In Minnesota there are lots and lots of Lutherans of Norwegian Heritage.

[MineralMan]

During the Christmas season, many Lutheran churches host Lutefisk dinners in the church basement or community room. It's a tradition. Lutefisk is lye-cured, dried codfish that is soaked in multiple changes of water, before being boiled until it turns into fish jelly. That process is accompanied by an unmistakable aroma that seeps into the cracks and can be detected months after the meal. I have eaten Lutefisk, because my wife's family is of Norwegian extraction. Served with enough butter, it is somewhat edible. Seconds, however, are unthinkable.

In reality, nobody likes Lutefisk. It's poverty food, a last resort meal for the middle of winter when no other edible substances are available. That does not stop Americans of Norwegian ancestry from making it into a tradition, however. If you go to a Lutefisk dinner, you are advised to accept only a very small piece, and to load your plate with the meatballs in gravy that are also available. Really.

Lutefisk is universally known as:

"The Piece of Cod that Passeth All Understanding"

A Christmas message from MineralMan - Norwegian by Marriage

[rsdsharp]

1. When I was in high school in northeast Iowa back in the late 1960s and early 1970s

I worked in the meat department of a small grocery store. Every fall we would get in Lutefisk; why I never knew. It came in about the same time as the oysters and the pickled herring , both of which flew out the door. The Lutefisk, on the other hand, was placed in a five gallon plastic bucket which was covered in plastic wrap, and placed in front of the deli case on an upturned milk crate. There it would sit, unrefrigerated, untouched, and unwanted by anyone until a week or so before Christmas when we would typically sell about a half pound to 2-3 people. The rest was thrown out after the new year; why I never knew. We could have carried it over, year-to-year, and no one would have been the wiser. It was that awful.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. My mother's Norwegian family never touched the stuff. It never turned up

at any family Christmas dinners I ever recall. I have been told it isn't horrible if it's prepared properly but I'm not going to check on that myself. It is rarely eaten in Norway any more but they do eat a lot of pizza.

[MineralMan]

3. The time I tried it, it wasn't "horrible," but

it was far from something I'd care to eat again. Now that my mother-in-law has died, I don't accept it any longer on my plate. The meatballs, though...they're OK, if very, very mildly seasoned.

Norwegian Cuisine - The only cuisine in which flour is a spice.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Norwegian baked goods, on the other hand, are magnificent.

[MineralMan]

5. I'd agree with that. But, then, most baked goods from any culture

are usually wonderful, I think. I'm afraid I fall victim to eating too much of them during this season. Oh, well.

I volunteered to make the meatballs one year for the family gathering. Everyone thought they were delicious. I used venison, lamb and pork in them and seasoned them somewhat more than they were used to. They were gone in a flash. I refused to provide the recipe, though, since some would have been shocked to know what was in there.

[mitch96]

13. "Norwegian Cuisine - The only cuisine in which flour is a spice."

Uffda!!
m

[exboyfil]

6. Married into a Norwegian family

as well. It is a joke for my wife's parents (in their 70s). I think their parents ate it though.

I do enjoy the lefse though.

We went to the Oyster (stew or fried I can't remember which) church dinners in Rake when we lived in Lake Mills, IA (about 15 minutes south of the Minnesota border). Even bought a bucket of raw oysters to take home. My Norwegian wife on the other hand hates oysters.

[MineralMan]

7. I never eat raw oysters unless I can smell the ocean if I step outside.

Truly.

[exboyfil]

8. Don't anymore on any occasion

Oyster stew is my go to. Also use them in some Cajun dishes. I will eat fried sometimes but not preferred. Smoked oysters for a snack. My mom makes great oyster dressing for Thanksgiving.

Used to shuck a lot of oysters when I lived on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. My dad would buy big bags off the dock and bring them home. Not sure I really trust them anymore though.

[MineralMan]

9. Yup. Always cooked oysters for me these days.

[LuvNewcastle]

25. It's a shame what has happened to our oysters

on the Miss. Gulf Coast. They've been dying ever since the oil spill several years ago. An oysterman told me the other day that oyster season will only last for a week this year. Biloxi used to be one of the biggest oyster producers in the world, but it looks like we're not going to have the them here much longer. We always have seafood for Christmas and we usually fry some oysters, but I don't think we'll be having them this year. They will probably cost more than we're willing to spend.

[exboyfil]

28. I went to high school in Gulfport

Yes that is a shame. Did any of that settlement money went to the oystermen? I wonder what other fisheries we will devastate in the future with "drill, baby, drill".

[LuvNewcastle]

36. I don't know it for a fact, but I think the oystermen

were somewhat compensated. I know some realtors who got checks, so if they could make claims regarding lost business, I'm sure the oystermen had a good claim. Really, all the fishermen suffered from lost business, including the shrimpers. It was such a senseless tragedy. I sure hope they're able to bounce back. I love fresh seafood!

[mindem]

10. Someone once said

that eating a plate full of Lutefisk is akin to eating a plate full of whale snot. I won't touch the stuff. Cod jello - yum.

[Dickster]

11. I tried Lutefisk twice....

Once on the way down, and once on the way up. This is a true story, at age seven, on Christmas Eve at my Grandfathers house. All my cousins were there as well. My dad kept insisting that I eat some of the Lutefisk that had been put on my plate. Finally coerced into taking a bite, I quickly swallowed the slimy mess. About five seconds later it all came back up allover my plate. That ended anymore attempts to force feed us. My cousins have been eternally grateful ever since. When the meal was over, my mother set the remaining plate of Lutefisk outside for the cats to cleanup.They came running, thinking they had a free meal. They all took a sniff of the mess and slunk away.
I have eaten it since then, if it’s done right so that the Lutefisk is flaky, it’s alright with a little butter. If it’s over cooked so that it’s like jello, we’ll then.....

