the world's information isn't immediately available at a moment's notice one any of several nearby screens. They will fundamentally never understand the idea that it used to be hard to know something.

jonknee 11y ago
> They will fundamentally never understand the idea that it used to be hard to know something. Except perhaps that very idea--they won't know not knowing.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
jbattle 11y ago
I do think there will always be this detectable weird KT-boundary starting around the mid-late 90's where information is just hard to come by (on the internet). Important stuff like GI Joe cartoons and news stories will of course be available, but simple everyday facts and figures will be really hard to uncover. So I 100% agree with you that this is a pretty huge transition and will be hard for them to look back over, but they will always have a chance to experience ignorance, but only when they look for boring stuff from the last century.
afarrell 11y ago
Well, it is easy to look something up, but it is still hard to know something.
roghummal 11y ago
>They will fundamentally never understand the idea that it used to be hard to know something. It's still hard to know things, but it is much easier to look things up. It's also easier to change the meaning of things when nobody knows anything.

arprocter 11y ago

It occurred to me the other day I see people who were alive in WW2 using smartphones

hga 11y ago
That would include my father, who helped serve ice cream in his father's store to GIs on leave from Camp Crowder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Crowder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Crowder He prefers Android to iOS, BTW ^_^.