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A short video still featuring a woman with blonde hair and a text overlay that reads "Things I prefer in the US as a German" with American and German flag emojis, and further states "I don't know why we don't have bagels in Germany."
Above this, the social media post caption reads "I can think of a reason!" The post is from "Vikram Bath @vikrambath.bsky.social."
I believe in large part this is because traditionally a bagel ought to be boiled in water and then baked in an oven. But to save labor costs, mass-produced bagels are often baked in a steam oven which doesn't quite give the same chewy texture.
Another factor is, they will generally partly bake them in the factory, then freeze them and ship them off to your supermarket which finishes them off before putting it on the shelf.