Lutefisk

A commercial on the radio last week, complete with they-did-their-best Norwegian accents told of the upcoming Lutefisk Dinner at the First Lutheran Church in Havre.

Lutefisk. I’ve heard of it but didn’t really know what it was and what I’d heard wasn’t particularly favorable. I mentioned it to my gardener. He didn’t know what it was either and didn't seem very enthused about eating it. Whatever it was.

But, since we both love fish, how bad could it be? We decided we’d give it a try. We paid our $13 per plate and got in line in the church hall. As we passed the tables filled with people eating and talking and laughing, I eyed the plates of food and tried to figure out why everyone had potatoes, meatballs and cabbage on their plate, but no fish. We also saw a plate of tortillas on each table.

Wait. Tortillas??

I said to my gardener, “We’re going to have to ask somebody about this, ‘cause this ain’t no barbacoa!”

Sure enough, when we got to the servers, the first gentleman put chunks of boiled potatoes on my plate. Mmm, I love boiled potatoes. The next server put several meatballs on my plate and spooned some delicious brown gravy over them and my potatoes. My only thought was “Meatballs and fish?” The third server spooned something very white and very wiggly onto my plate. Aha. What I thought was cabbage was the fish. Hmm.

We sat down to a nicely decorated table that had several things on it that to me, didn't seem to make sense. A bowl of sugar. A container of cinnamon. A pitcher of melted butter. A dish with a stick of butter on it. A bowl of cranberry sauce. A dish of coleslaw. And then there was that plate of tortillas.

My gardener and I got an education right there in the Lutheran Church hall, yes we did.

Lutefisk (pronounced LEWD-uh-fisk) literally translated means “lye (lute) fish (fisk)”. It is a traditional dish of the Nordic countries made from dried cod which has been soaked in lye and water for up to 12 days. This rehydrates the fish which is then cooked by steaming until done.

Up until six months ago we were living just 10 miles from the Mexico border. If there are tortillas on the table, you grab one, fill it with whatever is on your plate (rice, beans, meat, potatoes, whatever), roll it up and chow down. So, that’s what we did… with the lefse. Lefse is a very thin potato pancake – or more like a crepe - that is usually eaten (by everyone except us) smeared with butter then sprinkled liberally with sugar and cinnamon.

So we found out about the lefse, bowl of sugar, cinnamon and stick of butter, but what about the pitcher of melted butter? A lot of people like it poured over their lutefisk. Ah, yes, it did help somewhat. The food was delicious – yes, even the lutefisk but you had to get by the very gelatinous texture. I think this is one of those foods that you might need to start eating as a child to be able to really appreciate it. Dessert was a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a very tasty and crisp butter cookie.

Plates clean, we left the hall. My gardener and I agreed that we probably wouldn’t be attending the First Lutheran Church Lutefisk Dinner next year, but you never know... those tortillas with cinnamon and sugar were really good.

So, tell me... have you eaten lutefisk?