The Bagel War has a unique ability to boil Montrealers’ blood. Can we just chill?
When I felt the ground shift beneath me, I was sitting on a bench on a sunny Montreal afternoon with a bagel in each hand. I’d just taken a bite of each, and knew I’d lost something I would never get back.
The first bagel was good. Very good, even. But the second was… maybe a little sweeter? A bit richer, somehow? I opened my eyes, saw my friend looking triumphant, and felt a first cold stab of doubt. This is not supposed to happen. Habs fans don’t just switch to the Leafs. Dog people don’t just suddenly forget that cats are 10-pound sociopaths that hack up their own hair. You don’t just change bagel shops.
It’s a good yarn, so good that it recently made the New York Times, which referred to Irwin Shlafman and Joe Morena, the owners of Fairmount and St-Viateur, as being “united against a common threat — environmentalists who want to abolish the pollutant-producing ovens where the bagels are made.” Second, the “threat.” To be clear, the Montreal City Council has never actually said it will ban businesses from using their wood-burning ovens. Earlier this month, in fact, officials said they will revise the city’s air pollutant regulations next year, but wood-burning won’t be banned as long as businesses can meet stricter emissions standards. Third, the solution.
Listen, I don’t mean to make fun. I know, I know, this was never just about the bagels. It was about a certain idea of the city, a Montreal that’s gritty and hard-bitten, that’s awake 24 hours a day. A Montreal where immigrants can arrive with nothing and start businesses that, in time, become part of the fabric of the city’s identity. A Montreal that bumps and jostles you, that doesn’t give you the time of day, but that will never, ever turn you away.
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