Lutefisk: Minnesota dish lives on despite taste
December 21, 2012 at 7:05 am in Grand Forks Herald
Dozens of Minnesota Scandinavians and the people who love them flock to the VFW Club in Litchfield every Thursday from November through January, where a $20 bill will get you a big steaming hunk of the frequently mocked fish dish known as lutefisk. Continue Reading
Haven’t had it for a long time, but I remember a “Hagar The Horrible” cartoon where everyone was at one end of the ship so the other end was way out of the water and Hagar says, “Come on now…Sombody has to sleep on the end with the Lutifisk” Pretty much says it all…
Like or Dislike:
10 
5
When I was in high school I was fortunate enough to get to visit Norway.. I stayed with a family in Trondheim. When I asked them about Lutefisk all I heard was laughter with the statement ‘Only Americans eat that stuff’..
I remember my sister completely saturating the house with that smell when I was young.. I don’t/won’t eat it.. It is the ‘smell’!
Like or Dislike:
12 
5
Lutefisk is the product of a need to preserve cod. You dump it a barrel of brine. With the advent of refrigeration, the brine went the way of the buggy whip. It’s a great example of how tradition lives on among the descendants of immigrants, while in the home country it’s long disappeared.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
19 
3
Don’t forget that it isn’t a normal brine.. The brine they use contains lye, which is what causes the flesh to turn into the gelatin like consistency.
I love a nice white fish, but this.. Isn’t it.. lol
Like or Dislike:
10 
5
Lye one could make if you had wood ashes by leaching the ashes. Salt was another way to preserve fish but took money. Seems God had a sense of humor and countries tend to either have fish or salt. So much of early trade was fish for salt and salt for fish.
Much of New England was cleared for lye. You could pay a man a few dollars for doing the work of cutting, burning and making lye, and sell the lye for more than his wages.
Lye is used for a lot of other foods, just people don’t know it since it isn’t in the name, even authentic pretzels use lye as do things like Asian dumplings and yellow noodles, and of course there is hominy, which every C store has today as corn nuts. Then of course there are the foods prepared using lye, chocolate, ice cream, and olives all commonly use lye.
Like or Dislike:
9 
3
In ancient times salt was a valuable commodity. Roman soldiers were paid with it (“sale”). It’s where we get the word “salary.”
Like or Dislike:
12 
2
That is the same thing the Norwegian students on campus at UND said. They said the same thing about lefse also.
Like or Dislike:
7 
6
I wonder if they still make krumkaka, rosettes, and sandebackles in Norway, or if that’a another lost tradition.
Like or Dislike:
10 
3
Isn’t this why we invaded Iraq? Weapons of mass destruction. If lutefisk does not classify as a WMD nothing does.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
16 
1
I love fish; especially cod fish. I have tried lutefisk about five times and I HATE IT !!!
Like or Dislike:
6 
8
Whitey’s used to serve finnan haddie. They poached it and it stunk up the place. I can smell it now. People would saturate it in drawn butter … to kill the taste I would imagine. Canadians would order it … that and beef liver and onions or fish and chips (walleye and french fries). The first time I was asked for vinegar for someone’s french fries I was shocked but they love their vinegar.
Like or Dislike:
12 
1
Love vinegar on fries.. yum..
Like or Dislike:
11 
3
In the olden days they used to leave lutefisk outside of the store to “cure”. Dogs had to pee on it to give it the flavor. Yum!
Like or Dislike:
9 
7
That was to improve The flavor.
Like or Dislike:
4 
0
I gave some lutefisk to my dog once and he had to lick himself to get the taste out of his mouth.
Like or Dislike:
6 
1
Poor dental health in the old days probably explains the popularity of lutefisk and lefse.
Like or Dislike:
4 
5
60+ year later, my mother is still angry with my paternal grandmother for cooking lutefisk in her brand new cast aluminum pans and wrecking them.
“If you overcook it, even by a minute or two, it’s going to take on a kind of unappealing jelly consistency,”
ABSOLUTELY TRUE!!!
My uncle had a lady friend that could cook lutefisk perfectly. Although it wasn’t exactly flaky…it was firm and not at all like the goo you get at those mass feeding places.
Lutefisk is definitely an accquired taste. Some of us accquired it pretty early in life….after being told we couldn’t leave the table till we cleaned our plate.
Like or Dislike:
4 
0