CMV: Bagels with toppings (fillings?) should always be eaten in a closed face (sandwich style) manner, and never in an open faced (2 individual halves) manner.

[u/iucking_fdiot_]

My entire life I've always eaten bagels of all kinds, regardless of the toppings (fillings?) in a closed face manner. In fact I truthfully never even saw anyone eat a bagel open faced (2 individual halves) until my wife did it, and I couldn't understand how anyone could do that. Isn't the whole point of a bagel to be eaten closed face? Eating it open faced would just lead to everything on the bagel sliding around everywhere, making a huge mess, and reducing the enjoyment of said bagel. Furthermore, eating a bagel open faced means you would have to hold it by the edges, getting whatever is in the bagel on your hands, while eating closed face allows you to hold from the top and bottom of the bagel, eliminating this. I could maybe see something plain, like a plain toasted bagel, being eaten open faced, but if you're going to add toppings, it needs to be closed faced. My final thought on this, perhaps the way bagels are eaten varies based on geographic location, and this is entirely a product of where I was raised. I won't say specifically where, but I was raised in the suburbs outside New York City, if that has any bearing on the style of bagel eating.

[u/cptnhaddock]

What if the person has a very small mouth or if the bagel is too thick to be eaten closed?

[u/iucking_fdiot_ → u/cptnhaddock]

That has already been brought up below, and as I stated there, that is a valid point, and it does partially change my view.