But here it was — one of those food fights that emerge every so often from the sludge of online commentary, usually lighthearted but sometimes not. (See the virtual fisticuffs that have broken out over such essential matters as “Does pineapple belong on pizza?” and “How should one slice a sandwich?”) And Ina, whose wise counsel has faithfully steered us for so long, was improbably at its center.
The flap involved a resurfaced moment from a 2012 episode of her long-running Food Network show in which she prepared a picnic lunch for herself and her husband, Jeffrey, to eat on a trip to Brooklyn, where they planned to visit her childhood home. (Fans will recognize this as a typically charming, slightly theme-y show setup.) For the smoked salmon and herbed cream-cheese bagel sandwiches that were the meal’s centerpiece, Ina does something unconventional. “I’m doing it with a twist,” she says. “Instead of having a big thick bagel, I like to cut it in thirds. So instead you have a nice little sandwich. I think it tastes better.”
Basically, the technique involves cutting the bagel horizontally twice so that you get three rounds instead of the usual two. That means two bagels yield six slices, which are used to make three sandwiches (math!). The beauty of this is that it means each one of the resulting sandwiches has far less of that doughy middle, which is sometimes a turnoff for people (like me!) who prefer a lower bread-to-filling ratio than traditional bagel sandwiches offer.
But here’s where many people misunderstood what Our Lady of the Denim Shirt was telling us to do — the initial post on that seemed to kick off the controversy merely showed a picture of the three-tiered bagel (after she cut it but before she constructed it into a sandwich), making people incorrectly assume that she was making a triple-stacked bagel sandwich, using the kind of layering that defines a Big Mac or a club. This, I agree, does not sound like a great idea. And it might explain why some people are angry. “’I like to turn my bagels into two bagel crisps and a piece of unwieldy toast’ said the famous celebrity TV chef,” one responded. “This is what we really created Cancel Culture for!”
“Everything can be a Big Mac if you want it hard enough,” wrote another. “Ina’s been hitting the sauce again,” a skeptic concluded, referring to the TV chef’s hilarious pandemic-era video in which she prepared a massive pitcher of Cosmos.
Still, some people who misunderstood the instructions actually liked the multilayered concoction (or at least the idea of it), with several praising it for allowing maximum cream-cheese adherence. “Two layers of schmear. She is a visionary,” a fan wrote.
Others merely object to tinkering with what they think of as perfection. “As a New York jew this is a crime against me and my people,” one wrote.
The Food Network even got in on the faux-troversy, posting a video of the full clip on TikTok. “If you think you know where this is going, you don’t,” read one caption. “We vote for a triple decker bagel next!!” a later one enthused.
I tried to replicate Ina’s bagel-cutting innovation — the correct way. First, I made herb cream cheese spread, which is verdant with dill, parsley and scallions, and then I set about the real challenge: the bagel butchery. I used a long, serrated bread knife, just like she did, and I did my best to imitate her technique of pressing the bagel in place with the palm of my left hand while I sliced it with my right. I found that one trick is to make your first cut as thin as possible to give yourself the best chance of creating three roughly similarly sized disks.
Out of curiosity, I weighed the sliced bagels. A whole one (mine were from the excellent Bullfrog Bagels) weighed about 4.5 ounces. I found that my center slices were just over an ounce, meaning I could reduce the bulk by a little less than a third — a boon in my mind.
I put the center slices aside and made a nice sandwich with a generous smear of the filling and gave it a try. Ina’s version offered the best bits of a bagel sandwich — that is, the bite of the chewy exterior — with just the right amount of the pillowy insides. I found that I was able to eat a whole sandwich, which isn’t usually the case.
And here’s where I might differ (just a teeny, tiny bit) from the Book of Ina. I thought the sandwich made with the middle disk was inferior both visually and texture-wise since it lacked the glossy, brown outsides. Maybe I’ll freeze it for breadcrumbs — or for forgetting altogether, which is more likely.
As I finished my lunch, I felt that order had been restored to my galaxy. Up is not down. Black is not white. And Ina is always right. Still.
