No other pastry made the Czechs and Slovaks more famous in the New Wold than KOLACHE (kolace). I even find them in my local grocery store! Yet, they don’t look anything like the original kolache I know (see the image attached). After reading an article about them in the New York Times, I was up for a rude awakening: they have evolved quite a bit in the US (look at the second photo)! Once you read about them (click here), please let me know if you like what’s going on or if you just want to stick your head in the sand like me and pretend none of this has ever happened.
CZ: Chudaci kolace si prosli v USA nejen jednou plastikovou operaci, ale tak deseti. Nevypadaji totiz vubec jako nase tradicni makove, tvarohove nebo orechove typy! Prectete si o nich clanek v New York Times a dejte mi vedet, co si o tom myslite. Mne se to nelibi. Asi jsem kolacokonzervativec.
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The second photo looks like a Runza which is a German pastry filled with ground beef and cabbage. Around here people have been misled to believe that a kolache is a filled pastry with the four corners of the pastry brought together. My Czech grandmother used to get mad when she heard people call them kolaches when they actually had another name that I can’t spell but sounds like boodka or bootka but the spelling is totally different. A true kolache is what your first picture looks like. I don’t like how people try to Americanize them to something that doesn’t even resemble a kolache.
I know what you’re talking about. I don’t like it but on the other hand… I think about all kinds of foreign foods bastardized here beyond all recognition and I don’t feel that upset about “kolaches” anymore. 😉
Carol Deml: I know. I see those at Flying J truck stops. They call them kolaches and I just smile.
What else is there to do about it anyway? 🙂
I still make them the old way. Just like my mother did. If you visit Texas, there is a large Czech representation there. Their kolache look peculiar, too.
I’m with you, the other’s just aren’t what I’m looking for, but to each his own, I suppose.
I, too, am a purist. The idea of a savory kolache does not appeal. I don’t even like the pineapple or cherry pie filling kolaches I’ve seen in the midwest. Give me a cottage cheese or prune butter kolache any day of the week!
@Carol: I think what you grandmother was saying (the “bootka”) was “buchta” which is pastry filled with stuff, looking like the second picture but the inside is never meat. Either sweet curd, fruit, poppy seeds or alike filling. Kolace also can have filling but typically are much flatter and also stuff or filling on top.
I also despise American “kolaches”, already the spelling is wrong since “kolache” is already a plural. Here in Texas, there are so called Czech towns, which also talk about their kolaches, that barely resemble the real thing and they come with sausages and other various things that are not right. When someone tells me about them…Oh you are Czech, then you must try our kolaches!…I just snicker. No reason to get upset…
What’s the problem? The traditional old-world version is a koláč, the new-world mutation is a kolache. Not the same thing. Variety is a good thing, and they’re all yummy!
Carol, I think you are referring to Buchty (Boo-khty). Although they’re not filled with beef and whatnot, usually fruit jams etc.
It looks like most people are purists when it comes to Kolache 🙂 It’s like if you take a skirt, hem it in the middle and all of a sudden it’s not a skirt anymore but shorts. Am I going to call them a skirt? I don’t think so. So why not call the upside-down ‘kolache’ something else?
By the way, here is the winning TRADITIONAL kolace recipe:
http://czechmatediary.com/2007/05/18/kolache-recipe/
Ja pecu kolace jen tradicni a nedam na ne dopustit.Ten clanek se mi mimochodem taky nelibi.
Tanja, that was sort of my point — they do call it something else, “kolache” and not “koláč”.