It's That Time Of The Year!

The leaves are all on the ground. The harvest is in and it's time for celebration. Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming soon. But first, all Scandinavians are thinking Lutefisk, the annual traditional feast of Scandinavian history."

   ARE YOU READY FOR SOME LUTEFISK?

Lutefisk (Norwegian) or Lutfisk (Swedish) or Ludfisk (Danish) is a traditional dish of the Nordic countries Lutefisk, long a holiday food tradition among Scandinavian-Americans, is dried  cod, or  even  haddock or pollock.in the United States. Norwegian-Americans traditionally serve it for Thanksgiving and Christmas, but November is known for numerous fish feasts among people with Scandinavian backgrounds. During the fall in Wisconsin, people watch their local newspapers for announcements of lutefisk suppers, which are usually held in Norwegian churches.

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 Usually every Norwegian church will host at least one lutefisk supper between October and the end of the year. The dinners have become so popular, that lovers of the special dish drive great distances,...and these are not just people of Scandinavian descent! They enjoy the taste, despite all the jokes and the strange reputation of this fish!


 But today, Scandinavians in "The Old Country" rarely eat lutefisk. Far more lutefisk is consumed in the United States, much of it in church and lodge basements. In fact, the self-proclaimed “lutefisk capital of the world” isn’t in Norway, but in Minnesota. Madison, Minnesota  is known as the Lutefisk Capital. To document this standing, the city  has a giant fiberglass cod statue named Lou T. Fisk

St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota serves lutefisk during their famous Christmas Festival Concerts. They also host an annual music festival called "Lutefest", however, lutefisk is not served at this festival.

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Today, lutefisk starts as cod, traditionally caught in the cold waters off Norway. It’s then dried to the point that it attains the feel of leather and the firmness of corrugated cardboard. Water alone can’t reconstitute the fish. After a lenghty period of storage, it is soaked in a combination of birch ash, limestone, and water, a combination we know, today, as lye.In years past, this “soaking time” caused the chemical reaction creating the well-known reputation of “stinky fish!” a reputation that prevails today.

At the dinner table,  melted butter sits in ceramic pitchers for easy pouring, though other dinners feature a mustard or cream sauce. Diners often bring their own special salts and peppers to suit their taste. The fish itself is flaky and a slightly translucent white in color. With the added butter or cream, the dish is relished by happy diners. For the faint of heart, there are meatballs and the ever-present lefse.

A pile of rolled lefse, the Scandinavian potato flatbread similar in appearance to a flour tortilla, sits in the center of the table by the sticks of butter and bowls of brown sugar, which is  lefse’s usual dressing. The rest of the meal is a fairly standard slate of starchy seasonal fare: mashed potatoes with gravy, creamy coleslaw, cranberries, green beans and a big bowl of mashed rutabagas .

Lutefisk was not necessarily a Christmas delicacy, but as the Norwegians became Americanized, they seized on lutefisk as a unique remainder from the old days and incorporated it into their Christmas traditions. 

 Norwegian-Americans believe that lutefisk was brought by their ancestors on the ships when they came to America, and that it was all they had to eat. Today, the fish is celebrated in ethnic and religious celebrations and is linked with memories of hardship and courage.

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In the past, preparation of the fish  consisted of soaking the dried fish in a mixture of birch ash, limestone, and water. This process changed the fishmeat, creating a light, easily

 digestible dish high in protein and low in fat. Lutefisk is a perfect food to be included in today's health-conscious diet. However, few can be convinced or eat it for that reason.The real reason is tradition.

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The history of lutefisk dates back to the Vikings. On one occasion, according to one legend, plundering Vikings burned down a fishing village, including the wooden racks with drying cod. The returning villagers poured water on the racks to put out the fire. Ashes covered the dried fish, and then it rained, burying the fish  in the ashes . Digging out the ash-covered fish, the villagers were surprised to see that the dried fish had changed to what looked like fresh fish. They rinsed the fish in water and boiled it.

