KJT's kolache-making brings the generations together, helps pass on the Czech culture

More than just kolache-making, it’s a tradition involving family and friends; it’s part of the Czech culture that’s being passed down from one generation to the next in Ennis.

As it’s been done for almost 60 years now, the KJT Auditorium again hosted a pre-National Polka Festival “kolache-making” event Friday morning, with several dozen people converging on the facility’s kitchen to help make the Czech delicacy in flavors of apricot, cottage cheese, and poppy seed.

By early afternoon, more than 1,200 kolaches had been lovingly mixed, baked, and boxed for sale during Memorial Day weekend’s National Polka Festival, now in its 59th year. The annual festival serves as the major fundraiser for each of the three participating Czech halls: the KJT (this year’s opening hall), the SPJST, and the Sokol Activity Center (this year’s closing hall).

The kolaches are served as desserts with the meals sold during the weekend; boxes of them are also sold separately by the dozen. The kolaches are joined by another Czech dessert: strudel, which is a pastry filled with apples, cinnamon, raisins, and or coconut.

The recipes have been passed down through the years, with KJT kitchen co-organizer Jaime Collins noting with a smile that their strudel “has a certain flair to it,” before reminding someone who was passing through the kitchen of the three halls’ friendly rivalry: “Our meals are the best ones, by the way.”

Starting early Friday morning, Collins said the group of volunteers had produced four batches of dough that yielded up to 30 dozen kolaches each. The group had previously produced about 150 strudels for the festival that had been frozen until use this weekend. Amidst the dessert-making, volunteers also were busy prepping for Friday night’s opening hall activities, which included the annual king and queen polka dance contest, and its all-day Saturday festivities, when plates filled with traditional Czech cuisine are served up.

“These are my childhood best friends,” Collins said of several young women nearby whom she works with each year. “I look forward to spending time with them. It’s fun days in here.”

They had grown up watching their grandmothers and their mothers, she said, and it adds to the specialness of what they do now that they lead the kitchen’s activities. There’s a volunteer schedule, but they often find others joining in to help because of the camaraderie and fellowship generated through the kolache- and strudel-making activities. Indeed, several generations were on hand for Friday’s kolache-making.

“People find out about it and show up,” Collins said. “They hear about it and want to do it.”

Although it will be a busy weekend for the kitchen, Collins said everyone enjoys the work because it lets them showcase their heritage. She encourages everyone to visit the KJT and the other halls over the weekend to enjoy a Czech cultural experience, from the food to the music.

“There’s no event with this much fun and variety in one place like this,” Collins said. “Everything you can ask for that’s fun is right here.”

For the full schedule and other festival information, visit online at www.nationalpolkafestival.com.

Written by Jo Ann Livingston/ITKE.