Pizza Bagels

Location:   Massapequa, New York
Year:   Mid-1970s

Bagels are Jewish. Pizza is Italian. What better place to invent the pizza bagel than Massapequa, New York, known to locals as "Matzoh-Pizza" for it's large, mixed Italian and Jewish population?  

These are pizza bagels

Although many places have claimed to be the birthplace of the pizza bagel, only Massapequa holds the pedigree. The pizza bagel was invented sometime in the 1970s when someone had the brilliant idea of garnishing a lightly toasted bagel with tomato sauce and cheese and letting the concoction heat in their toaster oven at home. Soon enough, the idea spread, and pizza bagels began popping up for sale all over Long Island, then the New York Metro area, and then nationally. 

A classic pizza bagel is prepared by taking a plain bagel, slicing it in half, and lightly toasting it. The bagel halves are then garnished with sauce and cheese and baked for a few minutes until the cheese begins to melt.

Since the invention of the pizza bagel many variations have arisen. Typical pizza toppings are sometimes added. Different varieties of bagels are used. Sometimes the top half of the bagel is pressed down onto the bottom half creating a sandwich of sorts. All these varieties have a melange of different tastes. 

Prepackaged, frozen, and other processed pizza bagels are an abomination unto the Lord, and should only be resorted to if one finds oneself trapped in Mishawaka, Indiana for more than six months. In the winter. Alone. Without heat. Living in your car. And then only if death is the remaining additional option.

I don't know what this is, and I don't want to know. There is nothing "Natural" about this at "all".

 But the best pizza bagels follow the KISS rule:  "Keep it simple, stupid."