Teachings from Budget Bagels
This weekend I taught myself to make bagels. Well, Claire Saffitz taught me to make bagels, but what’s important is that I now know how to make bagels. Some teach-a-man-to-fish type stuff. Naturally, after tracking down the elusive “barley malt syrup” (a molasses-like syrup that gives bagels their characteristic flavor and sheen), proofing the dough, carefully rolling and pinching it into rings, proofing it again, waiting overnight, boiling them, covering them in my seasonings du jour, and finally baking them… I wasn’t going to hold back when I finally got the chance to fully dress my first homemade bagel in all its glory.
To enjoy the fruits of my hard work, I went for what I consider to be the crown jewel of bagel sandwiches – a bagel with lox and the works. That’s cream cheese (with chive if you’re classy), lettuce, tomatoes, thinly sliced red onions, capers (optional), and luxurious slices of lox (cured or smoked salmon). It's creamy, it’s crunchy, it’s savory, it’s fresh, it’s… like $12 minimum at any bakery nowadays. Minimum! Add tax, tip, a coffee, and you’re looking at $20+ for a quick breakfast. Now, to some extent I understand. High-quality lox isn’t cheap. Bagels, while cheap in raw materials, take a ton of time and even more expertise to nail. Times are tough, there’s a shortage of workers, businesses are still bouncing back from the pandemic, and many of the smaller ones are bearing the brunt of inflation just like the rest of us. But that’s a hefty price to pay for a breakfast sandwich.
So, sitting with my freshly baked, steaming bagel sandwich, I started to wonder how much I might have just saved, what a DIY approach may have bought me, and what non-monetary costs I might have taken on as a result of all of this.
Financial Savings
Let’s say a lox bagel runs you $12. I’ve seen more, I’ve seen less, but from experience and with some quick searches around the country, that seems fair. Now let’s see how this matches up against my homemade version:
Bread Flour -> $6.50 for a 2270g bag, 685g used, 12 bagels made -> ~$0.15/serving
Active Dry Yeast -> $1.70 for 3 packets, 1 packet used, 12 bagels made -> ~$0.05/serving
Barley Malt Syrup -> $9.00 for a jar, 1/5th used, 12 bagels made -> ~$0.15/serving
Bagel Seasonings -> ~$10 for the seeds used for seasoning, 12 bagels made -> ~$0.75/serving
Cream Cheese -> $3 for a small tub, approx. ⅙th of the tub used -> ~$0.50/serving
Chives -> $1.80 for a small package, 1/12th used -> ~$0.15/serving
Romaine Lettuce -> $3.50 for a bag of 3 heads, 1 leaf used -> ~$0.10/serving
Tomatoes -> $3.00 for a crate of 11, 1/2 used -> ~$0.15/serving
Red Onion -> $1.29 for a large bulb, 3 thin slices used -> ~$0.10/serving
Oak Smoked Salmon -> $3.50 for a small package, 1/2 used -> ~$1.75/serving
This brings us to $4. That’s a 66% savings ($8)! That’s 3 sandwiches for the price of one! It’s worth noting that I obviously didn't choose the most expensive options for all of these, but the flour was good quality, the tomatoes and lettuce were organic, and the salmon seemed to be of decent quality (I didn’t want to skimp there, but I'm also no expert on smoked salmon).
Ok, so the financial savings are clear. What else did the DIY experience offer me?
Additional Wins
I LEARNED HOW TO MAKE BAGELS. Big win in my book. I will probably make 24 this week and then continue to make them every time I run out and want to restock my fridge. Now, this will be partially to save some money but mostly because I like doing this kind of thing. It’s fun for me. If it’s not fun for you, the small savings (on the bagels alone) and the time required (probably 3 active hours) might not be worth it!
I also got to choose exactly which ingredients I ate and supported. If I wanted I could choose the healthiest, most sustainable options our global food system has to offer. I could also choose exactly which ingredients I was willing to be more lenient toward, and exactly how lenient I was willing to be. Maybe I got a tip on some incredible tomatoes at the farmers market, or maybe the smoked salmon was too expensive and the cheaper cured salmon was more in line with my budget, or maybe I’m lactose intolerant and wanted to use my favorite non-dairy cream cheese, the ball is totally in my court.
However, nothing in this world is free.
Additional Costs
We’re not talking about the cost of raw goods here, we already covered that. You’re going to save money. But this took 3 hours of baking and prepping, not to mention all of the time I spent cleaning up, shopping for some pesky ingredients (seed mixes and barley malt syrup were a pain), and continuing on with my normal life with the knowledge that in “X” number of hours I have to *insert task here*. Time is the biggest extra cost here. If you’re curious why some foods we make ourselves and others we often outsource to professionals, it’s typically because it takes a long time to make (thus works better at scale) and requires skills developed over time. So, yeah, my lox bagel took part of an evening and part of a morning to make and wasn’t quite as good as some of the better lox bagels I’ve had, which notably only require 10 minutes from placing the order to taking a bite.
…
So there’s the math. There are the pros and cons to taking on something like making your own lox bagel. But I think there are some other intangibles at play here. I think it’s a shame that we perceive a barrier that separates “foods I can make” and “foods I can’t make”. We’re happy making rice or pasta or roasted broccoli, but other staples (depending on the person) like bread or kimchi or sauces we deem too complicated for our abilities. Now, there are other reasons, like time, that we can’t always take these things on. Our ever-growing ever-churning global capitalist machine has ensured that our time is always filled up, and compound that with family, friends, and whatever other pleasures you fill your life with, and the scale tends to lean toward convenience more often than not. But if something like baking, cooking, growing, fermenting, or infusing brings you joy, I implore you to create your own new traditions. To take the flavors of our world into your hands and create something new, something yours.
…
What’s my takeaway from all of this? Sustainability is a word that should be directed toward many different facets of our lives, from many different angles. When looking at sustainability in our personal lives, particularly related to food, true sustainability requires that our actions fit within our budgets, and that these actions give us the agency to make choices that impact the changes we’d like to see. Whether those changes are in our environment, our local food systems, or our ability to grow and cook the foods we want to eat, knowing you have the power to keep the ball in your court more often than you might think makes all the difference.r