Norwegian Christmas Traditions: Lutefisk

Few Norwegian traditions, save pillaging and raping have garnered as much infamy as lutefisk and this is all for plainly obvious reasons.

            To non-Norwegians, the name lutefisk sounds somewhat exotic, like many foreign foods names: Boeuf bourguignon, paella, or moo shoo gai pan.  Often cuisine sounds much better when a person doesn't know the meaning and lutefisk is no exception.  It directly translates to “lye-fish,” which does not dress up the food at all.  Lye may sound familiar to some.  It is a highly alkaline chemical that when mixed with water becomes extremely reactive and caustic; this is the main ingredient in many drain cleaners or oven sprays.  When mixed with fat it becomes soap.  In some cases, I wholly endorse literal naming of foods.  Brunost is brown cheese.  Fårikål is lamb and cabbage.    I am not a fan of cabbage, but at least cabbage only becomes poisonous after digestion.  When the main ingredient, however, is a deadly chemical, some embellishment is needed.  Nobody wants to eat bleachbeef or shiny blue windex wings and lutefisk should be no exception.  Sadly, a brainstorming session only yielded the alternative names, jigglyfish and rotten-smelling-grey-lump, so possibly lutefisk isn't so bad.

            The origins of lutefisk are either unknown or veiled in embarrassed secrecy, but one theory that seems to make sense to me (please bear with the convolution) is that long ago, there was a Viking—let's call him Stein-Sturm (Stone-storm).  He was drying fish above a fire as Vikings have been known to do, but the flesh was too soft and the fish fell into the ashes and was forgotten.  Norway is rainy place and so when water fell from the sky, it mixed with the ash and all that mixed with the fish and sat there for about week, becoming a lye-water-fish mixture.  When the rain subsided, Stein-Sturm went to his spit to build a fire for the purpose of drying berries or rutabagas or whatever the Vikings ate, and found the forgotten fish.  It had taken a gelatinous texture and only melted his skin slightly, so he decided to give it a taste (he may have discarded the fish based on its smell, but he had lost his nose during a raiding party in Belgium four years before).  It didn't taste nice, but also didn't kill him, so he put what he didn't eat into his cellar and forgot about it until well into winter.  As food became more and more scarce, he was forced to resort to eating that rubber-like hunk of no-longer-fish.  He didn't die and thus he found an amazing way to store meat long term.  He told his Viking buddies and they all tried it.  However, they all still had their sense of smell, so they embraced this method with a bit of trepidation, but after another brutal winter, they forced the stuff down, choosing disgust over death.  The biggest mystery in the story of lutefisk is why people continued to eat it after the discovery of refrigeration.  Another story suggests that it was a failed attempt by the Scots to poison the Vikings’ fish and Northmen decided to continue eating it out of boastful spite.  Either this or lutefisk is a prank on humanity by the trickster god Loki.

            Inevitably, every time I begin to demonize the second-most horrible thing I've ever put in my mouth, some Scandinavian or Minnesotan will barge in its defense.  “It's tradition!” they'll say.  Well, so is ritual human sacrifice in some cultures, but you don’t see people gathering in church basements to partake.  Another is, “Oh, but it tastes really nice when you eat it with lots of bacon and potatoes and peas and butter and chase that awful taste with a shot of akavit.”  Bacon is one of the most delicious things in the world.  Its flavor is so overbearing, that Julia Child—who was no coward of strong tastes—suggested blanching bacon to reduce its power.  When people use this defense of lutefisk, what they are saying is that they like bacon.  Even bacon doesn’t kill that sharp bitter taste.

            I personally find the taste to be terrible, but bearable.  It is the texture that I find particularly repulsive.  The body has a natural defense against the swallowing of inedible things.  I’ve tried lutefisk a couple times now, but I’ve yet to convince my throat that it is in fact food.  Therefore I was forced to move this horrible tasting piece of rotten-fish-flavored jello in my mouth until I could finally force it down.

            Lutefisk is an experience I recommend everybody try at least one time in their life.  There are some people who do find it palatable.  No matter which side of the debate one finds themselves, nobody can deny that eating lutefisk is unforgettable.