O Lutefisk

[June Pelo Senior Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close June Pelo]

I shared this with some friends and they wrote that they enjoyed singing it and plan to sing it again at Christmas. It's getting closer to that time.

June
O Lutefisk

O Lutefisk.. O Lutefisk.. How fragrant your aroma.
O Lutefisk.. O Lutefisk.. You put me in a coma.
You smell so strong.. you look like glue.
You taste yust like an overshoe.
But Lutefisk.. come Saturday
I tink I'll eat you anyvay.

O Lutefisk.. O Lutefisk.. I put you by the door vay.
I wanted you to ripen up..yust like dey do in Norvay.
A dog came by and sprinkled you.. I hit him vid an army shoe.
O Lutefisk.. now I suppose
I'll eat you as I hold my nose.

O Lutefisk.. O Lutefisk.. How vell I do remember
On Christmas eve how we'd receive.. our big treat of December.
It vasn't turkey or fried ham.. it vasn't even pickled spam.
My mudder knew dere vas no risk..
In serving buttered lutefisk.

O Lutefisk.. O Lutefisk.. now everyone discovers
Dat Lutefisk and lefse makes.. Norvegians better lovers.
Now all da vorld can have a ball.. you're better dan dat Yeritol.
O Lutefisk.. vid brennevin..
You make me feel like Errol Flynn.

O Lutefisk .. O lutefisk .. You have a special flavor.
O Lutefisk .. O lutefisk .. All good Norwegians savor.
That slimy slab we know so well .. Identified by that ghastly smell
O Lutefisk .. O lutefisk .. Our loyalty won't waver.

O Lutefisk...O lutefisk...When my poor heart stops beating
The pearly gates will open wide, I'll see the angels eating
From steaming platters of the stuff, and there will always be enough.
O piece of cod that I adore, O lutefisk forevermore!

(May be sung to the tune of "O Tannenbaum")
By "Red" Stangland

Here's an easy way to prepare Lutefisk:

Lutfisk

Ingredients:
Lutfisk

Directions:
In the oven.
Place the fish skin side down in a roasting pan or an ovenproof dish.
Sprinkle with salt, and cover with a lid or aluminum foil. Bake at 300°C
for about 30-40 minutes.

In the microwave oven.
Place the fish, skin side down, in a covered dish suitable for microwave
cooking. Sprinkle with salt, and cover. For best results, cook 1 lb at a
time. Cook 1-lb fish for 6 minutes at 600 watts. Check to see whether the
fish is cooked. Thick pieces may require another 2 minutes, perhaps more.
Let the fish stand for 5 minutes before serving.

Traditionally the Swedes serve it with boiled potatoes and cream sauce. Some people serve it with black pepper, dash of allspice and dash of mustard.

[Margaret Rader Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Margaret Rader]

lutefisk

Your friends may plan to sing it but do they plan to eat it?

I'm finding this tradition very hard to pass on, but my brother and I do eat it every Christmas Eve, and others take ceremonial tastes.

Margaret

[Hasse Admin Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Hasse]

Lutfisk

If my wife even considers having lutfisk for christmas I shall in my turn consider emigration or at least removing myself from our house until the smell settles. Can't tolerate the smell!

Btw June. Thanks for putting this under chit-chat and not in the same forum as the recipes... Lutfisk doesn't belong in the kitchen!

[June Pelo Senior Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close June Pelo]

Lutfisk

Yes, we've eaten it all our lives and like it. I admit it doesn't smell good, but that doesn't affect the taste. Our family just never could get enough of it, so we had to cook large quantities of it. When I was growing up the Scandinavian churches all served it at church suppers around Christmas time. And some of my friends used to have Lutfisk suppers in their homes and invited all their friends over. I suppose the younger generation (anyone below age 60) never developed a liking for it. Too bad. I wish I had saved an article someone sent me from a Duluth newspaper about how many tons of lutfisk are sold around there each year. Most of my relatives in Finland and Sweden said they prepare and serve it the same way we do here. My Norwegian friends serve it with melted butter.

June

[Gita Wiklund Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Gita Wiklund]

lutfisk

Hi,

The few times I had lutfisk my impression has been that the fish itself doesn´t taste anything at all. But sometimes the sauce is tasty.

Gita

[June Pelo Senior Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close June Pelo]

Lutfisk

Yes, I agree. The fish has no taste. It's the smell that turns people off. And the cream sauce is rather bland as it is seasoned only salt and pepper. I've heard that some people add cheese to the white sauce, but I've never tried it.

I wonder if the smell is caused by the way the fish is cured? As a child I can remember the fish was hard and dry and had to be softened by soaking in water that had to be changed every day. Now it can be purchased frozen and there's no soaking and changing of water required. My uncle worked in a fish market and brought us the big fish when they received it from the supplier. There were a lot of Scandinavians in our town and they bought all the fish as soon as it came into the market.

June

[Gita Wiklund Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Gita Wiklund]

lutfisk

I wonder if the smell is caused by the way the fish is cured?

