Discussing my wife is a forbidden topic so I'll keep it quick. My wife and her family are all from Oregon. I sometimes get defensive when describing Houston to them since they live in a gorgeous location and I kinda get a bit jealous. But there are some things that are just different in Houston that I have grown accustom to. Houston has its own culture, so to speak.
When I am trying to describe Houston culture to someone it comes across as kinda bland. I mean Houston doesn't have the history of San Antonio or New Orleans, its not as picturesque as Denver or San Francisco, its not as American as New York or Boston or Philly or Chicago, its not as self-important as Washington DC, its not as nostalgic as Atlanta or St. Louis, its not as hip as Seattle or Portland, and its not as Texan as Dallas. This is scary to say, but the city that reminds me the most of Houston is LA -- except Houston doesn't have nice weather or Hollywood. Its more like LA's drainage ditch.
But still, there is something that makes Houston, Houston. Some people would say that Houston has the best restaurants. That may be true, but that’s not what I think of when I think of Houston. Sure the Mexican food is top notch, but it’s just a carryover from border Texas. It’s not Houston. Houston shrimp is also top-notch, but since Cajun and Creole food swept the nation a couple of years ago, all Houston seafood distinction has been lost in the shuffle. Chicken fried steak is Texan, not exclusively Houstonian.
The easiest thing to notice different about Houston is the doughnut shops.
I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. There is no other major metropolitan area that has Kolaches available in every doughnut shop. Most people not from Houston don't even know what a Kolache is. Or else they have some great aunt from Eastern Europe that makes something she calls Kolaches. European Kolaches can be anything from dumplings to fruit pastries. Hell, that may be what real Kolaches are, but I don't care. A Houston Kolache is -- by definition -- a doughy roll with a piece of sausage stuck in it and maybe some cheese. There are lots of variations on this theme that may replace the meat with something sweet, but those are variants. A lot of lazy Kolache makers will put lil smokey's in a Kolache, but a truly authentic Houston Kolache has a cut piece of sausage in it. That way more of the sausage flavor seeps out into the dough.
Most doughnut chains that open up in Houston eventually end up serving Kolaches. If they don't, they go out of business. Shipley’s and Dunkin both offer some form of Kolaches with their doughnuts.
This brings me to the evil Krispy Kreme doughnut shop which so far does not offer Kolaches. This is spit in the eye of every Houstonian. People that are not offended by this are yankee carpetbaggers and I want them the hell out of my town – it’s like not offering coffee in Seattle or beignets in New Orleans. It's just Houstonian sacrilege.
Unfortunately my wife is a yankee carpetbagger (I've tried to chase her out of my town, but she won't go), so sometimes I have to lower myself and buy her doughnuts from that evil place. But I hope every last one of them closes or folds to local pressure. So let me end this in an SAT format analogy:
Redskins football team : American indians :: Krispy Kreme : Houstonians
Oops, I forgot my point to all this, my sister-in-law is from one of the many Czech (as in Czechoslovakia) communities that dot the area around Houston and she knows how to make Kolaches -- lots of different varieties, mostly the Eastern European types I mentioned earlier. She has come to my house numerous times and stayed for extended periods of time. You would think that this would obligate her to feed me homemade Kolaches as I mention it to her something like every five minutes. But she just doesn't seem to ever think it important enough to do. Still, I have to keep the relationship on the up n up in hope that someday I will be treated to a sheet of fresh, warm Czech Kolaches. A Houstonian can dream, can't he?
1 comment:
I always thought that Kolaches were as much of a staple anywhere until I told someone who doesn't live in Houston that I had just eaten one. "You ate a what?" was their only reply.
Someone would make a killing by opening up franchises of Kolache Factory all through the south - or even the whole country. In today's age of globalization, I'm surprised that it's not more common.
Maybe different regions just have their thing. When I visited Chicago, I discovered Wow Bao, which are "delicious, steamed hot asian buns filled with tasty meat and vegetable combinations eaten all day," according to their web site: http://www.wowbao.com/. They just have the one Chicago location, but when I went, there were plenty of people. If I wanted Bao in Houston, I'd probably have to go to a place where I felt about as comfortable with the language as at the nail salon, or probably just go without.
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