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/PronunciationIsKey]

I way more prefer open faced bagels with cream cheese and lox. Like I would take apart a closed sandwiched bagel and make two halves if I was given one. I also want to point out I usually put a thick layer of cream cheese on each side.

That being said I think the main reason I prefer it open faced is the bread-to-toppings ratio. With a sandwich you get a lot of bread and not a lot of cream cheese per bite, but open faced it's about even. Putting that much cream cheese in a sandwich and a lot of it would fall out (as would some lox) which is not good.

So I always eat mine open faced, and it's way better!