Can you make lutefisk haggis?
Alas, tomorrow is a telecommuting day; so I won’t be in Seattle.
I did go there one Friday, a few months ago. I felt a bit out of place, not being Swedish.
I am sure there is at least one guy named Hitler on the internet that has the recipe for it posted.
The obligatory lutefisk joke:
A man had skunks living under his house, and wanted them gone. The local smart guy told to throw two pounds of lutefisk under his house and leave for two weeks. When he returned, the skunks were gone.
“I have just one question,” he told the smart guy. “Now that I’ve gotten rid of the skunks, how do I get rid of the Norwegians?”
It’s not a food, it’s a crime against humanity.
Ikea usually serves lutefisk in December. I haven’t checked this year, but last year or the year before, I had it there. They have both Swedish-style and Norwegian-style. It’s a good, cheap intro to lutefisk. It was better than I was led to believe, but not good enough to try again.
Andrew Zimmern ate lutefisk on Bizarre Foods. It was at a Lutheran church dinner in Minnesota, near where he grew up. He talked to a local deli guy whose place made it, and he said he only made a couple hundred pounds each Christmas, “not as much as we used to sell!”
I can still remember riding home on the bus in Minneapolis when I lived there, seeing a sign in the butcher’s window in my neighborhood that said, “Fresh lutefisk”. I kind of scratched my head at that…if there’s anything lutefisk is NOT, it’s fresh. The whole point of lutefisk is preservation!
This is a nice article and video:
No, that would be surströmming. I have a can, which my wife has expressly forbidden me to open in the apartment, waiting for me in the pantry. You know if the Swedes themselves think it stinks to high heaven, then something’s wrong with it.
By the way - lutefisk, according to her, is not supposed to smell.
I’ve had lutfisk a couple of times, and it’s the blandest, most pointless food ever. I don’t get the hate. No smell, no flavour, just fish.
I’ve been in the presence of it being made. I have no desire to taste it.
Thats about half right IME.
Its really not so much that its gag inducing VILE, like very rotten monkey meat or some such. Its just nasty in a somewhat mild and subtle manner.
They key is to get the lutefisk from someone who knows how to make it:
There’s an Ikea two miles from my house. I’ll…I’ll send **gonzomax **to go try some.
What’s a dad for if not to be the guinea pig for exotic new foods?
I think I’ll post postpone the lutefisk. Two pounds really is too much for one person, and I’ll be eating leftover Christmas dinner for a week, then there’s the New Year’s soul food. As it is, I’m going to have to postpone the haggis. I’d try Ikea, but the nearest one is in Canada.
For the curious, I’ve posted a few pictures over on GB.
Any food prep that involves dunking in a toilet for two days is not a good thing. Trust me on this.
An ancient lutefisk recipe:
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Open fridge and note you have lutefisk.
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Take said lutefisk and toss in in the trash.
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Though the cold weather should cover up the smell, just in case tape five bucks to the trash can lid so the trashman forgives you.
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At dinner, when Grandmother asks where the lutefisk is, tell her cousin Hjalmar ate it. She’ll tsk for a moment but, even in her addled state, she’ll be glad she doesn’t need to eat it.