EDIBLE ENTREPRENEUR

Preserving Macedonian culture, one zelnik at a time

Ryan Miller’s business grew from a savory pastry inspired by generations of family history Story and Photography by Angela Lee

He is a quiet dreamer, a creator of various forms, an engineer by trade—and his name is Ryan Miller. Stepping into the world of food through the sweet innocence of a foodie Instagram account, Ryan felt inspired to take on a new endeavor and be the captain of his own ship. It all began on a honeymoon trip to a village known historically as Patele in northern Greece, where he was re-introduced to the Macedonian culture of his grandfather. Through the stories told by his cousins and the feasts shared by his extended family, Ryan became enthralled by the family history and the traditions of his ancestors. Since that day, he has committed to being a vessel for the preservation of the Macedonian culture.

To Ryan, food serves as a method to share history and tradition. Food tells the tale of a village dating to ancient times when Macedonia was an empire ruled by kings. Food tells the tale of babas (grandmothers) working tirelessly to serve a massive feast made from scratch to their children and grandchildren as they all gather under one roof in celebration of family. Food is the active preservation of stories, and it brings us all together.

The creation of his business, Zelnik, stemmed from a desire to artfully balance the breaking and safeguarding of tradition. To Ryan and to his family, the flaky, layered Macedonian zelnik is a savory pastry dish that reminds of home and family. But also, it is a dish that breaks barriers and is the cumulation of flavors taken from different regions across the globe. He describes his business as “nontraditional Macedonian.” Being “nontraditional” means to think outside the box, be inspired by different cuisines, and take a chance on creative innovation. Ryan sought to earn the nontraditional moniker of his small business, and that he did.

Ryan credits his knowledge of zelnik creation to his father, who was devoted to annotating the “nonexistent” recipes of Baba into the written text to be shared, loved and passed on to the next generation. To those unfamiliar with zelnik, it is the epitome of “slow food.” “Everything takes a long time to prepare from scratch, but you feel the love put into the labor and it’s rich with flavor,” Ryan says. It’s a warm hug from Baba in the form of eight layers of dough with even more layers of butter and sugar. The version that Zelnik sells as “Baba’s Original” has a filling of eggs, cottage cheese, feta cheese and leeks. There also is a Spiced Beef version with ground beef, feta cheese and fire-roasted tomatoes. For those who are new to this dish, Zelnik offers a simple ordering process on its website and provides delivery options as well. But it stands out by being unique in its presentation. “It’s best right out of the oven when it’s perfectly flaky. Even delivering it hot wouldn’t be the same,” he says. The first bite of zelnik is meant to embody the quality of take-and-bake gourmet food and the culture of Macedonia. And for Ryan, that remains to this day.

When asked about how he is doing after another year of the pandemic, he answers with an honest calm in his voice. “Definitely people were more enthusiastic about Zelnik at the start, I think. As soon as people were able to go out more, the orders kind of dropped off, too, because people weren’t eating at home or weren’t ordering in as much. Social media has been a way for us to connect and build relationships with the community.” Then their social media accounts got hacked, which required rebuilding everything. “But we’re so thankful for everything this past year has brought us,” he says.

Despite the setbacks, Ryan is still fully committed to Zelnik and all it has to offer to the Columbus community. “The truth is, I’m incredibly stubborn and I believe this concept can work in some capacity. The thought of not seeing it through scares me more than all of the energy it will require to get to the next level. It feels good to share [my culture] with people and see the joy it brings to them: Nourishing people, it feels good.”

When taking that first bite of a zelnik, Ryan says, “it’s not something entirely different. So many different cultures have dishes that are wrapped up in dough. But I hope that the flavor combinations and textures are maybe something a little different from what they have ever had before and it’s pleasurable for them. The highlight of the whole dish is the dough: it really gives that flaky and crispy texture. I hope it’s a fun experience for people. It’s take-and-bake, but with a different approach. I want them to taste the quality and say, ‘Yeah, I’d eat that again.’”

To learn more or to order zelnik online, visit nontraditionalmacedonian.com.

Angela Lee is a food photographer, freelance writer and social media strategist. She’s always in search of her next culinary adventure. You can find her on Instagram at @FindYourFork or via email at FindYourFork@gmail.com.

Ryan Miller and wife, Laura

Baba’s Original (Photo courtesy of Zelnik)

When my grandfather was growing up in Middletown, Ohio, kolache—a Slovak sweet roll—was a sign of the holidays. His mother would bake enough for her seven children, plus friends and neighbors. Without adequate refrigeration or storage, she’d wrap the rolls in linen and store them in a trunk, retrieving one whenever they had company.

My grandpa told me this story a few weeks ago, as he sampled my first attempt at baking kolache. While I hadn’t succeeded in replicating exactly what he’d grown up with—in flavor or scale—I was glad I’d finally tried.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t considered trying before. For years, when the holidays rolled around, I thought about how nice it would be to have some kolache on the table. I even had a recipe, given to me by my mom. It came from her mother, who had jotted it down as she watched her mother-in-law (my great-grandmother) make kolache from memory, documenting every step of the process in hopes of replicating it.

But every time I looked at that recipe, which compresses hours of work onto a single index card and begins with an intimidating 17 cups of flour, I always turned to cookies or something else familiar. Kolache is time-consuming and difficult enough to make that it wasn’t a holiday staple for our family when I was growing up. Some years we had it, most we didn’t. But when we did, I always loved it.

The meaning of the word kolache varies from region to region, family to family, and kitchen to kitchen. In the Czech Republic, it’s a sweet roll encircling an even sweeter filling. Dusty Kotchou, an owner of the Kolache Republic bakery that specializes in this style, said that traditional Czech flavors include poppy seed, apricot and cream cheese.