Could be + I wonder if it is so healthy for you to eat this fish...
It´s probably so that this fish is surrounded with nostalgic memories, people keep eating it only because it is an old tradition.
The same as with surströmming, that really smells awful. That fish I would never even get close to.

[June Pelo Senior Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close June Pelo]

Lutfisk

Whether it's healthy or not, people have been eating it for hundreds of years and I've never heard of anyone dying from it!

I knew a Swedish seaman who once mentioned surströmming and how terrible it smelled - but he said it tasted so good

June

[Gita Wiklund Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Gita Wiklund]

surströmming

but he said it tasted so good

Yes, they all say! ...but I don´t believe them. Actually, my husband has tasted it and he say it mostly tastes very salty. He says that he prefers to eat chips when he feels for something salty. I know others who claims they love it, but it seems to me it´s more like they love the coming together around something most people find disgusting; like it sort of creates a special bond between them. In Sweden in August most people gather around a table loaded with crayfish. But some make it a surströmming-party instead.

Gita

[blbartlett Registered Find all posts View Profile Close blbartlett]

Lutefisk

My Grandmother Jackson (Hedda Sophia Almgren from Lohja) cooked in a boarding house in Mullan, Idaho. When I was a child in the 40's I watched her prepare the Lutefisk for holiday meals. This is a clip from my personal Memory Cookbook:

Lutefisk as prepared by Gram Jackson

Dry codfish
Water
Lye

To prepare the lutefisk required at least two weeks’ time. She placed the fish in clean cold water and let it remain for one week, changing the water every day. (There was a wooden trough behind the boarding house for this purpose. ) Then, for every four or five pounds of fish, she used about one teaspoon of lye with enough fresh water to cover the fish. The fish stood in this solution for three or four days. The solution was then poured off and clean water was poured over the fish. She changed this water daily for another three or four days. The fish was then ready to be prepared for the table. She placed the fish in boiling salted water for a very short time. It was served with melted butter.

[sune Registered Find all posts View Profile Close sune]

Lute fish

Hi you all
I'm with Hasse on lute fish. I can't be healthy. I remember the fish store in my childhood. The dryed cod or coley was soaking in lye to soften it up. (lute fish translates as lye fish and it's a lie that it tastes good). The smell was awful.
Then my mother bought one of these fishes and soaked it in water to take out the poisonous lye. After that it was cooked like June describes.
My father has told me how his mother bought the dry fish, hard as a birch log and made lye from ashes.
Now it is bough ready soaked in a plastic wrapping. You punch a few holes in the wrapping and cook in water with wrapping and all.

The Norwegians dried the fish, because it was the only way to preserve it for export. It was exported in vas quantities especially to catholic countries whrer it was used as food during the fast, for example before easter.

I have never understood why we lutherans eat cahtolic mortifying food as a christmas delight.

early season's greetings to you all
Sune

[June Pelo Senior Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close June Pelo]

Lutfisk

I just wrote to one of our members in Canada about all these lutfisk stories and he said this:

I love Lutefisk and have it on my birthday in January. We changed to my birthday since my parents died. Our kids like it too, but
not my wife. The smell permeating the house is a perfume of absolute glory. We pay about $50.00 for 2 kilos but even at $100.00 it is worth it. my dad used to Lute it himself every Christmas, and Swede-Finns were invited for the dinner and skinka med risgrynsgröt med en smurru av russin i det med smör på toppen. Oi joi vad det smakka bra!!!!!

June

[Gita Wiklund Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Gita Wiklund]

risgrynsgröt

Risgrynsgröt är gott!
What about Kålrotslåda? It´s most important for me on the X-mas table.

[Hasse Admin Administrator Find all posts View Profile Close Hasse]

Låda - at Xmas...

Gita

We never had "lådor" back home, but nowadays lådor belong to our xmas tradition. My wife took this tradition with her and I'm happy she did.

Potatislåda (sweetened potato?), morotslåda (carrots), kålrotslåda (rutabaga?) and ham. Rosolli and "sill" (baltic heering) and "juldricka" to drink with it. The juldricka we now make is a strange recipe, we mix low-% beer ("pilsner") with coke (50-50). Sounds silly but it is good. Not really a "Alsterwasser" like the Germans do it but something similar.

Risgrynsgröt belongs to the tradition but isn't my favourite.

[Gita Wiklund Registered Find all posts View Profile Close Gita Wiklund]

juldricka etc

The juldricka we now make is a strange recipe, we mix low-% beer ("pilsner") with coke (50-50)

It sounds like a kind of "mumma", it´s very common to make mumma for xmas in Sweden. There are lots of diferent recipes with more or less alcohol included.

I also have morotslåda (love it!) but haven´t yet made potatislåda. Sill is also on my table every year. Nowadays I skip the ham, I stopped eating meat about 8 years ago, so instead I make soya- "meat"balls and other dishes made from soya or quorn, fish and vegetables.