Bialy via PDX...message to New Seasons: bigger but not better

We first noticed them last winter at New Seasons Market on Division Street on our visit to Portland to find an apartment.  They intrigued us with their boldness, bialy's twice as big as those we knew from New York City .  Maybe, we wondered, it's about the West, the frontier, the big sky, etcetera.

Last night at New Seasons, we made our move and bought one--all nine-inches of it.  [Once again I've taken an unauthorized photo and escaped being admonished by New Seasons' very pleasant monitors.] 

We negotiated ingesting it this morning--before I had a chance to take its picture in our own environment.   "Not sure how to divide this thing," Ron said.  Yes, it took real skill to suppress memories of our old 4-inch NYC bialy.  Those are the ones described in Mimi Sheraton's, The Bialy Eaters, A Story of a Bread and a Lost World** which includes a recipe (for the brave and hardy) to make an almost-authentic Kossar's bialy. 

Sheraton believes that Kossar's is the only place to buy an authentic one.   To order some by mail, you go HERE.

Taste?  According to the bialy maven here (whose late mother came from Bialystok, Poland), "At best, I'd give it a D-minus.  But what can you expect?  It's made with cibatta dough, not sticky enough...needed NYC water."  We're guessing this New Seasons' product is known as the "Montreal bialy."  The store held cooking classes on making these last year, I heard.

Other efforts to re-create this delicacy are on the King Arthur flour site, a blog from a Virginia-based librarian, and a guy with great photos of the baking process--but the belly-reduction ad on his blog is definitely at odds with the true intention of the bialy--bulk up!

**Thanks to our downstairs neighbor, Elisabeth, for the loan of Sheraton's book (the hardback one with removable  paper cover featuring two bialys lovingly held by a woman's hands, inside pages are only black and white).  This is what authentic ones look like, color and shape.

Comments

[Kay Dennison]

Fascinating!!!!!

[m.e.]

nothing like a good bialy. i met my first ones in brooklyn and fell in love. they have them here...someplace...but not my usual haunts.

also, is your bialy maven any relation to Max Bialystock??

[Hattie]

Boy do I miss GOOD baked goods over here! Local bakeries make heavy loaves that lack delicacy, and the sweet Portuguese bread that does make excellent French toast.
The climate is just too humid for good breakmaking.
There is a woman up at Volcano Village who makes tasty rolls and turnovers and such. Her secret ingredient is (get ready for it) pork fat. But still they lack that essential je ne sais quoi of the suprerior baked good.

[Anne Gibert]

I never had a bialy, but I would like to try one. I am sure they are better in New York. I loved New York last summer when I was there briefly. Portland is a great city, but New York it ain't. (And I absolutely agree with you about voting booths vs mail in ballots. We have switched to all mail in here in Washington, and I don't like it at all. I think it is an invitation to ballot fraud.)

[John in Denmark]

Bialy! That brings my memory back to that wonderful week in Manhattan. I kept looking for it in denmark without any success, at least now I see the picture of a bialy again :)

[Hattie]

On the vote by mail thing, I would like to point out that it eliminates electronic voting.
Our local Leagues are supporting it, and Hawaii will probably go to vote by mail. I'm for it.