Bublik

Bublik is a traditional ring-shaped bread roll of Eastern Europe, made from yeast-leavened wheat dough that is briefly boiled before baking. It is especially associated with Ukraine, though it is also made in Russia, Belarus, Lithuania and Poland, and it is closely related to the bagel.

History

Boiled dough breads have a long presence in Eastern Europe. Some accounts trace them back to the Byzantine period, but if the bublik is regarded as a type of bagel, its history is much more recent. The most popular story credits Viennese bakers with creating stirrup-shaped rings in 1683 to celebrate the defeat of the Ottomans, in which the Polish king Jan III Sobieski played a leading role; this tale is, however, disputed.

What is better documented is that the bagel spread through Poland to every area with a significant Jewish population, eventually reaching southern Russia and Ukraine. There it was influenced by similar Russian and Greek products and took on its current form: a ring considerably larger than a bagel, with a denser and drier crumb. Odesa is usually considered its birthplace. The Russian word for it, бублик, was adapted from Ukrainian.

Culture

In Ukraine bubliks are sold by professional bakers in their shops and at country fairs and regional markets, often strung on cords by the dozen. They are eaten as a pastry with tea or coffee rather than as bread for sandwiches, which is why their dough tends to be sweeter than bagel dough and is glazed with egg yolk. The most popular version is generously topped with poppy seeds, though savoury versions with grated cheese and a little onion juice also exist.

It is common to dip them in a drink or to break them up and spread them with jam or sour cream. Unlike the bagel, they are not considered a breakfast food. Their close relatives in Russia are the baranki, thinner and drier rings, and the even smaller, harder sushki. The bublik also appears in popular culture: a well-known Yiddish-Ukrainian-Russian song written in Odesa in the 1920s bears its name, and in Russian and Ukrainian the phrase "a hole from a bublik" means something worthless.

Trivia