What follows was cloned (and edited) from a newsgroup piece from 1994 authored by
Clay Shirky and also contains a few of my own thoughts about "lutefisk."
First my comments:
Every country has its culinary specialties. Lutefisk is the first one that comes to
mind, but that's just because of my Norwegian heritage. I remember my grandmother
speaking lovingly to my grandfather about this: "Don't you dare bring that smelly
stuff into my kitchen! Take it down to the church basement and cook it there!"
Other foods fitting this particular genre might be Scottish Haggis or Australian
Vegemite.
Now, let's find out about lutefisk, shall we? In a single phrase, lutefisk is "codfish
soaked in lye."
It is a centuries-old Yuletide delicacy in Norway, Denmark and
Sweden. Almost anyone of Scandinavian descent has fond memories of the
steaming hot plate placed so lovingly in front of them on Christmas Eve;
mushing up the glob of jellied cod into their mashed potatoes, topping it
with good greasy bacon gravy, dolloping some dried green peas on the side
and covering the whole concoction with mustard and pepper. A lot of pepper.
That being said, here is Clay Shirky's piece about this favorite Norwegian food:
From: clays@panix.com (Clay Shirky)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Ode to Lutefisk (Long)
Date: Sun, 04 Dec 1994 09:11:19 -0500
It is my habit when travelling to forgo the touristic in favor of the real,
to persuade my kind hosts, whoever they may be, that an evening in the
local, imbibing pints of whatever the natives use as intoxicants, would be
more interesting than another espresso in another place called Cafe Opera.
Highest among my interests is the Favorite Dish: the plate, cup, or bowl
of whatever stuff my hosts consider most representative of the region's
virtues. As I just finished a week's work in Oslo, this dish was of course
lutefisk.
The Norwegians are remarkably single-minded in their attachment to the
stuff. Every one of them would launch themselves into a hydrophobic frenzy
of praise on the mere mention of the word. Though these panegyrics were as
varied as they were fulsome, they shared one element in common. Every
testimonial to the recondite deliciousness of cod soaked in lye ended with
the phrase "...but I only eat it once a year."
When I pressed my hosts as to why they would voluntarily forswear what
was by all accounts the tastiest fish dish ever, 364 days a year,
each of them said "Oh, you can't eat lutefisk more than once a year."
(Their unanimity on this particular point carried with it the same finality
as the answers you get when casually asking a Scientologist about L. Ron's
untimely demise.)
Despite my misgivings from these interlocutions however, there was nothing
for it but to actually try the stuff, as it was clearly the local delicacy.
A plan was hatched whereby my hosts and I would distill ourselves to a
nearby brasserie, and I would order something tame like reindeer steak, and
they would order lutefisk. The portions at this particular establishment
were large, they assured me, and when I discovered for myself how
scrumptious jellied fish tasted, I could have an adequate amount from each
of their plates to satiate my taste for this new-found treat.
Ah, but the best laid plans... My hostess, clearly feeling in a holiday
mood (and perhaps further cheered by my immanent departure as their house
guest) proceeded to order lutefisk all round.
"But I was going to order reinde..."
"Nonononono," she said, "you must have your own lutefisk. It would be rude
to bring you to Norway and not give you your own lutefisk."
My mumbled suggestion that I had never been one to stand on formality went
unnoticed, and moments later, somewhere in the kitchen, there was a
lutefisk with my name on it.
The waitress, having conveyed this order to the chef, returned with a
bottle and three shot glasses and spent some time interrogating my host.
He laughed as she left, and I asked what she said.
"Oh she said 'Is the American really going to eat lutefisk?' and when I
told her you were, she said that it takes some time to get used to it."
"How long?" I asked.
"Well, she said a couple of years." replied my host.
In the meantime, my hostess was busily decanting a clear liquid into the
shot glass and passing it my way. When I learned that it was aquavit
(a spice-flavored potato vodka), I demurred, as I intended to get some
writing done on the train.
"Oh no," said my hostess, donning the smile polite people use when giving
an order, "you must have aquavit with lutefisk."
To understand the relationship between aquavit and lutefisk, here's an
experiment you can do at home. In addition to aquavit, you will need a
slice of lemon, a cracker, a dishtowel, ketchup, a piece of lettuce, some
caviar, and a Kit-Kat candy bar.
