Now lutefisk is not easy to love, or even like - take my word for it. What's more, it's certainly not easy to explain. It's actually cod fish caught in the cold water of the North Atlantic that is hung over wooden racks to dry until it tinkles in the breezes like a crystal wind chime. It can be kept indefinitely in this manner, and often is. When one gets the urge to eat lutefisk, it's soaked in water for a number of days, then in a lye solution - yes - I said LYE - and then in water again. If you're a commercial dealer you then package it and sell it to "customers" who bring it home and either boil it or bake it, loaded with butter.
Why a soak in lye solution you ask? This breaks down the dried cell walls and allows them to absorb water which turns this fish into a gel-like mass that wiggles like white jello. MOST ScandiHOOvians go crazy over this, but not this one!
When I was a kid lutefisk was a Christmas tradition. And at that time (back in the dark ages) you bought your lutefisk still in the dried form. Nowadays, the commercial processors do all that rehydrating for you. You can buy a white mass of gelatinous lutefisk already wrapped in cellophane on a styrofoam tray, ready to bring home to cook and smell up you house. My mother would start looking for "good" lutefisk weeks prior to Christmas so that she could spend two weeks soaking and washing and soaking and washing so it would be ready to prepare on Christmas Eve. My Mom, Dad and older sister drooled over this stuff as it was being prepared, anticipating putting the wiggly, smelly stuff in their mouth and savoring it. My brother and I would run to the farthest point in the house and hide our heads under blankets trying to keep the noxious smell from invading our nostrils. Then we would have to actually sit at the table and watch this jelly-like substance be consumed while we tried not to gag. The rule at our house was that you "had to at least try it." And year after year we would choke down the tiniest morsel and try not to throw it back up.
You can probably guess that as an adult, no lutefisk has EVER crossed the threshold of MY house!!
When Ole and I lived in Iceland we discovered that fishing for cod was the main industry. You could drive for miles and see fish racks hanging full of drying cod tinkling in the breezes.
One of Ole's goals while we lived there was to go out on one of the fishing boats to fish for cod, and we were fortunate enough to have a landlord whose brother was a fishing boat owner.
So one weekend Ole and a buddy were invited to go on a fishing trip in the North Atlantic. Now mind you, this is not at all like going fishing on one of the Minnesota lakes. They went out on a 32-ton round-bottomed fishing boat where on a good day the waves are only 6 feet high. The North Atlantic is not exactly what you call hospitable. And with a round bottom, it only enhances the rolling effect. Ole said he spent a lot of time in the bunk eating crackers. The buddy that went along had spent a lot of time on smaller Navy ships so had a pretty good set of sea legs.
Now, these fishermen work hard when they go to sea - and it was quite evident that when they are not at sea they party pretty hard too. The fishing boat was scheduled to leave port at midnight, and apparently the captain had been enjoying himself a bit to much prior to this. Ole said the captain had been imbibing to the point where he couldn't drive a car, so he rode up to the dock on a horse, jumped off, took over the helm (is that the right word - the steering wheel whatever that is in nautical terms), stuck his head out the window, and without looking at any radar or maps, drove that boat for 12 hours straight out to his fishing nets. Guess his head should have been clear by that time, huh?
And then the work began. Ole was told when they returned to port that the Albert (the boat he was on) had the biggest catch ever - so apparently the Albert's guests brought them luck.
It took Ole two days before he got his land legs back again - it was funny to watch him walking like he was still on the rolling deck of the Albert.
Ta-Da . . . Have a great day - Love, Lena
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