Lutefisk question...
NICHOLAS E KUEFLER
don't mean how is it prepared in the kitchen, I want to know how it is
made in the first place.
Nick in Florida
One-eighth Norwegian
Sturle Fladmark
> So, does Lutefisk taste as bad as it smells?
No.
(ok, so i love it. If you don't, it will taste
like salty jellyfish with a distinct taste of soap.)
:)
> How exactly is it made?
Dried cod is soaked in a lye solution
(for best result: made of birch ashes).
--
Sturle Fladmark
<URL:http://www.btinternet.com/~a.field/sounds/bigballs.wav>
Deborah Griffin Bly
bigballs_l...@Bigfoot.com (Sturle Fladmark) wrote:
> NICHOLAS E KUEFLER <nek...@garnet.acns.fsu.edu> wrote:
>
> > So, does Lutefisk taste as bad as it smells?
>
> No.
>
well, opinions might differ here and there...
fondly
Deb
* * * *
* * *STILL the tasteful little sig block of dg...@poopity.com*
* *
* * * *
Trygve Sandven Håland
>So, does Lutefisk taste as bad as it smells? How exactly is it made? I
>don't mean how is it prepared in the kitchen, I want to know how it is
>made in the first place.
A far more important question is why is it made?
Whatever can make a person think that "if I soak this cod in some lye for a
few years, it must taste wonderful!"?
Trygve S. Håland
PockGockAmock
NICHOLAS E KUEFLER wrote in message <74h24g$qv4$1...@news.fsu.edu>...
>So, does Lutefisk taste as bad as it smells? How exactly is it made? I
>don't mean how is it prepared in the kitchen, I want to know how it is
>made in the first place.
As we are in the lutefisk time, I come again to ask for a long poem, written
by some scn-er, perhaps 2 years ago, about lutefisk. Did anyone keep it?
PGa
Neil Savage
<MAIL_ADDRES...@bitcon.no> writes...
>Whatever can make a person think that "if I soak this cod in some lye for a
>few years, it must taste wonderful!"?
>
OK, joke time:
A local radio station broadcasts a weekly home help program, where
listeners call in with problems and get assistance from experts.
A lady called in for advice on a problem with skunks that had taken up
residence under her porch. Was she careful to keep the grounds free
garbage and trash? Yes, she had done that. So, then she was advised
to get some fish from the local market that was about to be thrown
out (as past its selling date), soak that fish in lye, and put the
resulting 'product' under the porch where the skunks were.
The next week she called back. She was having no more problems with
skunks but wanted advice on what to do about all the Norwegians.
:-)
John Ahlstrom
alt.folklore.urban. It was recently reposted to rec.arts.wobegon, but
I thought this group might appreciate it as well....
--- Forwarded message follows ---
From: cl...@panix.com (Clay Shirky)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Ode to Lutefisk (Long)
It is my wont when traveling 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. Chiefest among my interests is the
Favorite Dish: the plate, cup, or bowl of whatever stuff my hosts
consider most representative of the regions virtues. As I just
finished a week's work in Oslo, this dish was of course lutefisk.
(snd f/x: organ music in minor key - crescendo and out.)
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 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 brassiere, 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 newfound treat.
Ah, but the best laid plans... My hostess, clearly feeling in a
holiday mood (and perhaps further cheered by my imminent 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, 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 of 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. Its 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, tucking 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 bullshit!" 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, it's 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 undercooked 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 traveler 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? Its a bit like describing passing a
kidneystone 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 the whole 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.'"
*************************
Clay:
"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"
Shirky
--
Add Simplicity
adapted from
Heinemann's "Add Lightness"
emat...@tomatoweb.com
shark buried in the sand for a period—to bring out it's secret flavor. My
sister told me she met a man in Eureka, California—a Norwegian—who boasted
that he ate fish every day of his life (he was eighty something).
Shall we bring up the littany of odourous foods of the world—and how their
cultural afficiandos suffered the brunt of jokes for it! We can start with
the cheeses—rotting milk products that produce the awesome wonders of the
pallete, and move on to the yogurts, and even the world's best beef steaks
that are carved off a hanging cow's corpse that has turned grey/green with
some sort of rot.
My grandmother, Emma Tuominem, would take the best part of the salmon—the tips
(that greasy triangle of meat just behind the gills)—soak them in lye (brine)
for three or four days before she baked them. My mouth waters at the memory,
and I stupidly didn't ask her to teach me how it was done.
My mouth also waters when reading this interesting thread about Lutefisk. Do
you all realize that this recepi comes to us from the distant past—from an age
without refrigerators and livlihoods depending on the genius of food
preservation? Of course you do. We are emeshed in history. And finaly, I want
to add, all fisherman smell like fish (except when they are unemployed).
Erkki Arne Mattila (from the desert of southern California)
In article <74jd6q$a49$1...@nntpd.lkg.dec.com>,
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Sturle Fladmark
> Halküt (sp?) Is there a Norwegian equivalent to this Icelandic delicacy? A
> shark buried in the sand for a period to bring out it's secret flavor. My
> sister told me she met a man in Eureka, California a Norwegian who boasted
> that he ate fish every day of his life (he was eighty something).
Try "rakfisk" = rotten trout.
Eaten raw.
Another Norwegian Delicacy(tm).
If the trout glows in the dark, it is botulinum, and
that is a hint from the hosts that they want you to leave.
:)
Frank Johnsen
>
> A far more important question is why is it made?
>
> few years, it must taste wonderful!"?
>
It is likely the lutefisk came into being like this:
The cod is dried on huge racks made of wood. This is a fact, the rest is
my guessing.
A rack or more, or maybe a wooden store, burns down. The fire is either
put out by people throwing water at it, or by rain. Water and ash makes
lye. There is still some fish left unburned. People are hungry, picking
out the "best" fish they can find. Boiling it, and forcing it down.
Perhaps they even liked the taste. I do.
--
Frank Johnsen
Cindi Yokota
an illegal drug :( Can I walk straight after eating lutefisk or I should
not eat it as long as I can walk straight.
H.W.M.
>
> I have never heard any foods more scary than this one...sounds almost like
> an illegal drug :(
Ever try Korean kimchi? After that you can not fart because then you
know how dragons breathe.
--
Henry ==>http:// www.softavenue.fi/u/henry.w/index.htm
*********************************************
* I could be bounded in a nut-shell, *
* and count myself a king of infinite space,*
* were it not that I have bad dreams. *
*********************************************
Cindi Yokota
since it has soooo much garlic in it. If you really want to experience the
dragon breath, you have to try Vandaloo Chicken, geeez, this will make your
heart stop! Make sure you have two gallons of water on the table...
H.W.M.
Make sure you have two gallons of water on the table...
Actually good greasy milk (not the skimmed stuff) is very good if you
encounter a Thai restaurant and as all the peppers... Milk is better
than water, unless you suffer from lactose intolerance.
--
henry.w@ ==>http://www.softavenue.fi/u/henry.w/index.htm
Nick Smith
>not eat it as long as I can walk straight.
You've obviously not heard of Surstromming then? or Hakarl. How about
Svith?
Bless
Nik