To my Slovak family, kolache looks—and tastes—quite different. It still starts with sweetened yeasted dough, but this time it’s rolled out flat and wide, like a pie crust, covered almost edge to edge with a walnut or poppy seed filling, and then rolled into a loaf and baked. The result looks like bread on the outside, but slicing it reveals swirls of hidden flavors.

It also seems some specificity may have been lost in translation between Slovakia and Middletown. Kolache, I learned, is often used in Slovak as a generic term for sweets; what we called kolache were more precisely nut and poppy seed rolls known as orechovník and makovník, respectively. (To apply a rule I once learned about squares and rectangles in geometry: Every orechovník is a kolache, but not every kolache is an orechovník).

While the word kolache may mean different things to different people, if you are lucky enough to be one of those people it’s a word—and a food—you won’t forget.

Kolache in Columbus

Though kolache is a popular dessert across Eastern Europe— there are Hungarian and Polish versions as well—if you haven’t tasted it, you probably haven’t heard of it either. Or at least, you probably hadn’t heard of it before Kotchou and his partners opened the Kolache Republic in the Brewery District in 2013.

The kolache at Kolache Republic may be Czech-style, strictly speaking, but its Texas roots and Ohio setting are evident on the menu. (For example, they recently made a seasonal buckeye flavor to celebrate football season.) Over a century ago, while my Slovak great-grandparents were settling in Middletown, many Czech immigrants were arriving in Texas, bringing their kolache with them and turning it into a popular treat. Texas native Rick Jardiolin grew up eating it, and after moving to Ohio found himself craving kolache while drinking beer with Kotchou one night. He described a savory—and very Texas—version: a sweet roll stuffed with jalapeño, cheddar and kielbasa; the perfect latenight food that he couldn’t find on any local menus.

Jardiolin and Kotchu decided to make it themselves. Soon, they were bringing kolache to friends’ houses, to rave reviews. “People said we should do something with it,” Kotchou says. They started selling it at farmers markets until they had the opportunity to open the shop. Today, the Kolache Republic operates in the back of the Daily Growler, ensuring that anyone else craving kolache with their beers won’t have to learn to bake it first.

On the other side of town, at Hilliard’s Center Street Market, Laura Young is doing kolache differently. Her shop, Bakes By Lo, sells cakes, cookies and other sweets throughout the year. But when the holidays roll around, she adds kolache to the menu for a limited time. Young makes the Slovak version, and lists it on her website as her “favorite thing to bake.”

“Kolache reminds me of my childhood, it reminds me of sweet memories in the kitchen with my mom,” she says. In her family, making kolache was a daylong process. As the holidays approached each year, she would gather in the kitchen with her mom and grandma, watching them use a nut grinder to make the filling of walnut and shredded coconut. Young and her family always made enough to freeze and share with friends and relatives. “It lasted all season long.”

My First Kolache

At the end of September, my grandfather turned 100. I decided that this was the year I needed (kneaded?) to bake kolache. In celebration of his centennial, I wanted to make the food he had loved as a child. I wanted him to know that it mattered to me, that his great-grandkids will grow up eating it too.

While I loved the idea of using the recipe from the index card my mom had given me, as a novice, starting with 17 cups of flour and ending with 12 rolls was more than I was ready to take on. Luckily, in the many years since my grandmother’s fateful baking observation, the internet had been invented. I found a promising recipe on a blog called Bakes & Blunders. It was similar to but simpler than my mom’s—starting with a manageable three cups of flour and yielding two rolls. It also went into details that could never fit onto an index card, but that I found extremely helpful. Following author Colleen Gershey’s advice, I decided to use a mix of bread and all-purpose flour, and I knew to scald the milk before cooling it and adding yeast, a process that helps the gluten properly form.

And then I had to confront what all seasoned kolache bakers agreed is the biggest challenge: working with yeast. Even though yeast likes warmth, Kotchou explained that humidity can affect yeast dough, and said it’s easier to bake in the cooler months when the air is drier. Young said that she tells her bakers to “be patient” with kolache, reminding them that “working with yeast is hard.” My mom was the most blunt, telling me emphatically, “Don’t kill the yeast!” (It’s no coincidence that one of my childhood kolache memories can be summed up as the day the yeast died. The dough had to be remade from scratch—literally.)

With the dough set to rise in a warmed oven, I started working on the filling. This time, I stuck closely to Mom’s recipe, adding vanilla extract, orange rind and vanilla wafers to the walnuts, but also some cinnamon from Gershey’s version. After the dough came out, I rolled it out, spread on the topping, sealed the loaf with milk and crossed my fingers.

An hour rise and a 45-minute bake later, I had one beauty and one beast. The first roll was picture perfect, but the second had come apart in the oven, the filling bursting through the top. Ugly or not, what mattered was the taste, and that was up to Grandpa to judge. He pronounced my kolache slightly different than what he’d grown up with, but “good.”

That’s all the encouragement I needed to keep going. This may have been my first time making kolache, but it won’t be my last. I’ve already got some tweaks in mind for next time, and like Great-Grandma, I’m not ready to write down my recipe yet—it’s going to evolve, and that’s OK. Because the most important lesson I learned from this process is that the best kolache isn’t the one that’s exactly like Grandma’s; the best kolache is the one that’s yours.

Four generations of the writer’s family, including Grandpa (above), taste the kolache

Kolache Republic is located at 702 S. High St. and on Instagram @kolacherepublic. Bakes By Lo is located at 5354 Center St. in Hilliard, and on Instagram @bakesbylo.

Linda Lee Baird is a Columbus-based freelance writer and educator. Follow her adventures in food, writing and parenting on Instagram at ms_lindalee and at lindaleebaird.com