Guláš and Garnets
The only place I'd seen these cookies (more like bars, really) before was at the roadside gas station-bakery Wiekel's in La Grange. On Wiekel's website, they offer… "The Czech Shortbread Bars have a crumbly texture and are lightly sweetened with a layer of either apricot or cherry filling." Mary's cookies were filled with raspberry jam (supporting the "Garnet" in the name) and they were indeed flaky and buttery and delicious. Do these cookies have a history that links them back to the homeland? I don't know, but I like the name and they are delicious. The Czech Republic certainly has its own version of guláš, but so does Hungary, Poland, Croatia and probably other places as well. My father and I have a theory that guláš is the ancestor of Texas Czech church picnic stew, which I'll explore in a post later this year. The recipe below is from the classic cookbook Generation to Generation , by the Historical Society of the Czech Club of Dal