PhotoIn New York City itself, buttered rolls are a perennial: Like a working character actor, they are everywhere you look without realizing it. No one has tried to reinvent the buttered roll, or jazz it up or export it — the idea just wouldn’t occur. Sales, he said, are “very, very consistent — more than bagels.”“Bagels have slacked off; buttered rolls have not,” he continued. The origins of the buttered roll are cloaked in mystery, or perhaps mere lack of curiosity. The buttered roll apparently became popular with German Jews (and later, Eastern European Jews) as a filling, inexpensive dairy meal, in accordance with kosher law.

Source: New York Times August 01, 2017 15:22 UTC