Excerpt from Steven Lutvak's The Dinner Party

We were bagel makers to the Czar
The lineage goes back very very very far
I think Ivan was the one
Who when fed up with the bun
Sent his men in search of something starchy and bizarre
Who came upon my uncle who had recently solved the riddle
Of how to make a roll with a hole in the middle
He served them fresh to Ivan's commissar
And was thus named bagel maker to the Czar