{"id":14321,"date":"2022-09-12T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T15:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/?p=14321"},"modified":"2022-09-12T09:55:31","modified_gmt":"2022-09-12T14:55:31","slug":"kolache-confusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/2022\/09\/kolache-confusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Kolache confusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nJuly 26, 2012:<\/strong>\u00a0A Czech list of the food offerings in Clutier on RAGBRAI XL.<\/em><\/p>\n

While checking out various Iowa State-related places before last Saturday’s football game*, I learned something about a former ISU player. Brent “Big Play” Curvey<\/a>\u00a0restarted his “Coaches Kolaches”<\/a> store in Urbandale over the weekend (pushed back from Sept. 1). Grand View University’s student media did a piece on Curvey, a Houston native, last year<\/a>. His wife, an Iowa native, said, “…\u00a0once he got to Iowa, he realized that there were no kolaches, so we came up with the idea because he missed kolaches and I love to cook.”<\/p>\n

HOLD IT. What’s with that “no kolaches” line? Regional differences.<\/p>\n

Curvey’s business is primarily selling Texas<\/em> kolaches, which are stuffed with meat and other things, with Iowa kolaches, which are open-faced and fruity (or poppy-seedy), on the side. The daughter of the founder of the famous\u00a0West, Texas, kolache bakery<\/a> made clear to NPR the difference:<\/p>\n

While traditional kolaches are fruit-filled, a Texan twist evolved when they were made with sausage, cheese and jalape\u00f1os. Irwin, a self-proclaimed kolache purist, maintains that these are not true kolaches, but rather what her father called a “klobasniki.” …<\/em><\/p>\n

For Czech communities outside of Texas, Irwin is right. In Iowa, where there is also a large Czech community, kolaches can be found in grocery stores, but they’re most definitely filled with fruit, not meat. There are other differences: Iowa’s kolaches have a rounder shape, with the fruit filling covering a larger area than their square-shaped Texas counterparts.<\/em><\/p>\n

Des Moines Register<\/em> columnist Courtney Crowder also made the distinction in 2017<\/a>, when Curvey started his business. Curvey isn’t the only former Iowa State football player to get into the food business. Seneca Wallace opened his first Wingstop<\/a> in central Iowa in 2018 and continues to franchise out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One of the caretakers of the football trophy this weekend, 2001 North Tama graduate Scott Beenken, has “bohemiefarmer<\/a>” as his Twitter handle, so we know a kolache when we see one. (Here’s a picture of Scott with the trophy and his business partner.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

In extremely related news, St. Ludmila’s Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids\u00a0will not have its Kolach Festival next year<\/a>\u00a0while its now-closed school building is demolished and replaced with a community center. This will be be the third time in four years there hasn’t been a festival, and second time in four years<\/a> there haven’t been kolaches.<\/p>\n

*Ninety-nine-plus yards in twenty-one plays with five third-down conversions!<\/a> CYCLONE STATE!<\/h4>\n
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July 26, 2012:\u00a0A Czech list of the food offerings in Clutier on RAGBRAI XL. While checking out various Iowa State-related places before last Saturday’s football game*, I learned something about a former ISU player. Brent “Big Play” Curvey\u00a0restarted his “Coaches … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-iowa-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14321"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14328,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14321\/revisions\/14328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/iowahighwayends.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}