. The story is that one particularly brave villager tasted the fish and declared it "not bad! While the fish itself , when served, has a “quiet, but distinctive” taste, additives become an important issue! The lutefisk dinner is an annual fall and winter tradition at scores of Lutheran churches and Nordic fraternal groups  throughout the Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest or anywhere with a large Scandinavian-American population.

Our Vennskap lodge has held an annual dinner for the general public for  years, and you are invited!

A typical plate of  lutefisk.

 This will be our 18th Annual Dinner, held this year at Lakeland College, which is located near Plymouth and  Howards Grove, Wisconsin , Sunday, November 11th.. Lutefisk, meatballs, lefse, boiled potatoes, fruit soup,  rømmegrøt ( You’ll love that!) ....and Scandinavian delicacies by the tableful.

 Dinner is served at 2 PM with a full afternoon of festivities including doorprizes donated by 32 organizations. For a “No wait” service, we will have four self-serve food lines to help you carry your extra plates to the tables. Reserved tables are available. For information and tickets, contact Gary Henderson. Phone 1- (920) 467-6473 or  E-mail gwhenderson@charter.net   Information on location, time, menu and accommodations are available.

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Our members have been preparing the dining area and plans are set for another large crowd of happy diners. You are welcome to join us!

Leave room for the delicious Scandinavian pasteries!

The King Has Left The Area

A Minnesota school welcomed Swedish Royalty to their campus, last week.

Gustavus Adolphus College welcomed Their Majesties King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden to their  campus  for a three day visit, Oct. 5-7, of on-campus festivities which included an anniversary, a dedication and attendance at a Nobel Conference. 

  The main event was in celebration of the 150th  anniversary of the founding of the College by Swedish immigrants in 1862. During the Swedish immigration to the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries, about 1.3 million Swedes left Sweden for the United States with a major  contingent settling in the Minnesota area due, in part, to dissenting religious practitioners who widely resented the treatment they received from the Lutheran State Church in Sweden.  Gustavus is the oldest of several Lutheran colleges in Minnesota. It was founded as a  college of the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church, and  in 1962  became a college of the Lutheran Church in America, and is currently ranked among the best 100 national liberal arts colleges by U.S. News and World Report.Gustavus Adolphus College is a private liberal arts college affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America located in St. Peter, Minnesota.

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 A co-educational, four-year residential institution, Gustavus is a school firmly rooted in its Swedish and Lutheran heritage. Originally founded  as a Lutheran  parochial school  at Red Wing, Minn, it was known as the Minnesota Elementar Skola (elementary school in Swedish). In April 1873, it became Gustavus Adolphus, a Literary and Theological Institute named in honor of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.

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While on campus, the royal couple will take part in the dedication of  The Sesquicentennial Plaza, which  features a historic timeline of the College from its founding in 1862 to 2012.

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Closing  last  weeks events, distinguished scholars and researchers in the fields of biogeochemistry, oceanography, deep-sea biology, molecular  genetics, and  coral ecology traveled to Gustavus Adolphus College to take part in the 48th annual Nobel Conference, titled “Our Global Ocean.”

The meetings centered around the marine realm: what we know, what we don’t know, and how we humans rely upon healthy vibrant seas.The marine world provides us with seafood and medicines, fertilizers and petroleum.Today, we know less about our own oceans than we do about the surfaces of other planets in our solar system.For almost five decades, Gustavus has organized and hosted the two-day Nobel
 Conference, which draws about 6,000 people to the college campus in St. Peter, Minn. The conference links a general audience, including high school students and teachers, with the world’s foremost scholars and researchers in discussion centered on contemporary issues relating to the natural and social sciences

Alfred Nobel

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Gustavus remains a major Scandinavian institution in the area featuring  Nobel Laureates and other world-renowned scholars  who share their expertise with the general public.Other important events that bring the royal couple to Gustavus include the Nobel Conference. This annual event was established in the mid-1960s when college officials asked the Nobel Foundation for permission to name their new science building the Alfred Nobel Hall of Science as a memorial to the Swedish inventor, Alfred Nobel . Gustavus remains a major Scandinavian institution in the area featuring  Nobel Laureates and other world-renowned scholars.

