"They had me putting sugar in my bialys, " says Bell, still horrified at the recollection.

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Bell aims to push traditional bialys, which originated in Poland's Bialystok, on snackers across America beginning on the eastern seaboard.

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They decided to introduce Bell's bialys--flatter than a bagel and hole-less, they're made with water, flour, yeast, salt and ground onions--to Japan.

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Bell was peddling almost all his bagels and bialys to stores on the East Coast until he met Kanji Kitamura, a Japanese distributor, at a trade show in 1998.

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