Can Kolaches Be Bigger Than Texas?

In parts of Texas, a kolache is about as common as a donut — but it’s relatively unknown outside the Lone Star State. The kolache is a traditional Czech pastry made with a sweetened, yeasty dough and filled with either fruit, cheese or sausage. It got a foothold in Texas after a wave of Czech immigrants came to the state more than a century ago.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:19Speaker 01

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• 0:37Speaker 02

  The first time I tried them was when Paul and I were dating, maybe a year into us dating.

• 0:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think it may have been the first thing that we did upon entering the borders of Texas. Because we're like, we're like, is, but so my, my family's like, they always go and work out. And it was an Easter weekend, I think it was the first weekend he came down to Texas. And they were all like, we're going on a run. And I was like, I've got some errands to do. I was like, I need to show Sarah my kolache places.

• 1:06Speaker 02

  They were all doing arm curls and we were just, you know, bun to the mouth. That was our.

• 1:13Dan Pashman?

  This is the Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. And today, we're exploring the story behind the kolache. It's a pastry that's become a beloved specialty in Texas, but traces its roots to a wave of Czech immigrants who came to the state more than a century ago. We'll hear how the Texas influence has led to evolution in kolaches over the generations. And later on, I'll enlist a friend who's a proud Texan to join me for some kolaches in Brooklyn. But the first part of our story comes from our friends at the Atlas Obscura Podcast, who've spent some time in Texas's Czech belt, looking into the history of the kolache, or as it's called in Czech, the kolach. Here's Atlas Obscura producer Alexa Lim.

• 1:57Speaker 05

  So you know, when you're a kid, a lot of times it's the little things, the small things that make a big impression. And there's a lot of childhood foods that can do that, remind you of a certain time. Maybe it was getting a slurpee on the way to the pool with your friends, or a certain snack that your mom always gave you after school. For me, there's this one pastry that always reminds me of road trips. I grew up in San Antonio, so my parents would pile us into the suburban, and there were usually two options: drive to Houston to visit family, or up through the hill country up to Austin. And the other thing that is also really true when you're a kid is that road trips are pretty much the worst activity out there. Like, four hours in a car, it's almost painful.

• 2:39Speaker 05

  So to break up the hours of driving, we'd usually stop off in these tiny towns along the way.

• 2:46Speaker 05

  And they had names like Moravia and Praha. There were meat shops and restaurants with names like Little Gretel. There was definitely an old world vibe to these towns. Like, you had left the Texas countryside and were transported to Eastern Europe. And usually, there was also a bakery. And this is where you would find these pastries: the kolach. A kolach is a traditional Czech pastry, sweetened, yeasty dough that's pillowy soft. And in Texas, they're filled with fruit, cheese, and sometimes sausage. My favorite flavor was blueberry. There are dozens and dozens of these tiny towns with bakeries selling kolaches, and they're scattered in this really specific area between the big

• 3:29Speaker 05

  cities of Texas: San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas. And they make up this sort of kolach triangle. Even as a kid, I was always curious about these towns and the story behind this Texas kolach.

• 3:46Speaker 05

  Before we start, I have to clear something up. I have always called these pastries kolaches, which is definitely the Texified way of saying it. In Czech, it's a kolach. And the city that can claim the title of capital of the kolach triangle is kind of up for debate. It probably depends on who you ask. My family, we would go to Schulenburg to get ours, because that's a halfway point between San Antonio and Houston. Other people, they might point to the city of West, which, despite its name, is actually in the eastern part of the state. West is home to some of the most recognizable Co' Watch and Czech bakeries. So much so that in 1997, the Texas government christened West "home of the official Co' Watch."

• 4:30Speaker 05

  But politicians can be fickle, as we know. Because eight years earlier, they had proclaimed the city of Caldwell the Co' Watch capital. Now Caldwell is one of those quaint Texas towns. The main street is called Main Street. And the downtown square surrounds this towering granite courthouse. The population, just under 5,000. And there's probably one thing that puts Caldwell on the Co' Watch triangle map. Every September, around 15,000 people come to Caldwell for just one day to attend the Co' Watch Festival. And the Co' Watch Festival is basically a big celebration of all things Co' Watch. There's a bake-off, eating competitions, a Co' Watch queen is crowned. But once the festival packs up, that doesn't mean the Co' Watches leave with it.

