Alright Texans, let's have a little chat about breakfast food. We all have our favorite breakfasts foods, and we even have our preferred place to get said foods. Personally, I like going to Shipley's and grabbing a klobasnek and a chocolate covered donut. You know, the doughy treat with a sausage in the middle? Some might call them pig in a blanket.
You thought I was going to say kolache, didn't you? Nope; that's because kolaches aren't pigs in a blanket.
Recently, I was talking to my fellow writers on my team and discovered we had quite a difference in view on what exactly a kolache is. I was talking about the Czech pastry, while everyone else was talking about the sausage filled dough.
When asking my friends on Facebook about what they thought a kolache was, there were many different answers. My family was the majority on who commented, and they knew the difference. There was even a short discussion on the difference between a breakfast taco versus a breakfast burrito.
By definition, a kolach, or kolache if plural, is a pastry that holds a dollop of fruit. My personal favorite is apple or strawberry kolaches. The apparent Texas definition is a sausage wrapped around in dough, which is actually called a klobasnek.
If these words look a little foreign, it is because they are. They originate from Czechoslovakia. A kolache actually used to be a wedding pastry in Europe back in the day. Since we are Texans and we do what we want, we decided to make this sweet treat into a breakfast item once the Czech people immigrated to America. In fact, my great-grandmother used to make four at a time: apple, peach, prune, and poppyseed.
Since a good majority of Czech people planted in South to East Texas, there became a boom in the consuming of the kolache.
Hopefully the next time you see a klobasnek, you can proudly state that those aren't kolaches. If you're ever in the Hillje, Texas area, stop by Prasek's for the best kolache's you will have ever tasted!
