In the first week of the new year, Adam Rapoport, the editor-in-chief of Bon Appetit Magazine appeared on the Today Show and declared the kolache to be one of the It Foods of 2015. The news came after Chris Svetlik and Brian Stanford, two Texpats living in Washington, D.C., announced they would soon be opening the first kolache place in our nation’s capitol. Maybe Svetlik and Stanford are homesick for the Czech pastry (which the Today Show describes as a “a savory dough pocket”) that some might argue can’t be properly duplicated outside of Texas (although people have certainly tried). Or maybe they envision a world where everyone can grab a sausage and jalapeno kolache with their morning cup of coffee, a laudable mission, to say the least. Either way, the migration of the kolache is something to be celebrated. If you can’t beat us or join us, at least eat like us.
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We love to see kolaches get some national recognition again (they were in the spotlight a few years back when they were profiled in the New York Times), but to declare that kolaches will “dethrone the cronut” as the next food trend undercuts the legacy of the pastry. As our own Courtney Bond, the Vittlist, wrote in the pages of Texas Monthly:
Kolache fever is nothing new in Texas, which has been home to a considerable Czech community since the mid-1800’s. We can thank them for the Kolache Triangle, where motorists regularly and not so mysteriously disappear from the highways that connect San Antonio, Dallas, and Houston and reappear at one of the dozens of longtime vendors that dot the area. A fresh-baked kolache, nestled in a sheet pan and exuding butter and sugar and warm fruit, is no mere off-ramp diversion: it’s a golden ticket back in time to Grandma’s—or Babička’s—kitchen.
Alas, everything old is new again when New York turns its lofty gaze toward us (see: breakfast tacos, Frito pie). Of course, we’re happy the kolache is enjoying a well-deserved moment of being hip and cool, but we know that good kolaches never go out of style.