• 5:15Speaker 05

  There are a handful of scratch bakeries in town that make the pastries year-round.

• 5:20Speaker 06

  I'm not a huge sweets person. I can go a whole baking, thousands and thousands of them without eating one. But then when I do want one, I can probably eat through four.

• 5:29Speaker 05

  This is Christine Campbell. She is the owner of Jake's Bakery, where she makes Co' Watches by hand.

• 5:37Speaker 05

  Christine's great-great-grandparents came from the Moravia region of the Czech Republic. She was born and raised in Caldwell. And today, she lives on a ranch just down the road in a house that her husband grew up in. And fun fact, their primary business is not Co' Watches. Christine's husband runs a business that I'm gonna say probably only makes sense on a cattle ranch somewhere out in Texas.

• 5:59Speaker 06

  He manages the cattle and we have a small herd of sheep. But the bread and butter is taxidermy. He does a lot of whitetail and there's some exotic game ranches around. It's a ride.

• 6:12Speaker 05

  I mean, really, taxidermy and Co' Watches. Kind of as Texan as you can get. Christine, as you can imagine, is busy with a ranch and taxidermy and raising her family. She's also involved with the Czech Heritage Museum in town. So Jake's Bakery is open exactly one time every month, just 12 times a year. But she grew up eating and making Co' Watches with her grandma. And it was really important to her to preserve that tradition. So each month, on one Saturday, she heads out from the ranch at 4:00 a.m. to start her dough.

• 6:45Speaker 06

  Some of the things I measure out, like my liquids and my eggs, but I'm not exactly sure how much flour I put in it. And it's just kind of a field. And that's kind of it. You let it rise and then we'll roll them out. I do it kind of an old fashioned way. I have an old can that I just cut them out with.

• 7:04Speaker 05

  A kolach has three basic parts. There is the sweetened brioche-like bun, a crumb topping called pupsipta, and then the fillings.

• 7:13Speaker 06

  Cream cheese is easily our best seller. But back in the day, they wouldn't, they didn't have cream cheese. They'd make cottage cheese and prune and poppy seed and apricot. My favorite is probably a mixture, we'll do a poppy cream cheese mix. So it's kind of the Hannah Montana of kolaches.

• 7:31Speaker 05

  Christine uses the recipe from her grandmother. She has tweaked it here and there, but she basically sticks to the same formula. And on a regular Saturday, she'll roll out 2,400 kolaches and they sell out.

• 7:42Speaker 06

  We have some folks that come from Temple or from Houston or from Industry, which is an hour away, just to get kolaches and go back home.

• 7:52Speaker 05

  And for Christine and a lot of people, they're more than just a pastry. There's this big cultural connection. And how the kolach first made it to Texas runs back 150 years.

• 8:07Speaker 05

  So the kolach triangle is also home to the largest population of Czech-Americans in the country. But that's not how they describe themselves.

• 8:16Speaker 07

  Texas Czechs, for some reason, put the qualifier after. So they're Texas Czechs versus calling themselves Czech-Americans. And I think that says something about the community, that how proud they were of immigrating to Texas.

• 8:35Speaker 05

  This is Dawn Orzak. She's a third generation Texas Czech and she's writing a cookbook about the community. The first Czech immigrants started to move to Texas in the late 19th century. A lot of them were farmers, and there was a lot of social and political conflict happening in the Czech Republic. And at the time, Galveston was the major US immigration port. Ellis Island hadn't opened yet. So, a lot of Czech farmers landed in Texas, and many of them moved to the Blackland Prairies because it was great for farming. And those prairies sit right inside the area of the kolach triangle.

• 9:07Speaker 07

  Texas's Czech immigrant community was unique in that they really isolated themselves, not necessarily by choice, but because they were settled in rural areas.