1. Take a shot aquavit.
2. Take two. (They're small.)
3. Put a bit of caviar on a bit of lettuce.
4. Put the lettuce on a cracker.
5. Squeeze some lemon juice on the caviar.
6. Pour some ketchup on the Kit-Kat bar.
7. Tie the dishtowel around your eyes.
If you can taste the difference between caviar on a cracker and ketchup on
a Kit-Kat while blindfolded, you have not had enough aquavit to be ready
for lutefisk. Return to step one.
The first real sign of trouble was when a plate arrived and was set in
front of my host, sitting to my left. It contained a collection of dark and
aromatic food stuffs in a variety of textures. Having steeled myself for an
encounter with a pale jelly, I was puzzled at its appearance, and I leaned
over to get a better look.
"Oh," said my host, "that's not lutefisk. I changed my mind and ordered the
juletid plate. It is pork and sausages."
"But you're leaving for New York tomorrow, so tonight is your last chance
to have lutefisk this year" I pointed out.
"Oh well," he said, cutting into what looked like a very tasty pork chop.
Shortly thereafter the two remaining plates arrived, each containing the
lutefisk itself, boiled potatoes, and a mash of peas from which all the
color had been expertly tortured. There was also a garnish of a slice of
cucumber, a wedge of lemon, and a sliver of red pepper.
"This is crazy!" said my hostess, snatching the garnish off her plate.
"What's wrong," I asked, "not enough lemon?"
"No, a plate of lutefisk should be totally gray!"
Indeed, with the removal of the garnish, it was totally gray, and waiting
for me to dig in. There being no time like the present, I tore a forkful
away from the cod carcass and lifted it to my mouth.
"Wait," said my host, "you can't eat it like that!"
"OK," I said, "how should I eat it?"
"Mash up your potatoes, and then mix a bit of lutefisk in, and then add
some bacon." he said, handing me a tureen filled to the brim with bacon
bits floating in fat.
I began to strain some of the bits out of the tureen. "No, not like that,
like this" he said, snatching up the tureen and pouring three fingers of
pure bacon grease directly over the beige mush I had made from the potatoes
and lutefisk already on my plate.
"Now can I eat it?"
"No, not yet, you have to mix in the mustard."
"And the pepper" added my hostess, "you have to have lutefisk with lots and
lots of pepper. And then you have to eat it right away, because if it gets
cold its horrible."
They proceeded to add pepper and mustard in amounts I felt were more
appropriate to ingredients rather than flavors, but no matter. At this
point what I had was an under cooked hash brown with mustard on it, flavored
with a little bit of lutefisk. "How bad could it be?" I thought to myself
as I lifted my fork to my mouth.
The moment every traveller lives for is the native dinner where, throwing
caution to the wind and plunging into a local delicacy which ought by
rights to be disgusting, one discovers that it is not only delicious but
that it also contradicts a previously held prejudice about food, that it
expands ones culinary horizons to include surprising new smells, tastes,
and textures.
Lutefisk is not such a dish.
Lutefisk is instead pretty much what you'd expect of jellied cod; it is a
foul and odiferous goo, whose gelatinous texture and rancid oily taste are
locked in spirited competition to see which can be the more responsible for
rendering the whole completely inedible.
How to describe that first bite? It's a bit like describing passing a
kidney stone to the uninitiated. If you are talking to someone else who has
lived through the experience, a nod will suffice to acknowledge your shared
pain, but to explain it to the person who has not been there, mere words
seem inadequate to the task. So it is with lutefisk. One could bandy about
the time honored phrases like "nauseating sordid gunk", "unimaginably
horrific", "lasting psychological damage", but these seem hollow when
applied to the task at hand. I will have to resort to a recipe for a kind
of metaphorical lutefisk, to describe the experience. Take marshmallows
made without sugar, blend them together with overcooked Japanese noodles,
and then bathe everything liberally in acetone. Let it marinate in cod liver
oil for several days at room temperature. When it has achieved the
appropriate consistency (though the word "appropriate" is somewhat
problematic here), heat it to just above lukewarm, sprinkle in thousands of
tiny, sharp, invisible fish bones, and serve.
The waitress, returning to clear our plates, surveyed the half-eaten goo I
had left.
She nodded conspiratorially at me, said something to my host, and left.
"What'd she say?, I asked.
"Oh, she said 'I never eat lutefisk either. It tastes like python.'"
"I think my mistake was in using the dishtowel. You need to drink
enough aquavit so you can't tell the difference between caviar on
a cracker and ketchup on a Kit-Kat with your eyes open."