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If only 1/16th of the blood flowing in your veins has been spiked by a Norwegian, you might appreciate the following testament. If other parts of your heritage carry bigger fractions, take a look around and don't feel so sorry for yourself. Things can always be worse.
I am happy to report that, for the very first time in 35 years, my husband and I found a lutefisk dinner this holiday season and we were pleased as Vikings to come upon it. We each grew up in rural southwestern Minnesota with church dinners that featured lutefisk and lefse in December.
I admit that we haven't popped veins to find lutefisk dinners these past three decades in "the cities." I do boil or bake it at home, after all, so I'm not missing out, but here's my comment: Nobody has ever tried to entice us to attend lutefisk dinners. Entice? No one has offered it or even suggested it.
Here in Victoria, people have been pushing brats and kraut and German potato salad ever since I can remember. They have appeared on plates served at one time or another by every organiza-tion, club, and church in town.
Other nationalities have also not been shy. For example, at every joint here and near, the Irishmen push green beer on March 17th. Italians push pizza like it's the next best thing to the pieta. Mexicans push tacos and enchiladas. You can't go to a county fair anymore without running into a Greek gyro or a Shrimp cocktail. Thai and Japanese and Chinese restaurants abound. And, finally, Frenchmen have been pushing their fried sticks into every clogged artery for decades.
But do you ever hear of a Lutefisk Lounge? No. You don't hear of Norwegians pushing anything. They just keep forking lutefisk into their faces all by themselves.
My husband's Norwegian fraction is 14/16, which can be reduced to 7/8 if you don't count so many of the ancestors. If Allan's mother hadn't been born to a blood relative of Robert Louis Stevenson, the Orsen boy might have increased his Norwegian percentage. But all of that is water under the London Bridge.
Is it pertinent to reveal my own personal fraction? Truth demands it. My own personal Norwegian fraction is 4/16, or 1/4th in simplest terms, which is not a tiny amount. Even Dove soap brags about being 1/4th cleansing crème. But I believe only Ivory soap is 99.9% pure.
Most of the time that I ate lutefisk as a little girl, I was seated at our own kitchen table on the farm near Ghent, Minnesota, not at church dinners. It was a pretty big table -- rectangular, dark oak, varnished, four corner legs -- and Mom often cut a new oil table cloth for Christmas.
Four of us kids, including me, sat on the bench against the wall. Three smaller kids sat on chairs and high chairs across from us. Mom sat at the table about the time the rest of us were ready for a bowl of canned bing cherry sauce. Dad sat at the head of the table. It's the only place he fit. It was a good place.
The smell of lutefisk never repelled me. Its texture attracted me. Its flavor kept me coming back for more. And then, in ninth grade, I came upon the 7/8 Norwegian from Minneota. He didn't smell like lutefisk, though. He smelled like English Leather.
"Coming upon it" makes it sound like an accident that Allan and I came upon our lutefisk dinner this past Saturday, December 18th. It was not an accident. I had done an internet search with two key words - lutefisk and Minneapolis - which popped the names of a couple churches and restaurants onto the screen.
I could see we had already missed the church dinners, so I made a reservation at Pearson's in Edina. The lutefisk was fabulous, delicious, delightful. The atmosphere was genteel. The fireplace was enchanting. The service was exquisite. The white cloth napkins left white lint all over my black pants.
It was only three days later that the Norwegian fraction became even bigger for our family. On Tuesday, December 21st, our daughter Jenny and her husband Christopher Thor Norgaard gave birth to their first son, wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and gave him the name Gunnar Ray. The little tyke carries a pretty big fraction for someone his size, maybe something like 30/32.
Gunnar and his sweet sister, little Miss Addie Sue, are just as cute and cuddly as anything you'd ever hold in your arms, including a plate of lutefisk, but, above all, the little sweethearts are inclined to good will toward all men. I've come to see it in many of those with a Norwegian heritage, especially those who hang out at the Torske Klubben with Allan.
"Gunnar" is a moniker not found in the Belgian community where I was born and raised. In Ghent there were a lot of names like Susan, Barbie, Nancy, Bernie, Louie, Matt, and Paul. We mostly looked and acted alike and minded our own business, too, but got a little pushy with those Belgian Cookies sometimes.
All in all, I do think highly of all. So give me a string of brats and toss those tacos in my direction. Give me a pot of chow mein and an assortment of sushi. Give me extra cheese on my pizza and ketchup on my French fries. I know not what course others may take, but as for me at Christmas time, give me lutefisk or give me death!
~Sue
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