• 9:20Speaker 05

  Texas Czech towns started popping up all over the place. There were 250 Czech communities across the prairie land. And of course, they brought their food and traditions to these towns. And there's still a lot of Czech influence in Texas. Polka, Czech. Scheinerbock beer, Czech. And of course, the kolach. And the kolach has been given a sort of Texas makeover. There are a few key differences. Like, my favorite blueberry flavor, probably not so traditional. The traditional fillings would have come from fruits off their trees, like plums and apricots. But, of course, in Texas, they had to use what they could find. So, prunes were substituted for plums. Instead of sweetened cheese, you'll now find cream cheese. And there were some other interesting flavors.

• 10:05Speaker 07

  In the Czech Republic, they would have eaten a sweetened cabbage filling that I've heard called zelniki. That is really just shredded cabbage with butter, salt, pepper, and sugar. And they definitely would have eaten kolaches that were filled with poppy seeds, ground, and mixed with milk, cinnamon, sugar, maybe a little lemon zest, sometimes raisins.

• 10:34Speaker 05

  Texas kolach dough is a little sweeter and fluffier. They're known for this iconic shape, this thick square that sits almost one inch high off the pan. The Czech versions are rounder and flatter. And kolach, they weren't usually eaten on a daily basis.

• 10:50Speaker 07

  When I was growing up, the only people who ate kolaches were Texas Czechs. Until Kolach Factory opened.

• 10:59Speaker 07

  Which is a Houston franchise. You could only get kolaches at bakeries in small-town rural, you know, Czech Texas. Baking kolaches is too much trouble to have them on a daily basis if you're making them yourself, unless you went and bought them from a bakery. And maybe that's still true because people don't bake kolaches too much themselves. They were not a breakfast food when I was growing up. They were a family gathering or community gathering food.

• 11:28Speaker 05

  Dawn remembers eating them at church picnics, polka dances, and family reunions. So how did the pastry make it from these family events and into the grab-and-go snack that I ate on road trips?

• 11:42Speaker 05

  Well, one of the places that really helped popularize the pastry was the Village Bakery in West. Remember, that's the city that's actually located in the east. It opened in 1952 and claimed to be the first all-Czech bakery in Texas, and it focused on the kolach, so it kind of helped introduce the pastry to non-Czech customers. And today, you'll find some of the most famous kolach bakeries in gas stations, which might sound like an odd combination, but it really took advantage of being on that highway system that connected the big cities, catching passing commuters or kids stuck in the back of a van on a family road trip. And that helped the kolach spread to people outside of the triangle. Now, big, commercial, and non-Czech bakeries make these pastries.

• 12:27Speaker 05

  And they've become so popular that they've kind of gone the way of the donut.

• 12:32Speaker 07

  Fillings have gotten, you know, out of control, crazy, from peanut butter and jelly to cream cheese with a Hershey bar stuck in the center. The fillings have become Americanized and made more for mass tastes.

• 12:51Speaker 05

  It really does feel like you can find them in any convenience store. They're even sold in a certain beaver-themed mega gas station.

• 12:58Speaker 07

  For many Texas Czechs, it's an eye-rolling experience. It just seems to be the way of immigrant food in America. I mean, you know, did Italians in the 19th century, did they cringe in their graves seeing slices of pizza at 7-Eleven in the warming ovens? You know what I mean? And there's no way that cultures' food gets transplanted to another country, and 150 years later, it's exactly the same. It's not possible. And certainly the kolaches that some people, like my children, think of as traditional because their grandmother made them. And that's even different from what my grandmother made or my grandmother's grandmother made.

• 13:42Speaker 07

  So authenticity, you know, what does that even mean at over 150 years?

• 13:49Speaker 05

  So kolaches have made it into the Texas food pantheon, right up there with breakfast tacos. And even though a Hershey kolach is probably not what the original Czech farmers had in mind and might induce an eye roll, there is a certain pride about it.

• 14:07Speaker 07

  How could you not be proud that your family, your culture's traditional food is being appreciated by outsiders? But I think the counter to that is that Texas Czechs have to carry on the traditional way of making kolaches and the traditional flavors so that there is the authentic to always compare to.

