Everything About Everything

H & H Bagels_Everything Bagel, originally uploaded by Manhattan Sweets.

After what one can assume was years of searching, The New Yorker has tracked down the purported creator of the Everything bagel.

When Gussin was fifteen, he took a part-time job at a takeout place in Howard Beach run by a guy named Charlie. It was a simpler time for bagels: you had plain, poppy, sesame, onion, salt, garlic, and—on the exotic end—cinnamon raisin. One of Gussin’s duties at closing time was to sweep up the burnt seeds that had fallen off in the oven during the day. Gussin developed a taste for them, and one afternoon—he guesses around 1980—“instead of throwing them out, like I always did, I swept them into a bin and said, ‘Charlie, let’s make some with these!’ ”

Charlie, who was mildly enthusiastic about the idea, agreed to sell the newfangled bagels for a nickel extra. According to Gussin, the name “everything” came instantaneously. “There was no marketing meeting or anything like that,” he said. “It was a one-second thought process. Boom.” The flavor became popular “the next day,” and pretty soon Gussin’s brainchild—minus the burnt-seed concept—had spread to a bagel place over in Lindenwood. Within a year, Gussin said, “the everything bagel was everywhere."

The Talk of the Town has the full story.