The Kolache: Czech, Texan or All-American? (All Three) (Published 2013) (2024)

HOUSTON — Morgan Weber grew up eating poppy-seed kolaches baked by his Czech grandmother, who honed her technique on a wood stove. Kolaches, soft pastries of yeasted dough with a divot in the center, traditionally filled with sweetened cheese or fruit, are a humble link to the Old World.

But in the Revival Market in this city’s Heights neighborhood, Mr. Weber and his business partner, Ryan Pera, the market’s chef, serve sweet and savory pastries that are decidedly American: kolaches laden with satsuma oranges or filled with strawberries and ricotta cheese, and savory versions girded with house-made sausages poached in locally brewed beer. On Saturdays, they sell 1,500 of them to a youthful clientele that also snaps up artisanal fare like caraway-spiced goat sausages.

This is the new world of the kolache, a food that now straddles several constituencies: the descendants of Czech immigrants, who still make the pastry in the broad swath of central Texas known as the Czech Belt; the highway commuters who have made it a coveted road food; and the artisans and entrepreneurs around the country who are now positioning it as the next-generation doughnut.

As it juggles all these incarnations, the pastry seems to be having something of an identity crisis.

“Kolaches are in the love-child phase of their development,” said Dawn Orsak, an Austin folklorist working on a traveling exhibition that showcases Czech heritage in Texas. “The experimental versions got a lot of popular attention. An artisan backlash is peaking now. And another move toward wide popularity is building. Kolaches will probably continue to evolve as part of that cycle.”

The kolache (pronounced ko-LAH-chee) entered the American repertory in the mid-1800s, soon after immigrants from Central Europe settled in the hills and prairies of central and south-central Texas. The region was once home to more than 200 Czech-dominant communities. Today, the Czech Belt remains a stronghold of traditional culture, where polka bands led by accordion cowboys play church bazaars, and descendants contribute to civic organizations like the Katolicka Jednota Texaska and the Slavonic Benevolent Order of the State of Texas.