• 14:36Speaker 05

  And what Dawn and Christine really hope is that people kind of understand the history and tradition baked inside the beloved kolach.

• 14:44Speaker 06

  It's a little bit deeper than just a pastry. Because it does, it tastes like a certain memory. It tastes like a certain person. It tastes like a certain holiday or a certain time in your life. But to those folks that don't have that cultural connection to it, it's just good.

• 15:04Speaker 06

  It's all the good things in one little handheld package.

• 15:14Dan Pashman?

  That's Alexa Lim from the Atlas Obscura podcast. And hey, I hope you'll check out some other recent Atlas Obscura episodes, like one called "The Mystery Man Amari", about a giant drawing that appeared in the Australian outback, a drawing that a lot of locals wanted destroyed. Another great episode is called "The Time Locust Ate the Entire Midwest", about a cloud of locusts that descended over the Midwest and one of the first times the US government provided federal relief for a natural disaster. Again, the podcast is called Atlas Obscura. Now, as we get ready to move to the next part of the story, I want to say no offense to you, Alexa, or any of our Czech-speaking listeners. But going forward, I'm going to stick with the Texas pronunciation kolaches. That's just how I know them. Coming up, I head to Brooklyn to meet a husband and wife duo who are bringing

• 15:57Dan Pashman?

  kolaches to the Big Apple. And I bring along the most hardcore Texan I know to see what he thinks. That's after the break. Stick around.

• 16:12Speaker 05

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• 16:17Dan Pashman?

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• 17:01Dan Pashman?

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• 17:47Dan Pashman?

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• 18:29Dan Pashman?

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• 19:14Dan Pashman?

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• 19:27Dan Pashman?

  Welcome back to The Sporkful. I'm Dan Pashman. Hey, back in January, I announced that I'm returning to Italy this fall to lead another pasta tour with my friends at Culinary Backstreets. And it sold out very quickly, but we just got a cancellation. So, breaking news, there are two spots open on the tour. Eat pasta in Rome with Katy Parla, as I did. Travel with me to Puglia, and a lot of tours won't take you to. Let's eat spaghetti alla assassina together at The Source. We'll cook together with Silvestro Silvestri. And the folks at Culinary Backstreets added a bunch of more stops. Like, last time, we had fresh-baked focaccia. We ate it while sitting on a wall on the shores of the Adriatic Sea. It was really special. So, grab those last couple slots while you can. Go to culinarybackstreets.com/sporkful.

• 20:12Dan Pashman?

  Okay, let's get back to the show. And as we do, I want to mention one quick thing about kolaches. If you want to try some kolaches and don't live near a place that has them, I have a hot tip on someone who ships homemade kolaches to people across the US. Details at the end of the show. But those ones are more traditional Czech-style kolaches, which are the only ones I've ever had. After hearing that story from Atlas Obscura, I wanted to try Texan kolaches myself.

• 20:34Speaker 03

  So I loved, uh, ham ranchero was always fun, from the kolache factory, which I think is kind of like the baseline, um, that I started with. It was kind of the gateway drug.

• 20:46Dan Pashman?

  What's in ham ranchero?

• 20:48Speaker 03

  So you've got like salsa verde, scrambled eggs, and just like cubed ham. And for whatever reason, that mixture together with the kolache, like slightly microwaved in a, in a paper towel. It's my favorite thing to eat always for breakfast. It's just, it's the greatest breakfast food. It's phenomenal.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  And it's shocking that it hasn't just like taken over the world.

• 21:10Dan Pashman?

  This is Sarah Morgan Ashy and her husband Paul Ashy. We're at King's Kolache, their cafe and bakery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. You think of New York City as a place where you can get just about any kind of food, right? But for Texpats, as Texans who move outside the state call themselves, there are very few places to get a kolache. King's Kolache is one of them. And the store doubles as something of a shrine to all of Texas. Of course you have Dr. Pepper, Whataburger, spicy ketchup.

• 21:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 21:37Dan Pashman?

  Zabs, hot sauce. These are all, all of these are Texas classics.

• 21:42Speaker 03

  The hot mustard is from the oldest restaurant in San Antonio.

