10 out-of-the-ordinary facts about bagels

We all love them, but how much do you know about the beloved food we call bagels? What’s the most popular bagel flavor? Why is February 9th an important day? Where did the bagel come from? Why do they have a hole in the middle? Read our list for some fun facts about bagels.

1. Bagels are the only bread that is boiled before it is baked.
2. There are three separate calendar days dedicated to bagels. February 9th is National Bagels and Lox Day, July 26th is National BagelFest Day and December 11th is National Have a Bagel Day.
3. Prepackaged bagels weren’t available in grocery stores until the 1950s. Frozen bagels were not a thing until 1960.
4. The most popular bagel choice is plain.
5. Bagels have a hole in the middle so that street vendors could carry them around on dowels in the old days.
6. There is more than one story about the origin of the bagel, so it is unclear when the delicious treat was first invented.
7. There is such a thing as a Buzzed Bagel, which is a bagel that contains two coffee cups of caffeine.
8. The second most popular bagel flavor is sesame.
9. If you cut a bagel in a particular manner, you can actually get the two halves to interlock.
10. It would take approximately 2,231 bagels to go around Grand Central Station Main Concourse’s inner perimeter once.