In assembling our list of the country's best bagels, we used rather strict criteria. The bagels needed to be produced in adherence with the old-fashioned style: that means boiling instead of steaming, hand-rolled instead of machine-rolled (made entirely by hand is preferable), and once the product is finished, it shouldn't be the size of your head (that's actually a modern adjustment; they had to be made larger in order to be used as sandwich bread).

Also, a bagel should taste like a bagel. That should go without saying, but many store-bought bagels (and, we'll admit, most of the ones we get from bagel carts in New York), simply taste like round bread. A bagel has a malty sweetness that takes some nuance to get just right. Also, the crust needs to be an actual crust. If you squeeze it in your hand and it springs right back, that's not a bagel. When bitten into it should give slightly before the crust crunches away, and the resulting bite should be chewy without being dense, light without being airy, and deeply satisfying.

Also, crazy flavors and cream cheese varieties do not a great bagel make. Your jalapeņo-Asiago bagel with bacon-Cheddar-scallion cream cheese is probably delicious, but if your plain bagel with plain cream cheese isn't up to snuff, you're not on the list. We also decided against including Montreal-style bagels, which are different creatures entirely.