• 21:46Dan Pashman?

  Paul is from Katy, Texas, outside Houston, and he grew up eating kolaches in the 90s. Sarah might love kolaches even more than Paul, but she's actually from Memphis. She didn't hear of kolaches until college in Tennessee, where she and Paul met. When he took her to meet his family in Texas, he also introduced her to kolaches.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  Well, my mind was blown. I'm not going to say that we got married because of kolaches.

• 22:08Dan Pashman?

  You're also not not gonna say it.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  Uh, but yeah, I mean, that was like a big change for me. I was like, wow, where have these been my whole life? You know, we

• 22:18Dan Pashman?

  In 2012, Sarah and Paul moved up to New York City. Paul got a job in film production. Sarah looked for work in acting.

• 22:24Speaker 03

  Um, and we were just like, where, where are the kolaches?

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Because we also assumed it's New York City. We were like, there's got to be kolaches in New York. Like, of course, we have everything in New York.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  This is the land of food dreams. And then we come up here and we're like, wait, record scratch.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  Where are they?

• 22:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:42Speaker 02

  So we started making them for ourselves.

• 22:47Dan Pashman?

  So tell me about the, the major points of the process of refining your recipe.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  Well, it was crazy because, uh, back then it's kind of hard to believe, thinking about this now it sounds so crazy, but there just weren't recipes on, like anywhere that you could find on, on the internet. We started basically trying to recreate what we had experienced in Texas.

• 23:09Dan Pashman?

  In particular, they were trying to recreate the kolaches from a bakery called The Check Stop in the Texas town of West. Things like the poppy seed sweet cheese kolache and the smoked sausage and cheddar kolache. For Paul and Sarah, this was their platonic ideal of a kolache, and it was all about the dough.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  Tows the line of like sweet and savory, kind of like a Sister Schubert roll. It has like enough fluffiness, um, without being like super dense also.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  The fluff factor is perfect.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:39Dan Pashman?

  So Sarah and Paul wanted to find that perfect sweet spot between a little fluffy and a little dense. They both come from families of bakers, so they looked at old family recipes for rolls. They also had friends in New York who worked at pizza places who helped them tinker with the dough. They started making kolaches at home, giving them out to friends. And eventually, word got out about these kolache-slinging Texans.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  At one point, we started getting asked from friends to like, hey, can you like, bring these to our party? Can you cater? Can you? And we're like, oh, yeah, that's, yeah, of course, we'd be happy to. And then we found a food festival, the Long Island City Flea and Food, and it was, I think, one of their early years of doing it. And we were like, let's just try here. They were a huge hit. And that was a really exciting experience because it's just really rare and special to have something that New Yorkers don't know.

• 24:30Dan Pashman?

  And how many of the people who were coming up to your stand were New Yorkers who had never heard of Kolaches? How many of them were Texans who were like, super excited?

• 24:37Speaker 03

  The ratio would probably be like, 60/40, maybe, 40%.

• 24:42Dan Pashman?

  60% New Yorkers who didn't know what this was?

• 24:44Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah, totally. And then 40% like Texans who are like, we're like, oh, my gosh, we saw that this is happening. We haven't had this since we were home last, or something.

• 24:53Dan Pashman?

  Did you understand in that moment, like, it might be that Kolaches are gonna be our life?

• 25:00Speaker 03

  Yes. Well, okay, so we're very, very much of a like, going back to us being in the dramatic arts. We were, we went, we went to the like, edge of the Verrazano Bridge. The water was there.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  I was on my lunch break of one of my jobs.

• 25:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're like, all right, we're gonna do this. And then we shook, we shook hands. And we're like, there's no going back.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  We're like, we love these buns? Yes, we do.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  This is it. And we shook hands. It was like, very dramatic. And you know what's crazy? This is the part where I was like, long story, very short. Within one hour, would you say? Am I exaggerating?

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Exactly, one hour.

• 25:36Speaker 02

  Within one hour of us shaking hands, and being like, this is our life now, buns forever. We got a call from someone saying, we have an opening in this building here in Bushwick.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:49Dan Pashman?