King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia attended the Sunday service at the college Christ Chapel as 2,000 people lined the walkway to greet the royal couple. During the service, the king greeted the packed chapel's congregation, stating that he and the queen were proud of the accomplishments and goals of Gustavus Adolphus saying "We are proud of what you have done in the first one hundred fifty years, and we look forward to the coming years."

His Majesty, King Carl XVI  had earlier visited the area in 1976 , helping celebrate the U.S. Bicentennial, and both he and Queen Silvia visited Gustavus in 1982 and 1996.

A Mass Mystery

Thirteen hundred and fifty years ago, in AD 653,. four priests were sent from the kingdom of Northumbria, England to a small town named Repton. Their mission was to convert the Mercian royal family from their paganism so that a royal wedding could take place. Repton, became the first location  where Christianity was first preached in the English Midlands.

Christianity soon spread and, before long, a double abbey had been established. This church of St. Wystan  achieved the status of a royal shrine and its crypt  became used for  royal burials.  Wigstan, was a prince of Mercia who was murdered by his guardian in 849. His remains were buried in the crypt at Repton and miracles were ascribed to them.

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All was quiet and peaceful . However, the tranquility of the Abbey and its religious life was shattered in the winter of 873-4 when the marauding Viking armies, having sailed up the rivers Humber and Trent, decided to land their boats at  their location, having found its dry riverside suitable for making their winter encampment. Residents who came to greet them were greeted by warriors who showed no mercy as they killed all who dared to challenge them.

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 These pagan vikings had no use for the religious building except to incorporate it as a strongpoint in their defensive fortifications. From it,  they dug two deep ditches, both curving round until they enclosed a D-shaped area of some 3.5 acres between the abbey and the river. The Vikings enclosed their camp with a bank and ditch and incorporated the stone church into their defenses.

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 One side of this enclosure was defended by the river Trent, the other sides were defended by earthworks. The tower of the Anglo-Saxon church was used as a gatehouse.Outside of the encampment, to the west, the Vikings had desecrated another Anglo-Saxon mausoleum. They leveled the existing two roomed structure and buried an important warrior in the center of one of the rooms. They placed the bones of at least 250 individuals around this grave and covered it with a mound. The remains were apparently gathered from various graves and heaped in one location.

Bones in disarray

 There were no traces of battle wounds on many, and these people probably died of disease. The bones were collected from their original graves to make this great Viking burial. There are little, if no, grave arrangements except for that of a collection of warrior artifacts surrounding the remains of a long skeleton possibly surrounded by his needs in the next world. The remains of 250 fellow-warriors bones seem to have been of soldiers who had died during the campaign, apparently exhumed and piled in the chamber to lie with the body of their leader.

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 The cause of many of these events is, of course, due to the constant raiding and battles for kingdoms, and plunder,  but one in particular stands out in history. In Norse legend at this Viking-raids period, none was more famous than Norwegian "Ragnar Lodbrok", or “Hairy-Breeches”.   He turned his viking army against Northumbria, England . According to a Scandinavian story, during one of these raids,  he was captured by King Ella of Northumbria, and was thrown into a snake-pit to die. When this news was heard in the Scandinavian area, his four sons vowed to return the favor. Their vicious attack avenged the death of their father by destroying the Northumbria area, and killing the reigning king in a typically gruesome manner. One of these sons was known to be called “Ivar the Boneless”, possibly the brother of “Healfdeane”, one of the leaders of the Viking force at Repton in 873-4. Ivar was noted as a man of exceptional cruelty and ferocity, and his nickname may indicate that he lacked legs, or may simply mean that he was long-legged or tall. It is possible that "Ivan", the avenging son may be the tall Viking skeleton surrounded by his men
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Women had accompanied their men and settled in camp with their families. Many were killed in battle, while others may have died due to  diseases. In time, the raids discontinued and Vikings integrated with the local people of Ireland and England, resulting in the establishment of several English-Scandinavian  cities of Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Waterford

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Women may have accompanied male Vikings in those early invasions of England. Rather than being ravaging rovers, later Viking raiders may have been arriving as marriage-minded colonists. The church of St. Wystan lives on, while the skeletal remains in the area remain unidentified and a mystery.