[mn9driver]

12. I like it.

We always go to at least one lutefisk dinner every year. There was a time when you could get it in local restaurants as well. King Oscar’s in Richfield and Pearson’s on 50th did a good job with it. Both those places are gone, though.

[Act_of_Reparation]

14. I feel more or less the same about corned beef and cabbage.

It's not good. It's not even Irish, really. People don't eat it because they like it. If they did, they'd make it any old day of the year, but they don't. They only make it on St. Patrick's Day, because that's when you are supposed to eat corned beef and cabbage.

Tradition is dead peoples' baggage.

[MineralMan]

15. I actually like corned beef, but I can do without the cabbage.

You're right, though, pickled beef isn't really gourmet fare. Done right, though, it can be pretty tasty. A good corned beef sandwich on rye with sauerkraut and brown mustard is pretty good eating, if you pick the right deli. That's available all year. The whole boiled corned beef, potatoes and cabbage thing, though is not my favorite.

That form of pre-refrigeration pickling of beef is another example of a starvation food that has become a tradition.

[Act_of_Reparation]

16. Corned beef from the deli is a different beast.

Corned beef by itself is fine. Corned beef between two pieces of bread can be fantastic. Corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes boiled together into a tasteless amalgam smelling strongly of stale farts? Not appetizing at all.

It's amazing what people will put themselves through (and convince themselves of) because of "tradition".

I'm not a big fan of turkey, for example. When my wife and I moved out to California a million years ago, we decided we weren't going to do turkey for Thanksgiving, in part because I didn't like it and in part because there were only two of us. She made the mistake of telling her parents, who insisted it was improper to eat anything but turkey on Thanksgiving and called up a local restaurant to make us a turkey dinner. I had to grit my teeth and pretend to be appreciative, probably because I'm a more considerate person than either of them.

[MineralMan]

17. Once my mother-in-law got tired of cooking at age 80,

I took over making the family holiday dinners, and banished Turkey. A bone-in Rib Roast for Christmas. For Easter one year, I roasted a leg of lamb. I deliberately didn't tell my wife's family what it was. My mother-in-law knew, but said nothing. so I carved slices of it and served it to her family. They all had seconds. Finally, someone asked what cut of beef it was. I said, "Leg of lamb." Everyone said they didn't like lamb, but they all had dug right in and liked the one I made just fine.

I cooked a couple of geese for one other Christmas. "Those are some scrawny-looking turkeys," one cousin said. Those disappeared quickly, too. Conservative eaters, my wife's family are. But, put food in front of them and they'll eat it and exclaim over it. But, "they don't like lamb, see?"

[trotsky]

18. I grew up a Lutheran of Swedish heritage.

We were more fond of lefse.

[MineralMan]

19. Everybody likes lefse. Yes, indeed!

[marked50]

20. Don't forget the Swedes!!

[MineralMan]

21. Who?

[marked50]

22. Uffda...

[MineralMan]

23. Always, uffda!

[guillaumeb]

24. Making lutefisk should be a crime.

I have eaten plenty of cod since I was a boy. Cod is a great fish, with a thousand great ways to prepare it. making it into jelly is not one of them.

Even better than cod is swordfish.

[Voltaire2]

35. Please don't purchase swordfish.

It has been fished to near extinction and we all should refuse to buy it from anywhere in any form.

[guillaumeb]

38. The last time that I ate it was in 2012 in Boston.

Overfishing is indeed a huge problem. Thank you for the reminder.

[madaboutharry]

26. In Norway the Norwegians will tell you it's gross.

Lutefisk is the Norwegian version of gefilte fish, also gross.

[MineralMan]

27. Exactly. In Norway, they don't eat the stuff.

It's not unusual for immigrants to establish traditions that link back to the hardest of times in the place they came from. Traditional foods that were eaten in hard times become symbolic for them of their heritage and a reminder of why they left. Corned beef is another one of those hardship foods that became a tradition for Irish immigrants.

Back in the home country, often those foods are no longer part of life. It often seems strange to people who still live in those places that people in the US have made them a traditional meal.

[Voltaire2]

34. Gefilte fish at least doesn't stink.

The aroma of lutefisk could wake the dead.

[The Genealogist]

29. Your description does not sound very appetizing

I've heard of the dish, but it just sounds unappetizing. It is not something we see much if any of in SW missouri, we have a sort of mish-mash or southern and Midwestern cuisine, with our own local dishes. I am sure many would think of my town's signature Springfield style cashew chicken to be an abomination, but I crave it all the time. I guess there is no accounting for taste.

[MineralMan]

30. Oh, it's not appetizing at all.

[virgogal]

31. Lots of glogg makes everything taste OK.

[MineralMan]

32. Yuck to that awful stuff, too.

Just my humble opinion, of course.

[Voltaire2]

33. I am friends with a Danish-Philippino couple.

She just leaves the house when he feels the compulsion to celebrate the season.

[Lordquinton]

37. My grandfather did that too

He stopped years before I was born, but they say that weird smell in the garage was from the process.

You the part where it's stored under the woodpile over the winter.