  The moment that you were on the water, looking out, you know, contemplating the rest of your lives, you were already married at that point?

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:55Speaker 03

  We were. Yeah, yeah, we were married.

• 25:57Dan Pashman?

  And yet you sealed this new business venture with a handshake?

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a very good point. That's a very good point.

• 26:03Dan Pashman?

  That's the least romantic starting of a business between a husband and wife I've ever heard of.

• 26:10Dan Pashman?

  Just then, my friend Rohit Nandagiri came in. Ro lives near me on Long Island, but I know him as a proud Texan. And despite his busy corporate job, when I told him I needed him to come to Brooklyn to eat kolaches with me on a Tuesday afternoon, he was like, "I'll clear my schedule." Now, Ro, I've invited you here to act as a representative for all the people of Texas.

• 26:33Speaker 08

  That's a big responsibility.

• 26:38Dan Pashman?

  But let's establish your Texas credentials, first of all, for our listeners, so that they know that they can trust you. Where were you born?

• 26:45Speaker 08

  Houston, Texas.

• 26:46Dan Pashman?

  What hospital?

• 26:47Speaker 08

  Oh, wow. Texas Children's.

• 26:50Dan Pashman?

  Okay. Where'd you graduate from high school?

• 26:53Speaker 08

  William P. Clemens High School, Sugar Land, Texas.

• 26:56Dan Pashman?

  And where'd you go to college?

• 26:57Speaker 08

  Rice University in Houston, Texas.

• 26:59Dan Pashman?

  Okay, so that's pretty good. Yeah, everyone in the room is nodding approvingly. And you moved up to New York. I won't let the people of Texas hold that against you.

• 27:10Speaker 08

  No, I hold it against myself.

• 27:13Dan Pashman?

  And despite the fact that you moved from Texas to New York, when your first child was born, what did you do?

• 27:21Speaker 08

  Oh, man. So, both children that I've had, I had my parents bring up Texas dirt from their backyard in their house. And when they were about three or four days old each, I had them go to the backyard and I had their feet in the dirt. And so their first steps on this earth were on Texas soil.

• 27:44Dan Pashman?

  Final test. The stars at night are big and bright.

• 27:49Speaker 08

  Deep in the heart of Texas.

• 27:51Dan Pashman?

  All right, he passed, okay.

• 27:53Speaker 08

  I can keep going with that, too.

• 27:58Dan Pashman?

  Tell me about your experience with kolaches, growing up in Texas.

• 28:04Speaker 08

  Yeah, I didn't realize it was a real native Texas thing until I left. I thought everybody just had these. It was a Sunday morning tradition for us. It was a place called Shipley Donuts down in Houston. There was a football player when I was a kid named Earl Campbell.

• 28:20Dan Pashman?

  Number 34 on the Warriors.

• 28:21Speaker 08

  That's right, greatest running back in history. Slightly biased. But he sponsored this Earl Campbell sausage kolache. But again, like, I mean, you eat one of those as a six-year-old, you know, you're struggling for a bit. But.

• 28:39Dan Pashman?

  When Paul, the owner, heard Roe mention Shipley's Donuts, his ears perked up. And then he brought something out.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  Buns for y'all.

• 28:47Dan Pashman?

  Paul handed us the first of many kolaches.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  So this is our, like, Shipley-style kolaches with some really great smoked sausage from Brooklyn, actually.

• 28:58Dan Pashman?

  And this was a pure coincidence. The Shipley-style is one that Paul and Sarah rotate in occasionally, but they don't always have it. Of all the kolaches they could have had on hand, Paul and Sarah had made their Shipley-style kolache that day. Call it a Texas miracle.

• 29:12Speaker 08

  This is great. The bread is amazing.

• 29:14Speaker 03

  Oh, thanks. Thank you.

• 29:16Dan Pashman?

  It was so interesting to me that Roe zeroed in immediately on the dough. When I first walked in, I'd been focused more on all the different fillings on the menu. But that dough.

