I think bagels are boiled, then baked. Cooked twice.

Then we toast them to cook them a third time.

I was making toast once at work.

A particularly baffling coworker saw this and went “oh you like toast do you? I had an uncle who liked toast”

I’m not sure if he just didn’t like to leave good silence alone, or if he had a bizarre family where nobody else liked toast except for Mad Uncle Toast Eater, who presumably died from his crippling toast addiction.

I think it has more to do with wanting the bread warm in any way … so that you can melt butter on top of it. Nothing like fresh baked bread and melting butter over it. The next best thing is to take cold bread, toast it and melt butter over it.

I grew up poor and I remember being a kid and craving melted butter on warm toast but we seldom had any … so we often opted to using just lard instead. Same sensation but the taste wasn’t as good.