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On a hot Saturday morning in July, 2006, we rolled into the small, central Illinois town of Mattoon at 8 am. When we got there, we discovered a town overrun with bagel-lovers. Mattoon is the home of the main manufacturing plant for Lender’s Bagels and, amazingly, Mattoon makes more bagels than anywhere else in the entire United States. While Bagelfest was like a lot of other small town festivals (with live music, carnival games, parades, etc.), bagels were worked into even the smallest facets of the day’s events.
Our first stop was the Run for the Bagel race. The race started in downtown, wound through Mattoon’s residential streets, and then looped back to downtown and ended at the local YMCA. When the runners finished the race, they weren’t given awards or prizes. Instead, they got free bagels and cream cheese. When I first heard that runners would be getting bagels, I imagined bagels being handed out to the runners along the race at water stations. Since giving gasping runners a bagel instead of a bottle of water would have be a little cruel, as well as potentially life-threatening, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that the bagels were held back as a post-race treat (instead of an in-race hazard!).
Next stop was the ‘World’s Biggest Bagel Breakfast.’ When we got there, the breakfast was already about halfway over and Lender’s had already given away 10,000 bagels! We met the locals, talked with Lender’s officials, and got to see just how popular free bagels could be. It seemed like nearly everyone we talked to either worked for Lender’s, had a relative who did, or just plain liked their bagels. Lender’s had set aside 20,000 bagels for the breakfast, and, from what we saw, it looked like the Mattoon masses would have no trouble getting through them. After the breakfast, we filmed the Bagel Parade, which featured bagel-adorned cars, floats, and marchers. It was nice to see the Lawn Rangers from nearby Arcola marching their bagel-festooned lawnmowers in the parade (we did a segment on the Lawn Rangers last season).
Segment duration: 07:30
Producer: Steve Drake
This segment is filed in these categories: Food/Restaurants • Illinois Culture/History
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