• 29:24Speaker 08

  The question you asked about, like, what makes a good kolache is a really interesting one. I had never been really thought about it. But my answer still holds, that when the bread and the mixture that you have in the center just fall together into your mouth, it makes a better bite.

• 29:39Dan Pashman?

  Yeah, I love the dough. It is, it's like, it's like soft but dense in just the right way. I do understand what you're saying now. At this point, Paul and Sarah brought out smoked sausage with cheddar kolaches, another with egg, pepper jack, and candied jalapeno, and then one they call the Delta Bacon.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  The Delta Bacon. And the filling inside is an onion souffle that. You know, I don't know how some Texans will feel about this, hearing it on air, but it is very popular in the shop. The onion souffle is actually a Tennessee recipe. So it's something my mom used to make all the time and it's an old Memphis recipe. And Paul and I, one night, we were like, we just love this onion souffle.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  We use it as a dip for Super Bowl parties.

• 30:19Dan Pashman?

  What you're telling me, though, is that you, you are pushing beyond the borders of Texas.

• 30:23Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes, and I think, to your point of like pushing the boundaries, to me, it's just following the already, like, growing tradition of the kolache. I mean, when it came to Texas, it was a sweet pastry, usually served around the holidays. And, you know, cowboys, Texans got a hold of it and they were like, this is great. Let's put some savory, let's put a pig in it, let's make it savory.

• 30:45Dan Pashman?

  Right, right, let's put a bunch of meat and cheese in it.

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  And barbecue in the dessert.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  You know, they took.

• 30:49Dan Pashman?

  Sarah and Paul kept the kolaches coming. There was spinach and artichoke, bacon, egg and cheese with spicy ketchup, and the one that's probably the most traditional Czech variety, poppy seed and cheese. Phenomenal, but this is really, really good.

• 31:03Speaker 08

  Coming into this place and, you know, seeing what they've done and having kolaches outside of Texas is a huge deal for me. And I've, you know, it's, it's, it's somewhat makes me feel like I'm back home again.

• 31:16Dan Pashman?

  For Paul and Sarah, this is part of their mission, to provide a taste of home for homesick Texans. They even serve breakfast tacos and queso. But they also think kolaches have the potential to be even bigger than Texas.

• 31:28Speaker 02

  I think that everyone, everyone is born ready for this amazing. Because every culture has some version of a kolache. And it's, you know, they're, they're easy to eat, they're crushable, they're delicious, they're good breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack. So are they ready? Yeah, they might not know they're ready yet.

• 31:47Dan Pashman?

  They've always been ready.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  But they were born ready.

• 31:49Dan Pashman?

  That's right.

• 31:53Dan Pashman?

  Thanks so much to Paul and Sarah. You can find more info about King's Colachi at kingscolachi.com. And as promised, if you want check-style colachis delivered to your door, I've ordered from this woman on Etsy. They're phenomenal. Her name is Helly. Her site on Etsy is Helly's Goodies. H-E-L-L-I-S. Goodies. All one word. So Google Helly's Goodies Etsy and you'll get to her page. Next week on the show, one of the most important legal cases you've probably never heard of is about Thomas's English Muffins and their beloved nooks and crannies. Only seven people in the world know the secret to Thomas's English Muffins. And when one of them took a job at a competitor, all hell broke loose. That's next week. While you wait for that one, check out last week's show with the comedian Sebastian Maniscalco. He tells me how he went from torching

• 32:37Dan Pashman?

  hams as a teenager to selling out Madison Square Garden. My thanks to our friends at the Atlas Obscura Podcast. That team includes Dylan Thuris, Doug Baldinger, Chris Naka, Camille Stanley, Johanna Mayer, Manolo Morales, Baudelaire, Gabby Gladney, Amanda McGowan, Alexa Lim, Casey Holford, and Luz Fleming. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going

• 33:18Dan Pashman?

  to siriusxm.com/sporkful. This episode was produced by me along with managing producer Emma Morgenstern and senior producer Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is Jared O'Connell. Music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.

• 33:37Speaker 09

  Hi, this is Amy from Austin, Texas, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.

• 33:59Speaker 10

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• 34:29Dan Pashman?

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