The Scandinavian delicacy known as lutefisk - which means, literally,
"cod soaked in plutonium"- dates to the Viking era. Journals from that era
tell us that Vikings often came ashore and shuffled along with their hands in their
pockets. Their funny appearance (huge,musk ox trousers) and vocabulary (Whooaa! Like
Svenjornssen, dude! Whooaaa!") frightened the villagers.
So one day, women from the Jvoorssen, Bjaastivik and Njorkssen families prepared a
special meal for the Vikings.
First, they gathered cod in the traditional Scandinavian way. That's right, they
wrapped their sturdy arms around the middle sections of seals and squeezed real hard.(This
would later become known as the Heimlich maneuver, which today is used to save the lives
of people who have an entire codfish lodged in their throats.)
After gathering the cod - despite what I may have implied earlier - they did not soak
the fish in plutonium. No, the women really wanted the Vikings to suffer.
So they soaked the cod - here I am not kidding - in lye. The same lye, as you know,
that is an industrial chemical and is used today as a drain cleaner.
With that lutefisk information in my head I went to our village's annual Lutefisk
Dinner recently, a marvelous night of traditional Scandinavian dining put on by the local
Sons of Norway club. The main course, not surprisingly, was the very same delicacy served
to the Vikings.
Anyway, the Vikings ate heartily of this marvelous new food, despite having to chew so
hard and long on the rubbery fish that in many cases, horns actually grew out of their
heads (see encyclopedia drawings).
Textbooks tell us that within a few years the Viking era had ended. Most historians
think the advent of more powerful weapons doomed the proud, sea-faring warriors. But some
historians cling to another theory: It's pretty hard to wander the globe plundering and
pillaging when you cannot wander more than 50 feet from the toilet.
Despite this somewhat negative side-effect - during the Lutefisk Era the Vikings had a
common saying: "Leif Ericson hazzen sparts vection agenn!" ("Leif Ericson
has the sports section again!") - lutefisk actually became popular with the residents
of the Scandinavian countries. This would include Norway, Sweden, Denmark, North Dakota
and Minnysota.
In the centuries since, lutefisk has not only remained a crowd-pleaser among the
Scandinavian people, it has also become important in the training of sled dogs. Today, a
common cry from the musher on the sled - one that causes even a veteran dog to quiver - is
"Vichvun yew moots vants da lutefisk?" or " Which one of you mutts wants da
lutefisk?"
But back to the dinner.
The Sons of Norway should not be confused with a similar-sounding group, the Sons of
Silence. For one thing, the Sons of Silence do not hold a Lutefisk Dinner each year. And,
of course, the Sons of Norway don't wear helmets, goggles and protective leather clothing.
Unless they are preparing lutefisk..
The dinner was to start at 5 p.m. but I arrived at 4:30 remembering the old Norwegian
saying Erly birdin ut letefisk, den dees ("The early bird catches the lutefisk, then
dies.").
The Sons of Norway dress up for big events such as Lutefisk Night. Many women wore the
brightly colored, old-fashioned dresses of Scandinavia. The men looked just as snappy in
their finest herringbone sports jackets - the traditional Scandinavian kind made entirely
of herring bones.
(Important note: So that I do not offend a huge group of people with some of these
cheap, flippant remarks, I'd like to point out right here that Scandinavians are a
strikingly handsome people. This makes them nearly the exact opposite of the English.)
Anyway, at 5 p.m. the eating began. The dinner was held at the Benet Hill Monastery
cafeteria, a facility chosen to host the Lutefisk Dinner because of the warm hospitality
and, of course, because of the monks training in the Last Rites.
Throughout the dinner, an accordion player entertained the crowd with all the
traditional lutefisk-eating songs. This included the very popular "Sven Vood Rather
yeet His Trousers" and the foot-tapping favorite, Ivane, Ivane, Your Lutefisk Has
Cleared My Drain."
The highlight for me came when KUMV-TV reporter Lena Norskfest asked me to speak to a live
TV audience about my experience with lutefisk. She made this request roughly 1.4 seconds
after handing me a plate containing a chunk of lutefisk that was the same size as my head,
along with a plastic fork.
The plastic fork, it turns out, could not cut the lutefisk, which is also used as
roofing material in Denmark.
But because the camera was rolling - and because I could not seem to recall the
Norwegian word for "chainsaw" - I stuffed the entire slab of Sons of Norway
lutefisk into my mouth and swallowed.
Well, I've got to wrap this up now. Seems another guy also had a bit too much lutefisk.
I say this because he is presently screaming "Oh , Good Lard! Ven vill yew be dun
in dare?" and ramming his head against the door so hard that it it making the seat
vibrate. |