Gravy

In “Czech Out Texas Kolaches,” Gravy producer Evan Stern invites listeners to join him on a return trip to his native Texas to explore the history, origins, and evolutions of kolaches through the voices of bakers of varying backgrounds and perspectives. This episode complements the oral history project Stern created for SFA, The Keepers of Kolaches: The Evolutions of Texas-Czech Baking. Few pastries are more intertwined with the fabric of Central Texas than kolaches. With roots in the Czech Nation and owed to 19th Century Moravian immigrants, these soft, pillowy confections of yeasty dough with open centers of fruit, poppyseed or sweet cheese fillings have long provided humble links to the old country in small Texas towns like Halletsville, La Grange, West, and Schulenburg. Yet kolaches have also weathered many transformations under the Lone Star flag and have developed an identity that continues to change—and is, at times, challenging to define. Historian and blogger Dawn Orsak explains how meat filled “klob