Not all fig rolls are created equal, and the modern purveyor can take his pick from a swarming horde of brands – even the humble Co-op elects to invest its energies in developing its own take on the product.

Jacob’s fig roll is the alpha and omega of fig rolls so far as your humble scribe is concerned. The key phrase you are searching for is “cautiously flavourful.” I venture to suggest that only the English could create something *this close* to utter blandness yet still so, so comforting in its weird, chewy-textured way.

I love fig rolls.

For a kick-off, bagels are made of really, really dense bread (you know – the kind of thing the Germans eat). If you’re of a certain age, you may remember an advert for Bero flour in which a lady, having made a bread out of sub-standard flour fed it to some ducks in the park. The ducks – full of bready ballast – sank. Tears were shed and the lightness of Bero flour was thus demonstrated by counterexample. Well, bagels aren’t even made of flour. They are made of polyfilla. Fact.

But heavy bread is as heavy bread does – and if a fan of heavy bread you be then I suppose it would be churlish to complain on this basis alone. But then the surrealism sets in.

They put a hole in the middle. A hole.

I mean, think about that for a second. Let it sink in. A hole. In the middle. Of a sandwich. The fundamental precepts of sandwich construction – dating back centuries – are tossed away with a snap of a finger and the eejits lap it up for the sake of fashion. Buy some ham – go on, do it now. I’m not continuing till you’ve bought some.

Taps fingers…

…thank you. Now – look at the ham you’ve just bought (no cheating!) Does it have a hole in the middle? No? Well HOW IN THE NAME OF FUCK do you have a ham bagel?? Vegetarian? Cut me a slice of cheese and show me the hole in that. Not into the whole solid sarnie fillings scene… try spreading something on it. You can’t! There’s a hole. In the middle. You have to use the knife like some kind of fucking cobbler or you’re extracting an oyster from its watery pearlescent homestead.

Wait – it gets worse! There’s less bread so naturally (thanks to the marketing sway of ponces) they charge more! The Emperor’s new sandwich!!

In fact,thinking about it, I don’t hate bagels half as much as I hate people who like bagels. They sit around in otherwise perfectly functional places, buying and eating the doughy little buggers in the same Godforsaken way they wear indoor scarves and those really flat shoes. It’s as if by doing this they are somehow convincing themselves that they are sat in Central Park or an edgy Jewish district getting all down with the shit or whatever. No. You are sat in a station in the East Midlands eating a heavy bread sandwich that commands a price premium because some of the bread is missing.

Bagels? Hate ‘em.