What is clovatine?  A Czechoslovakian recipe calls for it in a glaze
that is put on the cookie while baking.  I have no idea what it is,
and where to find it.

Hello khilde,

I tried making the word look more Czech (or Eastern European) by
spelling it "klovatin".  Indeed, that word appears only on three Czech
results on Google ( ://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=klovatin&btnG=Search
).  Those results also indicate other apparent forms of the word:
klovatina, klovotinu, and klovatiny.

Searches for those words on Google produce many more results. 
Moreover, some of those results suggest that the word has something to
do with gum, in particular gum arabic or acacia gum.

Searches for [klovatina] in Czech-English dictionaries confirm the
meaning of "acacia", or alternatively "acacia gum", "gum", or "gum
resin".

"English - czech dictionary" [translate [klovatina]]
English - czech dictionary
http://www.wordbook.cz/slovnik.php?fjazyk=en

Multilingual Dictionary [translate [klovatina] from "CZ cesky >> EN"]
http://www.slovnik.cz/

Acacia gum and gum arabic are synonymous.

"Gum Arabic Trees - An Information Summary" (5 February 2003)
GreenPlanet E-Gazette
http://www.greenmatters.net/latestnews.asp?TYPE=NEWS&ID=16

If you search for [acacia] or ["gum arabic"], you'll find that it is
used in a food glaze.  For example:

"Gum Arabic List" [find [glaze] repeated throughout page]
TIC Gums
http://www.ticgums.com/store/GumArabicList.html

- justaskscott


Search strategy:

Searched on Google for various combinaitons of the following terms:

klovatin
klovatina
klovatinu
klovatiny
gum
arabic
acacia
resin
glaze

Searched on Yahoo for:

czech

Ovaltine?

No, I am sure its not ovaltine.

Google returns no results for Clovatine - where's that Googlewhack website again?

I was recently in Prague and asked an old lady that I was staying with
what clovatine was.  She said it's old fruit.  She uses it to glace
pastries.  Either with apricots, oranges, cherries which ever you
prefer.
Hope the cookies turn out great!

golden2020-ga's explanation sounds a lot like a German rumtopf.  Many
German households have a crock in which fruit like cherries, apricots,
strawberries are placed, covered with rum, and left to age for a
couple of months.  Germans put dollops of the resulting mixture on ice
cream or cakes or whatever.  The Czech lady did not mention rum,
perhaps Czechs dispense with it.  Its primary purpose is to keep the
fruit from spoiling.  Perhaps the rum isn't needed since cookies and
pastries are baked.  The baking should kill any nasty bacteria.  I
think, though, that I would stick with the rum.  Baking should also
get rid of the alcohol in the rum if that's a problem.

Late, but a bit more informed:

Klovatina is czech word for dextrin, related to (czech word) klih , 
often used as glue, but also as food ingredient (glaze).

Dextrin is described here:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/d1/dextrin.asp

Here is dextrin as food:
 Synonyms for dextrins include starch gum, vegetable gum, and even tapioca. 
http://www.wholefoods.com/healthinfo/dextrin.html

Old lady was probably mot saying it IS dried fruit, but
that it is used with dried fruit, the way a Jello (gelatine) would.

It is an excercise in frustration to search for words from slavonic languages
on g o o g l e    search engine (in spite of one founders russian heritage).

When you type it in czech search engine, you get lot of hits:
http://search2.seznam.cz/search.cgi?mod=k-p-y&w=klih%2C+klovatina
including placesyou can buy/order some
http://search2.seznam.cz/search.cgi?mod=k-p-y&w=klovatina

hedgie