NEW YORK — Lifelong Manhattan resident Tony Greare made it widely known that the proper way to eat a pizza bagel in the Big Apple is to fold it in half before consuming, sources who gathered around to watch him perform a live demonstration confirmed.
“That’s how the Italians used to do it in the 19th century, so that’s how it’s done in the tri-state area today,” said Greare before adding that Bagel Bites aren’t real pizza bagels because they were invented in Florida. “Every single oven-based snack in New York City has a highly specific and slightly unorthodox way to get them from the plate to your mouth. And if you fail to abide by these explicit directions, your entire dining experience will be riddled with side-eyed glances from total strangers. Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead eating mozzarella sticks Chicago style. Are you kidding me with that?”
Friends of Greare’s not native to New York had a difficult time assimilating to the big city culture.
“They say that if you can eat pizza correctly in New York you can make it anywhere,” said Greare’s casual acquaintance and recent transplant Louis Tribaldor. “It’s so hard though. Just the other day I was ridiculed for eating a pizza bagel one ingredient at a time. I’m sorry, but that’s how we eat them in Appleton, Wisconsin. You know, like a normal person. Regardless, pizza bagels are an iconic NYC food and I really need to get this right so I can eat in public again.”
Regional behaviors such as pizza folding have long fascinated researchers.
“New Yorkers take being a New Yorker extremely seriously,” said sociologist Freddie Slayton. “The sheer amount of effort it takes for newcomers to maintain that metropolitan image is hard work. But honestly, that’s everywhere. Doesn’t matter where you’re from, you’re going to have some particular way of conducting yourself in everyday life that’s completely alien to someone a town or two over. The trick is to make sure everyone knows you do things differently in your hometown and all other ways of completing simple tasks besides the way you did it growing up are unacceptable.”
At press time, Greare dazzled a group of Manhattan tourists by folding a calzone into quarters and shoving the whole thing directly down his throat while adding, “that’s how we do it in the Lower East Side.”
Photo by Jana Miller.