Lutefisk and All Saints
We have a relative from Norway who visits occasionally. Once when I was younger I asked her if she ate lutefisk. She replied, “No! We have freezers now!” Lutefisk is cod that has been soaked in lye and then dried out and stacked like cordwood. When one wants to eat it you simply soak it in water and keep changing the water until it no longer smells like soap. You heat it in boiling water and eat it. It can be a bit jello-like and a bit pungent but smother it in butter and salt and you can at least pretend it is edible. Sound tasty? In protein deprived Norway, living in utter hand-to-mouth poverty until the discovery of North Sea Oil, cod was the only staple. When cod ran through the fjords one had to make hay while the sun shines but without freezers preserving options were very limited. So lutefisk was invented.
Now whoever figured out that one can soak fish in lye, dry it, and eat it later was probably a mad scientist. But, never-the-less, without lutefisk I do not exist. My cousin from Norway reminded me that freezers are a much more civil way to keep cod than lye baths. Most all the lutefisk consumed every year is consumed in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa — not Norway.
I saw a lot of happy people Friday night during our Scandinavian Dinner where lutefisk was served. Many of the patrons said it was excellent lutefisk.
And, I must agree, it was quite good. But I don’t think that’s completely why they were happy. It happened to be All Saints Day, November 1st, and for a great many of the guests they were eating a meal with grandma and grandpa again. They remember family gatherings when they were children when the lutefisk was reverently consumed. Part of the process was that you made jokes about it and acted as if you didn’t like it. But on All Saints Day it was appropriate that they ate and remembered those hard working, stubbornly surviving people whose faithfulness and resourcefulness gave them the chance for life. And as I thought that Friday night before going to sleep I did indeed remember, and miss, my grandma and grandpa, and some aunts and uncles, and all the white food we ate together. I don’t mean ethnically white — literally white! Lutefisk, lefse, krumkake, kransekake, fotigmons, rosettes, sandbakkels, kringla, kumla, boiled potatoes, rommegrot, and a whole lot more. All of these delectables are white. And let’s say that you might have had peas, for color, well make a nice cream sauce to go over it. Sherwin- Williams should make a color palette for white and name it Norwegian Cuisine.
None of us are selfmade people. The life we live, which is relatively easy compared to our ancestors, was built on their hard work, their faithfulness, their resourcefulness, and their love. All Saints Day, a little ancestor food, reminds us that life and love are precious.
In Christ,
