By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

Pages used with the permission of Viking/Penguin Random House LLC

Alan Silberberg seems obsessed with drawing pictures of food, which is a good thing for children and adults who love funny picture books that feature talking food. He published an alphabet book of anthropomorphized Jewish food (see The Reporter’s review of Celebrating Jewish Literature: Jewish food from across the world) and other works that feature matzah, latkes and hamantashen as the main characters. It’s not surprising that this Jewish author would at some point turn to bagels, as he did in his latest book, “The Bagel Who Wanted Everything” (Viking).
 

However, in this picture book, Silberberg seeks to teach children an important lesson: they can try different identities before deciding what fits them best. The main character is a plain bagel who wants to be more than plain. He asks why must an onion bagel only be onion or a sesame be only a sesame or... I think you get the idea. By way of some very silly action, the plain bagel manages to become an everything bagel, which encourages others to try out different types of identities (although I don’t think anyone is going to eat a spaghetti and meatball bagel).
Now you might be thinking I’ve managed to slip an extra book review into the paper disguised as a food column. Ah, but the book led me to ask an important food-related question: What is your favorite type of bagel? I’ve written before about some of my preferences (including the fact that there is no such thing as a blueberry bagel, only blueberry bread, and that chocolate chips belong in cookies, not bagels or challah). But the unnamed hero of the book becomes an everything bagel at the end of the book. While I’m glad that he’s happy, I don’t really care for everything bagels since I’m not a big fan of poppy or sesame seeds.
Out of curiosity (because who doesn’t like looking at lists of food online), I googled bagel flavors and there are way more than there were when I was a kid and regularly ate bagels. I admit to being out of touch because I generally try (emphasis on the word try here) to avoid white flour, although I would always eat the monster (my mom’s word) bagels my brother used to bring up from New Jersey. One website listed 20 flavors, including some I’ve never heard of before, like an Asiago cheese and chive bagel (yes, the cheese and chives are baked into the bagel). I don’t know if cranberry belongs in a bagel (a muffin yes; a bagel, I’m not so sure). Even though I believe bagels should be savory (it’s their nature), I have to admit the French toast bagel sounded interesting, but I don’t think a bagel has the right texture for French toast. (Challah, on the other hand, is a different matter.)What kind of bagels do I like? Plain bagels are good for bagel sandwiches, but if I want to eat one with just butter or cream cheese, I’ll go for onion first. If an onion bagel is not available, I settle for garlic, although I have to be careful not to breathe on anyone afterward. But as Silberberg reminds us in his book, just as we have a choice between being one thing, a few things or many things, we can make the same choices about the food we eat.